Exploding warships

Between the end of the 19th century and 1945 several Navies suffered severe accidents for reasons which not immediately obvious, leading to the phnomenon of exploding warships both in battle and in peacetime. Some of the most notorious are the explosion of the battleship , on February 15th ,1898, in Havana in peacetime and the sinking of three British battlecruisers during the Battle of Jutland on May 31 ,1916. These events each sparked wideranging investigations which came up with different explanations for the incidents.

This article explores a possible link between those incidents, wihich consists in the British made cordite of that time. All Navies who suffered fatal explosions, the Royal Navy, the Italian Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States Navy, used this cordite, whereas other nations, using mostly German made cordite, suffered no such losses (with one notable exception: the Russian Imperatritsa Mariya).

List of incidents

Loss of USS Maine
In January 1898, was sent from Key West, Florida to Havana, Cuba, to protect U.S. interests. Three weeks later, at 9:40 on the evening of February 15, whilst lying in Havana harbour she was sunk by a heavy explosion which disintegrated the forward third of the ship. 266 men died.

An investigation concluded that the tragedy was self-inflicted, probably the result of a coal bunker fire that ignited the forward six-inch ammunition magazines. At the time of the incident the Spanish were held responsible by the US public for causing the explosion, possibly by using a naval mine, and the Spanish-American War began in April 1898.

Loss of HMS Bulwark
A powerful internal explosion destroyed the British battleship at 07:50 on 26 November 1914 while she was moored in the estuary of the River Medway. Only 14 sailors survived out of her complement of 750.

A naval court of enquiry, held on 28 November 1914, found that the most likely cause of the disaster was the storage of a total of 275 six-inch shells outside the designated magazines. Some of those shells had been placed alongside a boiler room bulkhead. When the cordite overheated it triggered the explosion.

Loss of the Benedetto Brin
The Italian battleship Benedetto Brin was lost on September 27, 1915, in the harbour of Brindisi due to an internal explosion possibly caused by sabotage. 454 seamen died.

Loss of three British battlecruisers

The Battle of Jutland in 1916 commenced with a clash of the British and German battlecruisers who opened fire at 15:45. At 16:00 was struck by three 11 inch (280 mm) shells from which knocked her out of the line. Minutes later another salvo hit and she was ripped apart by a magazine explosion. All but two of a crew of 1,019 died. At 16:45 a combined salvo from and hit and again a magazine explosion sent a British battlecruiser to the bottom, claiming all but nine out of a crew of 1,275. At 18:30 was hit by , causing a third magazine explosion within three hours. The ship broke in two and sank with the loss of all but six of her crew of 1,021.

In addition to the battlecruisers the British lost three armoured cruisers, one of them due to an internal explosions. This was which was sunk at 18:15 by gunfire from Lützow and Derfflinger and the following explosion of her aft magazine, killing all of a complement of 893 men.

At the beginning of the battle, , Admiral flagship, almost suffered a similar fate when the "Q" turret was hit, which was only prevented by the quick action of the mortally wounded Major Francis Harvey, the turret commander, who ordered the magazine doors shut and the magazine flooded, thus preventing a massive explosion.

After the battle a British examination of the action identified two major problems. The first was the poor performance of the British armour piercing shells, which tended to explode outside the armour rather than penetrating and exploding inside. The second was the lack of communication between ships and the commander-in-chief.

However, that does not explain the blasts. Later evidence, including a dive in 2003 to the wrecks of Invincible, Queen Mary, and Defence, concentrates on other aspects. In order to maintain a high rate of fire, it was custom on British ships to keep open safety hatches and hoists to convey ammunition as fast as possible. It was also common to store extra propellant charges inside the turret, again, to increase the rate of right. This left the cordite propellant, supplied in silk bags, vulnerable to flash fire. In contrast, the near destruction of Seydlitz by a magazine explosion at the battle of Dogger Bank had prompted safer ammunition handling procedures amongst German ships. The German ships also stored propellant charges in brass cartridges, which were less susceptible to flash fires.

Loss of the Leonardo da Vinci
The Italian battleship was lost on 2 August, 1916, in the harbour of Tarente by an internal explosion. It was claimed by Italian authorities that the ship was lost due to a time bomb in the magazine or a limpet mine laid by Austrian saboteurs but a self inflicted cause is more likely.

Loss of the Imperatritsa Mariya
The Russian battleship Imperatritsa Mariya exploded on 20 October ,1916, while in Sevastopol harbour. The subsequent investigation determined that the explosion was probably accidental, though sabotage could not be completely ruled out. This loss is the only one which could not be connected to British-made cordite.

Loss of HMS Vanguard
The British battleship sank on July 9, 1917, destroyed by an internal explosion while she was moored at Scapa Flow. The blast killed 843 men and left only two survivors. The most probable cause was an unnoticed stokehold fire which heated cordite stored against an adjacent bulkhead.

Loss of the Tsukuba
The Japanese armoured cruiser sank on 14 January, 1917, in the bay of Yokosuka after a fire and the subsequent explosion of the magazine. 200 seamen out of the total complement of 800 died.

Loss of the Kawachi
The Japanese battleship sank on 12 July, 1918, due to an internal magazine explosion caused by spontaneous ignition of unstable cordite in the bay of Tokuyama.

Loss of HMS Hood
On 24 May, 1941, the British battleships and intercepted the German battleship and heavy cruiser in the Denmark Strait. Fire was opened at 05:52 and at 06:00 a salvo from Bismarck hit Hood somewhere between her main mast and "X" turret. In the explosion that followed, Hood broke in two and 1,415 seamen died. Only three where rescued. Bismarck was sunk three days later.

The official Admiralty communiqué on the loss blamed a German 38 cm shell, which presumably penetrated an aft magazine, for the loss. Many theories followed, including the explosion of Hood's own torpedoes, an underwater travelling shell and a fire penetrating the 4 inch magazine. The real cause is still a subject of debate.

Loss of HMS Barham
The British battleship exploded on 25 November 1941 in the Mediterranean sea after three torpedo hits by the German submarine . As she rolled over to port, her 15-inch magazine exploded and the ship quickly sank with the loss of over two thirds of her crew of 1184.

Loss of the Mutsu
On the 8 June, 1943, the Japanese battleship exploded in the harbour of Hiroshima, most probably due to faulty ammunition handling. Over 1,100 seamen out of a complement of 1,368 died.

Loss of the Yamato

The American invasion of Okinawa and the desperate lack of fuel for naval operations prompted Operation Ten-Go. Having only enough fuel to get there, Yamato was to be beached and used as a fixed artillery battery to support the Japanese troops defending Okinawa. The ship was spotted before arrival and became the target of aircraft waves from US carriers in the area. Yamato took dozens of combined bomb and torpedo hits before she capsized at 14:23 and exploded. Of her crew 2,475 were lost, and 269 were rescued. The senior surviving bridge officer Mitsuru Yoshida later claimed that a fire penetrated the forward 6-inch magazine. Right at the moment the ship rolled over the fire ignited the propellant stored at that magazine, which in turn set off the magazine in turret "B". The resulting explosion is recorded as being seen in southern Japan, one hundred miles away.

British made cordite of the era
A total number of twelve major warships exploded from 1898 to the end of World War I. The causes varied from shell fire to coal fire and numerous others but most incidents involved British made cordite. Other nations, such as Germany or Russia, suffered no such losses even in the heaviest of sea battles like Jutland or the Battle of Tsushima. The only exception is the mysterious loss of the Russian Imperatritsa Mariya.

The closest examination of the problem was held after the battle of Jutland by British authorities. It was found that the British custom of supplying the cordite in silk bags made it extremely vulnerable to flash fire, whereas the German propellant RP C/12 was supplied in brass cylinders, making it resistant even to sustained fire for some time. But the problem with British cordite went even deeper. British manufacturers used a solvent based on Vaseline, which was supposed to stabilize the cordite, letting it burn rather than explode. Trials after the battle showed that in practice this solvent reduced the stability of the cordite and let it explode even easier. The combination of the unstable cordite with the habit of conveying shells and propellant through permanently open hatches and hoists proved deadly for British ships in the Battle of Jutland.

German cordite was solvent free, letting it only burn down. This was proved in the engagement on the . The German battlecruiser Seydlitz was hit and a severe fire erupted in the two aft turrets, because hatches and hoists where held open as on British ships, yet no explosion occurred. However, the Seydlitz was only saved by flooding the aft magazine. The Germans learned from the incident and made ammunition handling flash tight.

After the first World War the problem was thought to have been solved but in World War II again two British and two Japanese battleships exploded. It is unclear whether these incidents were linked to faulty cordite, were just an unlucky chain of events, or were due to the heavy damage inflicted by enemy forces, like on Barham and Yamato.
Four other battleships also suffered magazine explosions during World War II: the French Bretagne, the American Arizona, the German Tirpitz and the Italian Roma.

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