NAVAL TRAGEDY INQUIRY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 4 February 1942, Page 4

NAVAL TRAGEDY INQUIRY

BREACH BLOCK BLOWS OUT GUN ACCIDENT ON MONOWAI Wellington, This Day. ! The finding ol th~ board of inquiry which investigated the circumI stances of a serious accident which occurred in H.M.N.Z.S. Monowai while carrying out firing practice on 30th December was released .ast evening by the Minister' of Defence. Mr Jones. The accident as announced L. the Minister at the time resulted in lour 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 salvos 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. —P.A.