More than three and a half million Americans served in the United States
Navy during the Second World War the expansion of the US Navy during the war
was astounding the Navy added thousands of ships by the end of the war the
United States Navy accounted for more than 70% of the entire world's number
and gross tonnage of naval vessels over a thousand tons. And while we tend to
focus on the warships, we forget that millions of those sailors served aboard
the Navy's thousands and thousands of supply support and auxilary ships and
that those men also risked their lives even if they weren't in frontline combat.
The November,1944 explosion of the ammunition ship USS Mount Hood, barely
even acknowledged by the Navy at the time, was illustrative of those risks. It
is history a deserves to be remembered. The ship that would eventually be named
USS Mount Hood was laid down originally on September 28th 1943 as SS Marco Polo
built by the North Carolina shipbuilding company in Wilmington North Carolina the
ship was a type C2 vessel a design created by the U.S. Maritime Commission
in 1937 and 1938. These all purpose cargo ships had five holds and a design speed
of 15.5 knots. The ship was built on a contract for the U.S. Maritime
Commission, an independent agency of the federal government established in 1936
and intended to facilitate a merchant shipbuilding program. One hundred and
seventy two type C2 vessels were built in U.S.shipyards between 1938 and 1975.
Renamed Mount Hood after the mountain in the Cascade Range in Oregon on November
10th, The ship, U.S. Maritime Commission hull number 1358 was launched November
28th. Like many C2 ships, the Mount Hood was taken into the US Navy on a loan
charter basis. That meant the ship would be operated by the Navy but the title
would still be held by the Maritime Commission. The idea was that after the
war, the ship would revert to the Maritime Commission and could be sold to
private interests to facilitate merchant shipping. Many ships acquired by the Navy
on a loan charter basis were specifically modified for Navy use. Mount
Hood was one of those modified ships converted into an ammunition ship type C2
- - -S-AJ1, the first of her class, at the
Norfolk Navy Yard by the Norfolk shipbuilding and dry dock company.
Ammunition ships are cargo vessels specifically designed to carry
ammunition for naval ships and aircraft. As modified the USS Mount Hood displaced
thirteen thousand nine hundred and ten long tons, was four hundred fifty nine
foot two inches long with a beam of 63 feet and a draught of twenty eight foot
three inches. The ship had a cargo capacity of seven thousand seven hundred
deadweight tons, and a complement of 267 officers and men. The USS Mount Hood was
commissioned on July 1st, 1944. After a brief cruise for shakedown and
fitting-out, was assigned to the Pacific, was loaded with ammunition at Norfolk
Virginia, departed August 21st, transited the Panama Canal six days later, and
arrived at Seeadler Harbor in the Admiralty Islands on September 22nd
Seeadler Harbor is located on Manus Island the largest island of the
Admiralty islands, an archipelago group to the north of New Guinea in the South
Pacific Ocean the Admiralty islands had been administered as part of German New
Guinea from 1884 to 1914. Seeadler means "sea eagle" in German and the harbor was
named after a German ship. The Admiralty islands were occupied by the Japanese at
the outset of the war, had been liberated in a hard-fought campaign under General
Douglas MacArthur in the spring, and by September Seeadler Harbor had been
transformed into a large base including wharves and an airbase that served as a
staging area for further World War Two operations in New Guinea and the
Philippines. At the time of USS Mount Hood's arrival Seeadler harbor was
utilized as a major site of repair and logistical support for ships
participating in the Philippine invasion and those operating in the South Pacific
area. According to the Navy Board of Investigation the busy harbor regularly
included between 200 and 600 ships. The Mount Hood was used as a primary source
of issue of ammunition to all types of ships of the U.S. Third Fleet. The ship
was described as extremely active, delivering ammunition to ships in all
parts of the harbor, and was frequently called upon to issue ammunition to
combatant ships at short notice. The Navy Board of Investigation noted
that speed of transferring ammunition was ever of prime necessity. Because of
this critical role the Mount Hood was moved from a less congested part of the
harbor that had been reserved for ammunition ships
to a more central berthing. This represented a risk, as it meant that many
more ships would be in close proximity to a ship that was literally packed with
ordnance. But a discussion by the squadron ordnance officer, the harbor
master and the captain of the Mount Hood determined that the need to quickly
supply ammunition was more important. The central anchorage lessened the
distance needed to supply ammunition to other ships, and facilitated
communication with the staff of the service squadron. The berth also placed
Mount Hood in the smoothest water possible, and allowed a cruiser to be
placed alongside the Mount Hood for ammunition transfer. The morning of
November 10th, naval reserve lieutenant Lester Wallace, the Mount Hood's
communications officer went ashore with 13 enlisted men. Another four enlisted
men went ashore in a second boat. Wallace had to pick up new communication
manuals and other publications. The other men also had errands- some had dental
appointments, some were visiting the base chaplain, some were mail clerks picking
up the mail. Two men were being taken to the base brig to face court-martial. The
men arrived on shore at around 8:30 in the morning.
The Mount Hood was already busy, with several small boats alongside already
transferring ammunition. At the time Mount Hood had approximately 3,800 tons
of ammunition on board, including 250, five hundred, and thousand pound bombs, as
well as fuses, rockets, smokeless powder, and ammunition and projectiles of
numerous sizes. The primary method of transferring ammunition was with the
small boats called landing craft mechanized or LCMs. These 50-foot
open-topped shallow drought vessels were designed to carry vehicles, but were also
used to carry stores. That morning there at least nine LCMs alongside Mount Hood,
along with a pontoon lighter, each loading or unloading various types of
ordnance. The ship was busy and the hatches of all five holds were open and
working. The day was described as bright and sunshiny when 29 year old lieutenant
Wallace and the sailors of Mount Hood were walking along the beach to the base.
Wallace said that one of the sailors, with a startled look in his eye, shouted
"LOOK!" and pointed seaward. There was a bright flash and
two quick explosions. The investigation determined that around 8:55 a.m. an
explosion, evidenced by flame and smoke, amidships near number three or four
hold rose to above mast height. Within a few
seconds at the most, the report concluded, most
of the ammunition aboard USS Mount Hood was set off . U.S.S. Argonne, the flagship of
the commander of service squadron 10- the 448 foot floating headquarters of the
service fleet at Seeadler lay moored to the buoy at berth 14, 1,100
yards away. Argonne's captain commander T.H. Escott, was outside his cabin when Mount
Hood exploded. "I was standing outside my cabin in conversation with the executive
officer. By the time we'd recovered our stance from the force of the explosion
and faced outboard, the area in the vicinity of berth 380, where Mount Hood
had been moored, was completely shrouded in a pall of dense black smoke. It was
not possible to see anything worth reporting. A second or so hereafter
fragments of steel and shrapnel became falling on and around the ship. Though
some 4,500 yards away, Wallace and the men on shore were thrown to the ground
they rushed up and ran back to their small boat. Wallace reported "We headed
toward the Mount Hood, but we found nothing but debris. So we went back and reported to
the commander of the base what we'd seen and helped him as much as we could to
determine what happened. The review board reported "A terrific
explosion occurred, smoke obscuring the ship and surrounding vicinity for a
radius of five hundred yards on all sides. The smoke mushroom to a height of
approximately seven thousand feet. When it had lifted from the waters a few
minute later, only small pieces of debris were to be seen. The ship had disappeared
And by "disappeared" the report meant simply gone. The largest piece at the
more than 400 foot long vessel that has ever been found, was a piece of hull that
was some 16 foot by 10 foot. The LCMs alongside were also disintegrated. No
human remains were ever found. Officially 327 men, Mount Hood's crew, the
crews of small vessels nearby, and other sailors thrown overboard and never
recovered, were listed as missing. Wallace and the 17 men who had been on shore at
the time of the explosion, and just one other man who had been aboard another
ship, and had been injured, were all that was left of Mount Hood's crew. Mount
Hood's anchorage had been at about 19 fathoms, or around 114 feet above the
ocean bottom, and yet the explosion was so powerful that it dug a crater in the
bottom of the ocean a thousand feet long, 200 feet wide, and between
30 and 40 feet deep. Men on shore two and a half miles away
were thrown to the ground, and the ship rained shrapnel and unexploded ordnance
on all the ships around it, doing severe damage to every ship within about 2,000
feet and damaging some ships that were as far away as 6500 feet. Argonne took
substantial damage from the falling debris. including two men killed. Escott
noted some 221 pieces of debris ranging in size from 1 to 150 pounds were
recovered on board totalling 1,300 pounds.
The ship's 12-inch searchlight was destroyed, 5 transmitting antennas
broken away, and steam, fresh water and salt water lines ruptured, as well as taking
extensive damage from concussion. The John C. Butler class destroyer
escort USS Oberrender was 1100 yards away from Mount Hood. Flaming debris
rained down on the ship, killing one sailor outright and knocking another
overboard who was never recovered and listed among the missing. 17 members of
Oberrender's crew were injured. The ship was so badly damaged, suffering two large
holes in the hull and many punctures above and below the waterline, as well as
damage to the wiring, piping systems, and topside equipment, that it had to be towed
to drydock and spend the rest of the month in repairs. Three crew members
were killed and 70 were wounded aboard the attack cargo ship USS Alhena, 25 of
them seriously. Alhena herself suffered extensive damage
above decks, which necessitated some six weeks of repair work. The story of one of
Alhena's sailors injured in the explosion, William Knight, was described in a memoir
written later by his son. "White-hot shards of Steel fragmentation embedded
themselves in his head, knocking him out of the gunner's position. The force of the
shrapnel injury sent him sprawling over the deck, and he vaguely heard someone
scream "corpsman!" just before everything went black. The injury eventually
required 120 days of hospitalization. William Knight's severe injury was an
example of the random nature of the death and injury that came from the
falling debris, It was a traumatic event in the life of a man who lived a traumatic
life. The name William Knight was actually a false name that was intended,
according to the research done by his son, to hide the name of his real father-
gangster Al Capone. The random nature of the shrapnel was also shown aboard the
Destroyer tender USS Piedmont. Although some 3,500 yards
away, a 250-pound aerial bomb penetrated the movie locker
on the boat deck, while another pierced the fo'c'sle and plowed through a tier
of bunks. Amazingly neither bomb exploded, and no one was injured in either
compartment. But one man was killed when he was hit directly on the head by the
base of a 5-inch ammunition shell. But by far the worst damage was done to the
Luzon class internal combustion engine repair ship USS Mindanao, just 350 yards
away and broadside to the blast, in between Mount Hood and USS Argonne.
Mindanao was ripped by the explosion and shrapnel, all crew members who were
topside were killed outright and many more were killed and wounded below deck.
A fleet of small vessels attended the ship's crew and damage. Mindanao
suffered 23 killed and 174 wounded in the explosion. A member of Mount Hood's crew,
Lt Wilfred D Collie, was aboard Mindanao, and was among those killed. His were
the only remains of Mount Hood's crew that could be identified. In all, 26 ships
and 33 smaller vessels were damaged in addition to those destroyed in the
explosion. The navy estimated that repairs required more than a hundred
seven thousand man-hours. Forty-five men were known killed, 327 were listed as
missing, and another 371 injured. The 743 casualties represented the second-worst
Pacific Fleet base disaster of the war- second only to Pearl Harbor. Because of
wartime restrictions, the Navy didn't even acknowledge the explosion of the
Mount Hood until December 5th. And even then the report didn't talk about the
severity of the damage, it merely read "The 13,733 ton ammunition ship
Mount Hood was lost when it accidentally blew up at an advanced base in the
Central Pacific." The Navy established a review board to discover the cause of
the explosion. lieutenant Wallace, as the senior
survivor of USS Mount Hood, was interviewed, but couldn't offer much
detail about the explosion. He noted that "conditions appeared to be
normal when I left the ship." He concluded "I guess no one will ever know what
really happened. She just blew. We had never had an
explosion of any kind on the Mount Hood before that. The review concluded that
the explosions had not been caused by enemy action. While the exact cause could not be
determined, the report concluded "Since the possibility of enemy action
appears to have been remote, the most probable cause of the accident was rough
handling of the ammunition while loading or unloading." The report identified many
errors in ammunition handling aboard the Mount Hood, noting that ship had a
relatively inexperienced crew, that there was a lack of leadership among the
officers, and a lack of discipline among the crew. The report also criticized
placing the ship in such a central location, rather than putting it in a
more remote location that was reserved for ammunition ships. But Admiral Chester
Nimitz, commander in chief for the United States Pacific Fleet and Pacific ocean
areas, refused to concur with any finding faulting the officers involved, saying
that "The technical mistakes made by the officers were errors in judgment
resulting from a keen desire to meet necessary military commitments and move
on with the progress of the war. The exigencies of war will always require
the acceptance of certain operational hazards." Nimitz's fighting may have been
intended to protect the reputations of the officers who died. The report went so
far as to censor out the names of the officers involved. In addition to
emphasizing the already existing rules for ordnance handling, the report gave
three specific recommendations: One: wherever practicable ammunition ships
should be berthed at least 1,100 yards from other ships and installations. Two: an
effort should be made to maintain a level of internal organization and
administration to a standard higher than that which apparently existed aboard USS
Mount Hood, and three: that port regulations require regular inspection
and supervision of ammunition ships. And thus the explosion aboard Mount Hood was
barely reported, written off as an "operational hazard," and the war went on. I
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