House Panel to Hold Hearings on Iowa Blast

The House Armed Services Committee announced Friday that it will hold hearings next month on the Navy’s inquiry and subsequent finding that a troubled sailor apparently caused the fatal explosion aboard the battleship Iowa.

“We have unearthed significant new evidence that casts new light on the Navy’s conclusion that gunner’s mate Clayton Hartwig committed suicide and mass murder in the gun turret,” said Rep. Nicholas Mavroules (D-Mass.), chairman of the Armed Services subcommittee on investigations.

Mavroules said his panel has been reviewing “several aspects of the Navy investigation--especially its technical competence and its psychological analysis.”

Mavroules refused to provide specifics but expressed concern about a “question of interpretation” of the evidence. The congressman cited an FBI report that said its laboratory investigation on the incident was inconclusive.

“I want documentation,” Mavroules said in an interview. “Unless the Navy does that, it’s a discredit to the investigation.”

The House hearings, scheduled for Dec. 12 and 13, will include witnesses from the Navy and FBI, Mavroules said.

Navy officials on Thursday had defended their conclusion that the April 19 blast in gun turret No. 2 was “most likely” caused by Hartwig, who died along with 46 shipmates in the explosion.

Rear Adm. Richard Milligan, who oversaw the Navy’s technical and criminal investigation into the blast, testified Thursday that additional tests conducted since his report Sept. 7 found “unique foreign material” on the projectile from the exploding gun barrel.

He said the material was iron wires coated with calcium, chlorine and oxygen, which would be produced by “some types of non-electronic explosive devices.”