Daily press. [volume] (Newport News, Va.) 1896-current, 1907-08-01

The recent accident on tho battle
snip Georgia, turrct tragedy, was
OF II character that might be classed
as Ordinary" In our sea service. That
| is, turret fatalities of similar sort had
preceded ii. Naturally enough. not
so much Is heard of the accidents on
our men'o-war in which only one man
Is killed at Il time. But there are
plenty of these accidents. Most of
them are unavoidable. The point is,
however, that it is easy for a man-o.
warsman. whether he belong aft or
| for'nrd. to be killed or manned. The
man who serves in any capacity OF
rating on ship of war must keen
both eyes peeled for trouble from turn
TO in the morning till pipe down at
night.
There is no looking out for ana
guarding against some of the acci-
dents. Something new in the way of
man-o'-war casualty is breaking out
all the time. The seasoned man.o'-
warsman can sidestep the usual nit.
falls that he knows about. But he
cant OF course. guard himself against
the unusual deadly happenings on
shlpboard.
W. tAtiiHiNs NltD tliC NlNlllDlu,
Admiral Dewey's flagship I'm Manila.
first went into commission Mt tho
Mare Island navy yard three unusual
accidents happened on board of or
alongside of her within the space OF
n fortnight
The first occurred when she was
being warped into the Mare Island
drydock to get an extra coat of keel
nnlnt A Cd
the brightest young officers of the
service was standing at the top Of the
drydock. experimenting the Job of
getting the Olympia placed on the
resting blocks. a heavy hempen haw-
ser that was being manipulated to pull
the cruiser into the dock suddenly
snapped under the strain and the
shore end OF the broken hawser
caught the young olscer along
side of the head. carving 1t in
as II he'd been hit by an express on.
CINE and killing him instantly. The
men attached to the Olympia looked
upon 1t as bad start for the cruiser
and were blue about It,
a week or so later the Olympia was
| making her way into the roadstead
Mt San Diego on practice run with
her crew to timber up the machinery.
test compasscs, try some OF the guns
and grease up the ship generally. AS
inc mudhook was dropping In the San
Diego waters a seaman got his legs
tangled up in the anchor chains.
which formed loop around them
ana cut them off above the knees al.
most as clean as IL the job had been
done by the surgeons knife. The sea.
4 tnH OH ii. ~.
Icrew of the Olympia regarded this
second incident with gloomy eyes.
They didn't care for the Olympia
from then on.
A few days later a practice charge
was put into one of the guns OF the
secondary battery to test the piece.
When the charge was fired the recoil
OF the gun was terrific. Ii recoiled off
It's carriage, striking gunners mate
right In the middle and knocking the
lie out of him In an instant Some.
Iody had forgot to put the mixed oil
and alcohol In the recoil chamber of
the piece. This liquid, being forced
through the holes of the recoil cy.
Under by tc recoil OF the gun, would
have given the gunner's mate his life
had it been there. This third fatalii
''i podiu tuc heW sup Ill so snort q
space of time settled 1t with the crew.
When the Olympia got back TO San
| Francisco the new crow went over
the side of her like rats and virtually
a whole new crew had to be shipped
for tho cruiser before the Olympia
could take to deep water again.
There arc any number of foolish lit.
tie things tina can happen to cripple
or kill a man-o'-war's man. Not SO
long ago, for instance. on board one
Z of the ships of the Pacific fleet a sea.
man was walking aft from beneath
the to'gallant foc'sle Just as one OF
the for'ard mess cooks was walking
for'ard with the hanging table of his
mess on his shoulder. Now this sea
man had been lodging mess cooks
carrying mess tables on their Shout
ders for more than twenty years-and
mess cooks packing their tables dc
dart around with that gear in mighty
reckless way. This time, though, the
seaman wasn't quick enough on the
dodge and one of the prongs of the
mess table caught him smack in his
right eye. destroying the sight of it
On one of the ships of that same
fleet Il machinist was cleaning some
machinery with turpentine. 1t was