Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "The Drydock - Episode 074" video.

The Iowa turret explosion is a good example of why the Navy, and in particular the NIS, should never be permitted to perform a major investigation that involves the death of crewmen. The Navy abandoned the homosexual murder/suicide explanation by 1991, but that wouldn't have happened without the involvement of the Senate, especially Senator Sam Nunn, and Sandia National Labs. It was only the involvement of Sandia that showed the Navy's explanation couldn't be true, and that some combination of overram and powder defects was the only reasonable explanation for the disaster. However, the Navy fell back on a "cause unknown" finding when it was clear their preferred explanation was no longer tenable. The Navy did everything they could to obstruct and discredit the Sandia investigation when it became clear that it was going to find unauthorized powder experiments by Master Chief Skelley was the most likely cause of the explosion. Under the command of Captain Moosally, Iowa was a ship with very poor command and control, very poor morale, and a marked tendency for sailors like Skelley to convince Moosally he could do something that would bring positive publicity to Iowa and Moosally. In Skelley's case, it was to have Iowa go down in the record books with the longest range conventional shot ever fired. It was Skelley's "experiments" that most likely led to the premature open breach detonation that killed the 47 members of Turret 2. The ship's command staff allowed evidence in the investigation to be contaminated and destroyed right from day one. The NIS, rather than operating as an independent investigation force, did as they were told by the command staff of the ship and of the Navy. There have been changes in the NIS to allow it to be more independent of pressure by those in command, but it's not possible that any unit that's part of the Navy to do a truly independent investigation when the results of the investigation could reflect poorly on the Navy. Any investigation of a serious incident in any service should be conducted by a new criminal investigation agency not in the line of command and not beholden to that branch of the service for promotion or retention.
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@VintageCarHistory I obviously never met Skelley either, so all I know is what I've read about him. He was apparently a brilliant gunnery chief, but he was also a battleship advocate and obsessed with extending the range of the main battery as a reason for the Navy to retain the battleships in commission. Safety was merely a secondary concern, and he was involved in several other near accidents. The powder was all from WWII, and some it was caked in the bag. I haven't been able to find an independent evidence for the beating of the bags to loosen up the powder, but I don't doubt it was part of Skelley's plan. He had no authorization for his experiments. and instructions to the gun crews was mostly word of mouth. The plan for the day of the explosion was a 1900 pound shell and five powder bags rather than the normal six. This was another experiment in extending the range of the gun. Almost no one in the turret crew that day was experienced with 16" guns. Hartwig had been brought in as part of last minute assignment to supervise the less experienced men. The rammerman had never fired a live shot before then. The power rammer had issues in the past with running out of control and going too far up the breach into the gun barrel. We'll never know if it was human error on the part of the rammerman or the rammer running out of control again, but there's no doubt the powder bags were forced too far up the breach under about 2,000 pounds of pressure. That was enough to cause the black powder that was at the end of the last of the five bags to ignite, and the ignition jumped from bag to bag until there was a massive explosion. Even though the gun had reported ready 14 seconds before the blast, the breachlock was still open. If that had been closed, it would have caused a premature firing of the gun, but the explosion wouldn't have happened. As usual with any accident, it takes a number of factors happening in the right order for the accident to happen. In this case, almost all those factors go back to lack of training and mechanical issues. At least on that day, there's no evidence the bags contained additional detonators. It was the pure physics of too much pressure meeting explosive materials. Coming up with the crazy story about a gay love affair gone wrong was just the easy out for the Navy.
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@Lassisvulgaris This was a much different incident. Since it was a collision with a civilian ship, all the usual maritime safety agencies were involved. No one died in the accident, and there were only minor injuries on both sides. There were too many independent investigations for the navy to maintain control of the findings. The same result would have occured in the US. "Open society" has nothing to do with it. The explosion on the Iowa was a completely navy involved accident. Those that died were Navy sailors. Blame for the deaths was going to be placed, and the navy's goal was to make sure it didn't reflect badly on the navy itself. Since those conducting the investigation were also navy, they were able to keep control of things until the Senate Armed Services Committee got involved. I guarantee you that a similar incident in the Norwegian Navy would have involved the same kind of stonewalling and coverup.
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@Lassisvulgaris Thanks for your service as well. BTW, your English is excellent. I have always been an admirer of the Norwegian armed forces for their last stand against the Nazis while the rest of Europe was falling apart around them. Of course, the story of Oberst Birger Eriksen and the old men of the Oscarsborg Fortress is one that will stand forever as a classic of success against all odds. I think the military is the military, regardless of country, and regardless of the society of the country. It's a kind of a self healing entity, where nothing is really its fault, and they will go to any lengths to make that happen. The Iowa disaster led to some changes as well, but more to prevent an accident than make an investigation of an accident more fair. As long as the military can investigate itself, just like in that avalanche, the outcome will always be it was either someone else's fault or just an act of God. The Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Safety Board investigates all aircraft accidents, including military accidents, and they are completely independent of the military. If the cause was the military, it's going to come out. Until we have similar types of investigative agencies for the Navy and Army, self serving conclusions about accidents will continue to be the norm.
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