April 19, 2004
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15 YEARS AGO TODAY
Apr 19 1989
47 crewmen aboard the battleship USS Iowa are killed when a gun turret explodes during a training exercise in the Atlantic. Navy investigators later rule out all accidental causes, and conclude that someone manning the gun, “most probably” one Clayton Hartwig, had sabotaged its operation as a suicide attempt.
The Navy ignored the fact that the propellant bags were 44 years old and proven to be chemically unstable.
“One of the incidents in the whole IOWA debacle was the rumor that there had been looting of the dead sailors’ lockers in the immediate timeframe after the explosion.”
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Comments (2)
Sounds almost as bad as the British Army. We send our troops into dangerous situations with guns that jam up and radios that don’t work!
and you meant what by that?