Current Research Project-1943 Explosion at the Yorktown Mine Depot

On November 16, 1943, the equivalent of 150,000 pounds of T.N.T. exploded at the Yorktown Mine Depot (now known as the Yorktown Weapons Station), causing a hole 15 feet deep and over 500 feet wide. Six workers, mostly civilian African-American workers, died in the incident. Ground zero for this explosion was a cool down and transportation warehouse known as “P-2.” Here civillian workers recieved assembled mines, torpedo warheads, and bombs fresh from the production lines in nearby buildings and allowed the orndnace cool off, before shipping them off to the Fleet and the Army Air Corps.

Of particular concern to the investigators was the high tech and very new explosive mixture known as Torpex, which was 50% more powerful than T.N.T. by itself. At one point in the war, Yorktown manufactured over 2,000,000 pounds a month of this highly sought after explosive and was the first facility in the United States to produce it.Also of concern was the possibility that one of the P-2 workers was a Nazi agent as the FBI found evidence that worker took thousand of dollars in bribes and read extremist political material in his spare time.

The full story will be published in the next issue of The Daybook.

Calender of Events and Education Planner Now Online

The museum's annual list of public events and the education planner are now online.

Calender of Events: www.hrnm.navy.mil/press/coe2010.pdf

Education Planner: http://www.hrnm.navy.mil/hrnmedplanner2010.pdf

USS Cumberland Center

A new interactive web module on the sloop-of-war USS Cumberland is now online. The module allows visitors to explore the history of the ship, select artifacts from the museum’s collection, images from recent archeology expeditions, and learn about the different parts of the ship. See it at http://www.hrnm.navy.mil/cumberland.html.

The ship is most famous for its battle with the ironclad CSS Viriginia on the first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads, in which Virigina rammed and sunk Cumberland.  The museum is the official respository of artfacts from the ship wreck.

Sabot from USS Cumberland

This simple looking piece of wood is actually one of the great leap forwards in ordnance technology. This is a sabot (pronounced sa-BO or SAB-o, not SA-bot) from the museum's Cumberland collection. A shell would be bound together with a sabot and loaded into a smoothbore cannon after the power had been loaded. The sabot would create a seal between the power and the shell, preventing gas from leaking around the shell when the powder was ignited. The result was that more of the energy from the explosive gas would be used in moving the shell forward, instead of being wasted or misdirecting the shell. The result was a significant improvement in muzzle velocity, accuracy, and range. This sabot is painted red signifying that it and the shell are ready to be used.

Sabots are still used today in modern guns, particularly the smoothbore guns of main battle tanks such as the U.S. Army's M1A1 and Germany's Leopard series of tanks.