IJN Mutsu & USS Iowa

This is coolbert:

Came across this quite by accident.

Yet one more instance of a warship sunk while at anchor. In this case the vessel blown to bits, a total loss, an apparent spontaneous explosion the cause

The Japanese Nagato class battleship Mutsu. At the time of construction CONSIDERED TO BE THE MOST POWERFUL WARSHIP IN THE WORLD!

 "Mutsu . . . was the second and last Nagato-class dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) at the end of World War I . . . in early June 1943 . . . one of her aft magazines detonated while she was at anchor, sinking the ship with the loss of 1,121 crew and visitors. The IJN conducted a perfunctory investigation into the cause of her loss and concluded that it was the work of a disgruntled crewmember"

"[the] hurried investigation concluded that a disgraced seaman gunner who had recently been found guilty of theft charges set off the explosion, partly meant as a statement of protest and partly as means for suicide, possibly not realizing that the explosion would take down the entire ship."

It being not so unique for a spontaneous detonation of warships occurring while at anchor, in port, home waters, NOT IN COMBAT!

Mutsu however APPARENTLY DELIBERATELY SABOTAGED BY A CREWMEMBER, AN ACT OF SUICIDE TAKING THE ENTIRE SHIP AND SHIP'S COMPLEMENT WITH HIM!!

The disgruntled, angry and very hate filled sailor one man perhaps even mentally deranged able to do tremendous damage with a bare minimum of effort. Almost incomprehensible!

This does remind me of the 1989 incident where the American battleship USS Iowa was nearly taken to the bottom.

An explosion in one of the gun turrets of unknown origins causing a great loss of life, the danger to the ship also very extreme. THERE WAS INDEED A DANGER THE ENTIRE SHIP COULD HAVE BEEN LOST!!

The thought at the time too was one sailor had deliberately caused the explosion, an act of suicide and an effort to take EVERYONE ELSE WITH HIM.

That U.S. Navy investigation into the incident concluding in a less that 100 % convincing manner:

"one of the gun turret crew members, Clayton Hartwig, who died in the explosion, had deliberately caused it . . . he [Hartwig] was suicidal and had caused the explosion with either an electronic or chemical detonator."

That conclusion [suicidal sailor] of course disputed and alternative theories as to what occurred do exist! However with Mutsu and Iowa both the preposterous almost seems quite possible, even probable, as strange as it may seem!!

coolbert.

Spontaneous!

This is coolbert:

Thanks to McTodd we have this comment to the blog:

"mctodd said...
The loss of HMS Vanguard due to spontaneously combusting ammunition or propellant was not only not unique but also not as rare an event as you would think during that period. Modern so-called smokeless propellants were still relatively new, and totally safe manufacturing and storage techniques had yet to be finalised. Several British (Bulwark, Natal, Vanguard), French (Iena, Liberte) and Japanese (Mikasa, Mutsu) warships suffered catastrophic ammunition explosions (it is also arguable that the USS Maine was lost for such reasons in 1898). Oddly enough, no German warships were lost in this way, some writers suggesting that different manufacturing techniques accounted for this."

Spontaneous explosions of this sort were NOT rare! Far from it! More common than we like to think, as McTodd has commented. Even a constant and understood and troublesome worry for which precautions were taken, albeit not even as effective as desired.

Spontaneous combustion of stored coal leading to spontaneous explosion of ammunition stores perhaps even leading to a WAR! The Spanish-American War, The War of 1898 in large measure due to the destruction of the USS Maine, speculation even at the time that the sinking of the Maine was due to a spontaneous eruption of the ammunition magazine being the cause, but mentioned only in closed circles and then in whispered and hushed tones.

Here with some extracts from the most recent PDF document entitled: "Destruction of the Maine (1898)"

"Many ships, including the Maine, had coal bunkers located next to magazines that stored ammunition, gun shells, and gunpowder. Only a bulkhead separated the bunkers from the magazines. If the coal, by spontaneous combustion, overheated, the magazines were at risk of exploding."

"Fires from coal bunkers were frequent occurrences. From 1894 to 1908, more than 20 coal bunker fires were reported on U.S. naval ships."

"from 1895 to 1898, 13 other American ships had fires associated with spontaneous combustion in coal bunkers."

"within four hours a fire in the Maine’s coal bunker 'could have raised the temperature of the nearest canister of gunpowder (a mere four inches away on the other side of a quarter-inch-thick steel plate) to more than 645˚ — hot enough to ignite the powder, triggering a chain reaction in the adjacent magazines.'”

Spontaneous combustion in a coal bunker caused an unrecognized fire, that bulkhead separating the coal bunker from the ADJACENT ammunition magazine becoming overheated to a dangerous degree, the "big bang" totally without warning and catastrophic!!

The conclusion both in 1898 and in 1911 that the Maine was sunk by EXTERNAL explosion too are not without foundation. Many possible culprits lurk! Cuban freedom fighters, American interventionists, Spanish dissident officers included.

As for the German warships NOT suffering from such catastrophic explosions - - the German just compartmented their warships better and in a manner peculiar and particular to their entire methodology of naval warfare and ship design?

The truth is out there, it is just hard to find with absolute 100 %  certainty!

coolbert.