A Glimpse of Hell: The Explosion on the U.S.S. Iowa and its Cover-Up

Charles C. Thompson II

ISBN 10: 0393047148 / ISBN 13: 9780393047141

Edité par W.W. Norton and Company, New York, NY, 1999

A propos de cet article

W.W. Norton and Company, New York. 1999. Hardcover. 2nd Printing by Line Number. Book is tight, square, and unmarked. Book Condition: Near Fine; light bumping to head and tail. DJ: Very Good +; NOT Price Clipped ($27.95); light bumping to head, tail, and top edge of DJ. Green paper over boards with dark green overlay on the spine with bright gilt lettering on the spine. 430 pp 8vo. In April 1989 the center gun in Turret Two of the USS Iowa blew up on a training exercise. The damage was immense to the ship and resulted in 47 deaths. The Captain began an immediate clean-up of the area destroying all evidence and after his investigation claimed it was the result of a thwarted homosexual affair. The real answer was a cover-up of the Turret Two teams incompetence which the Captain desperately wanted to cover-up for his own career. A clean very presentable copy in a Brodart mylar jacket.

N° de réf. du vendeur 016426

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: A Glimpse of Hell: The Explosion on the U.S.S. Iowa and its Cover-Up
• Éditeur: W.W. Norton and Company, New York, NY
• Date de parution: 1999
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0393047148
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780393047141
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: 1st Edition
• Impression: 2nd Printing
• État de l'article: Near Fine
• État de la jaquette: Very Good +
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Ships and Sailing
  • Military Administration and Doctrine
  • United States Navy

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

A harrowing account of a disaster at sea that, over a decade later, still reverberates through the ranks of the U.S. Navy. Early on an April morning, in the course of a routine training exercise in the Caribbean, the center gun in Turret Two of the recommissioned battleship USS Iowa blew up. The fireball that surged back into the seven-story death chamber released clouds of poisonous gases and ignited bags of powder, setting off further explosions. When firefighters finally battered open the escape hatch to the upper level of the turret, they saw bodies everywhere. At the base of the pit under the center gun room lay the remains of a sailor, much of his body missing. Tattooed on the upper left arm was a sailing ship with the words USS Iowa. Only one man on the battleship had a tattoo like that: second-class gunner's mate Clayton Hartwig. A botched investigation began mere hours after the deadly explosion. Captain Fred Moosally, an Annapolis football star who had recently taken command of the Iowa, declined an offer of assistance from a professional accident team aboard a nearby aircraft carrier. At his order, some 250 sailors labored to clean up the scarred turret, heaving immense steel plates and bulky pieces of equipment overboard and scrubbing off splatters of gore before painting the structure inside and out. Matters got even worse when the investigation began on land. A technical team managed to lose key evidence, two 2700-pound projectiles, in a locked storage facility, while conducting tests that proved nothing but the team's own incompetence. Squads from the Naval Investigative Service tried to twist testimony from grieving relatives of the slaughtered crew members. The concerted effort to pin blame for the Iowa explosion on Seaman Hartwig, supposedly acting to revenge a thwarted homosexual affair, ultimately destroyed careers up the chain of command of the U.S. Navy.