Navy Bungled in Probe of Iowa Turret Blast, Retiring Skipper Says

The retiring skipper of the battleship Iowa today blasted the Navy’s investigation of the fatal gun turret explosion aboard the vessel, saying the probe was based on unsubstantiated reports and suppositions.

“It is too bad the Iowa investigation team consisted of managers--and apparently not very good managers at that--people more concerned about determining whether the paper work was done than if people were properly trained,” said Capt. Fred P. Moosally during the World War II-era battleship’s change of command ceremony.

A Pentagon spokesman said he had no immediate comment.

Moosally, who had never before commented publicly on the explosion, said the investigation was handled by “people more concerned with ‘getting it over with’ and therefore presenting facts and opinions based on unsubstantiated third-party information, unsubstantiated reports and supposition.”

The explosion April 19, 1989, killed 47 crewmen. A controversial Navy report blamed sabotage by a sailor as the “most likely” cause of the tragedy.

“After the investigation report was released, it is too bad that the ball was handed off to people most concerned about an institutional image, and therefore unable to bring themselves to admit that the investigation report is irreconcilable with the results of every inspection held on the Iowa before and after April 19,” Moosally said.

The Navy’s investigation into the explosion concluded that Gunner’s Mate Clayton Hartwig deliberately caused the blast. Hartwig died in the explosion. That conclusion has been harshly criticized by some of the families of the 47 sailors and by members of Congress.

Moosally also complained about “people who in their rush to manage the Iowa problem forgot about doing the right thing for the Iowa crew.”

“I leave this subject by asking a question which others must answer. How could this have happened in our Navy? The explosion . . . was a dual tragedy. Forty-seven men died and 1,500 survivors were made victims when they should have been heroes,” Moosally said.

Moosally was succeeded by his executive officer, Cmdr. John P. Morse. The battleship is expected to be decommissioned and put in mothballs late this year.

“I would just say that he has joined the ranks of many of the rest of us on how the report was handled,” said Nancy Lewis, whose son, Richard, was killed in the explosion.

“I’m glad to see he said it,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in Northville, Mich. “Maybe the Navy is trying to do the right thing.”

Moosally has accepted full responsibility for everything that happened on his ship.

In a written statement released last year he said, “I have no excuses for the problem areas that were found aboard Iowa during the investigation.”

Moosally, a 1966 graduate of the Naval Academy and native of Youngstown, Ohio, has said he may write a book about his experiences. He will return to the Washington area, where his family lives.