The Indianapolis journal., 1903-07-19
PLACING A GREAT GUN.
A Ticklish Job on the Battleship
Iowa at Brooklyn.
Brooklyn Eagle.

Brooklyn Eagle.
1t takes a pretty strong crane to lift 122,O00
pounds of solid metal, and it would not be
pleasant TO be standing under If anything
happened to give. There were no cranes at
the Brooklyn navy yard strong enough to
give the officers and men working there
abouts comforting assurance that's nothing
would give, so they had to secure a special
wrecking crane before the first step of all in
the complete overhauling of the battleship
Iowa could be undertaken.
This first step of all was finally success
fully accomplished last week. 1t was the re-
moval from and the replacement in her for
ward turrets of the remains of the great
twelve-inch gun which exploded with such
fatal results, off Pensacola, on Good Friday
last. That was about the most serious acci-
dent that ever happened one of our battle
ships The Iowa was at target practice in
the gulf. The forward port twelve-inch gun
had been loaded to fire. Its projectile was
bomb, supposed to explode at loo yards by
means of a time fuse. 1t exploded, instead,
the instant the gun was fired, wrecking
more than twelve feet of the great guns
length ripping it into fragments, sending
these fragments, weighing, some OF them,
ton each, high into the air, and dropping
them on the vessel again to crash through
tie spar and gun decks of the great battle
ship as IL they had been so much pasteDoard,
to crush the lives out of three men seated at
mess on the third deck. and TO seriously in
jure five more, and then TO splinter their
way through this deck TO the armored pro-
tective deck, where thick steel plates
stopped the terrible missiles from cutting
down the machinists and firemen below.
There was no explanation OF the accident
at the time. Subsequent investigation leaves
IL unexplained. Lieutenant Reed, the officer
in charge of the turret. had inspected il just
before firing. 1t in good condition and
had been fired dozen times within as many
days. Some defect ''in the shell fuse" is
the only possible way of accounting for IL.
The great barrel was broken off just above
its long end joint, and that twelve-foot Sec
ton of heavy rified steel shattered into frag-
ments. The who in the turret
working the gun were unhurt and hardly
realized that anything had happened. The
conclusion was but little more than usually
accompanied the guns discharge. The only
consolation was In the fact that five minutes
later IL would have killed many more than
il did, for dinner call had just sounded and
the men were all pouring down 10 the mess
room. Later on. when the Iowa ordered
TO Brooklyn for repairs, 10 was found that
the whole vessel had been much more
wrecked and strained by the force OF the
explosion than had been at all realized and
that nothing short OF complete overhaul
ing would render heN>thoroughly fit. So the
Iowa, "the pride OF the navy" "the great
est fighting ship OF them ALL" first put into
active service about five years ago, was or
dered out OF commission indefinitely and has
been pretty thoroughly dismantled.
course, getting out the old gun. And that
turret Is of rather different construction
from those OF the Older vessels which have
heretofore been in the navy yard for re-