West Loch disaster
US maritime disaster at the Pearl Harbor U.S. Naval Base in Hawaii in 1944 / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The West Loch Disaster was a maritime accident during World War II at Pearl Harbor U.S. Naval Base in Hawaii. The incident, which occurred just after 3 p.m. on Sunday, 21 May 1944, began following an explosion in a staging area for Landing Ships, Tank (LSTs) and other amphibious assault ships in West Loch. A fire quickly spread among the ships being prepared for Operation Forager, the invasion of the Japanese-held Mariana Islands. Over the next 24 hours, six LSTs sank, 163 naval personnel died, and 396 were injured.
West Loch disaster | |||||||
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LST-39 and LST-480 still ablaze on 22 May 1944. | |||||||
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A subsequent Naval Board of Inquiry never determined the exact cause of the disaster but concluded that the initial explosion was caused when a mortar round aboard LST-353 detonated during an unloading operation because it was either dropped or went off when gasoline vapors ignited. The incident – together with the Port Chicago disaster two months later – led to major changes in weapons-handling practices within the United States Navy.
The LST wreckage was quickly cleared in a salvage operation and dumped at sea 3 mi (2.6 nmi; 4.8 km) south of Hawaii. Only the hull of the partially beached LST-480 was left in West Loch. A press blackout was enforced and naval personnel were ordered not to talk about the incident. The disaster was classified until 1960 and is therefore not well known.
The disaster has been the focus of considerable speculation that during the salvage and removal of the wrecks from West Loch, the U.S. Navy might have found the remains of a Japanese midget submarine, possibly the fifth Japanese midget submarine used in the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941.