NAVAL TRAGEDY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 February 1942, Page 4

NAVAL TRAGEDY

ACCIDENT ON MONOWAI. FINDINGS OF BOARD RELEASED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The finding of the board of inquiry which investigated the circumstances of a serious accident which occurred in H.M.N.Z.g. Monowai while carrying out firing practice on December 30 was released last evening by the Minister! of Defence, Mr Jones. The accident,' as announced by the Minister at the! time, resulted in four able seamen, members of a gun crew, being killed. Two other seamen were badly injured and one suffered minor injuries. Three officers also suffered minor injuries. Fire had been opened and the two guns on the forecastle got off their first salvo normally and almost simultaneously. In the second salvo there was a slight delay in the port gun, followed by a violent Explosion, and the breech block blew out to the rear, causing the casualties to personnel. The circumstances attending the accident have been fully investigated by a Naval Board of Inquiry which found that the gun was correctly fired by the gunlayer, that a slight “hang fire” occurred, and that one member of the gun’s crew, who died of his injuries, started to open the breech of the gun, having failed to notice that his gun had not recoiled, as soon as he heard the starboard gun fire that salvo. The board also found that the breech mechanism was in fully efficient condition and that no mechanical defect or failure existed to which the accident could be attributed. '