Maintenance an Issue in Iowa Blast : Preventive Care Called Poor; Navy Embarrassment Seen

The Navy investigation of the battleship Iowa explosion that killed 47 sailors has disclosed that the crew failed to follow maintenance procedures designed to prevent breakdowns in the gun turret that blew up, Pentagon sources said Monday.

“The preventive maintenance just wasn’t done,” said one defense official familiar with what he called the “embarrassing” findings of the Navy investigators. “The Navy is going to have some explaining to do when this comes out.”

Navy spokesman Brent Baker Monday refused to confirm or deny the allegations, which were made by former Iowa crew members and Pentagon officials. “All those things will be gone into in the report,” he said.

Report Completed

The Iowa report has been completed, but Pentagon officials said it will not be made public until after Defense Secretary Dick Cheney returns from his vacation this weekend to read it. The thick document may be released on Aug. 30, they said.

What is not known is whether faulty maintenance caused the explosion. There are scores of systems that help hoist the 16-inch projectiles and bundles of powder--which have a combined weight of 3,355 pounds--from the depths of the battleship to the gun.

One Navy official said that the No. 2 turret’s guns passed their pre-firing checks before the explosion, indicating that, if any maintenance jobs remained undone, they did not keep the systems from being operational. But he added that maintaining such complicated systems by the book is a constant struggle and there could have been gaps not discovered in pre-firing checks and earlier inspections, which the Iowa passed.

Former Iowa crewmen said that the Navy issued cards covering gun maintenance, such as what kind of grease to use where and how to discover and fix hydraulic leaks. They said some of the sailors in the No. 2 turret were not fully qualified to do their assigned jobs.

Navy spokesman Baker said the service would have no comment in advance of its report.

Just before the No. 2 turret blew up on April 19, Capt. Fred P. Moosally of the Iowa turned to a visiting admiral and said: “Hey, this is my best crew coming up here, Admiral. You’ve got to watch these guys fire.” In the next moments, the battleship shuddered from three explosions below decks, and fire leaped from the turret.

Moosally said at a press conference on April 23 that supervision in the turret was outstanding. Senior Chief Petty Officer Reginald Ziegler paid “meticulous attention to detail” in the turret, the skipper said. “If somebody screwed up training, he made them start all over again.”

In one track of the investigation, Navy experts under Rear Adm. Richard D. Milligan have tried to pinpoint the mechanical cause of the explosion, checking maintenance logs, crew training and powder from the same batch that apparently exploded prematurely. They have found that the powder apparently ignited when the gun’s breech was still open, causing flames to shoot back into the turret, sources said.

Possible Sabotage Probed

In a second track, agents in the Naval Investigative Service under Rear Adm. Ted Gordon have been working with the FBI on possible non-mechanical causes, such as sabotage. As part of this investigation, they explored the possibility that Iowa sailor Clayton M. Hartwig was so despondent over his rejection by two shipmates that he blew up the turret to kill himself. Hartwig died in the fireball.

Iowa Gunner’s Mate Kendall L. Truitt, whom Hartwig once considered his closest friend, was the beneficiary on Hartwig’s $100,000 life insurance policy. Truitt said Hartwig talked of committing suicide “but it wasn’t very serious. I think we all talk about suicide at least once in our life.”