Seventy-Five Years Ago: Gone in a Flash

By M.C. Farrington
HRNM Historian

An old naval aphorism goes, "Why die? Go supply!"

But warfighting is a dangerous business from stem to stern; whether at the tip of the spear or in the rear with the gear.

On the morning of November 10, 1944, Lieutenant Lester A. Wallace, a Naval Reserve communications officer originally from Atlanta, Georgia, learned this in a very visceral way after leading 13 of his men ashore from the ammunition ship Mount Hood (AE-11). Wallace was to pick up new communications manuals and his charges were assigned to pick up mail or receive dental treatment.

Smoke cloud expanding, just after USS Mount Hood (AE 11) exploded in Seeadler Harbor, Manus, Admiralty Islands, 10 November 1944. Photographed by a photographer of the 57th Construction Battalion, who had set up his camera to take pictures of the Battalion's camp. (Commander Lester B. Marx Collection, U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

"We went ashore about 0830 (8:30 A.M.) and were walking up the beach," he reported later, "when a sailor, with a startled look in his eye, screamed: 'LOOK!', and pointed to seaward. There was a flash, followed by two quick explosions. We were knocked down, but scrambled to our feet and got back in the boat.”

The mushroom cloud marking the death of USS Mount Hood expands over Seeadler Harbor, Manus, Admiralty Islands, on the morning of November 10, 1944. (Collection of Commander Lester B. Marx, Commanding Officer of the 57th C.B. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

One moment, Mount Hood was a 13,910-ton ship with a crew of over 300 men, loaded with over 3,800 tons of ammunition. The next, it was a smoking column of smoke and fire that ultimately stretched 7,000 feet into the sky and measured a half-mile wide at its base. The explosion carved a trench in the harbor floor 35 feet below the surface measuring over 300 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 30 to 40 feet deep.

Explosion of USS Mount Hood (AE 11) at Seeadler Harbor, Manus Island, Admiralty Islands, seen from USS Omanney Bay (CVE 79), located between four and-a-half and 5 miles from scene, one and-a-half minutes after explosion.  Released November 10, 1944. (National Archives and Records Administration image 80-G-289933)

In an instant, Lt. Wallace was rendered the only surviving officer of the 22 detailed to the ship. The 13 Sailors with him, along with four others sent ashore separately that morning, two of whom for pre-trial confinement, were left the only other survivors from Mount Hood's enlisted compliment of 296.

Small craft gathered around USS Mindanao (ARG 3) during salvage and rescue efforts shortly after Mount Hood blew up about 350 yards away from Mindanao's port side. Mindanao, and seven motor minesweepers (YMS) moored to her starboard side, were damaged by the blast, as were USS Alhena (AKA 9), in the photo's top left center, and USS Oberrender (DE-344), in top right. Note the extensive oil slick, with tracks through it made by small craft. (Copied from the War Diary, Manus Naval Base, for November 1944. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

Not only was the entire ship destroyed, but nothing within 500 feet of the explosion survived intact, including eight landing craft mechanized (LCMs), and pontoon lighters being used to transfer ordnance, as well as 13 other whaleboats and other small craft, including auxiliary motor minesweepers. It was estimated that over 350 Sailors died in the instant holocaust, with 82 killed aboard the repair ship USS Mindanao (ARG 3), a former Liberty ship, which was floating only about 350 yards away from Mount Hood.  Around an equal number were injured in the blast.

Salvage and rescue work underway on USS Mindanao (ARG 3) shortly after Mount Hood blew up about 350 yards away from where the ammunition ship had been moored. Note heavy damage to Mindanao's hull and superstructure, including large holes from fragment impacts. View looks forward from alongside her port quarter. USS Mindanao had 180 crewmen killed and injured by this explosion. She was under repair until December 21, 1944. Small craft alongside or nearby include (from left) YPB-6 (probable identification), two LCVPs and YPB-7. (Copied from the War Diary, Manus Naval Base, for November 1944 U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

Pharmacist's Mate Hunter Gammon, originally from Kerrville, Texas, was dispatched to Mindanao from where he had been working at a naval hospital on Manus Island, encountered "an unbelievable scene of human carnage with men still living with arms gone, legs gone, terrible wounds in chests and stomachs."

"Jagged metal shards were sticking out of the living as well as the dead," Gammon continued. "My medical team stayed on board this slaughterhouse until early evening doing our best to ease the pain and suffering of the victims."

The repair ship Argonne (AG 31) was caught 1,100 yards away from the explosion and was pelted with at least 220 pieces of Mount Hood. Over 1,300 pounds of debris was recovered from that ship and the waters immediately surrounding it alone.

Damage to Quonset huts atop the barge YF-681 from concussion from the explosion that destroyed USS Mount Hood. The barge is alongside USS Argonne (AG 31), which was also damaged by the blast. (Copied from the War Diary, Manus Naval Base, for November 1944. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

Seabees stationed on Manus were also dispatched to Mindanao and other damaged ships still afloat in order to assist in repairs. One of them, welder William Meinders, told Sea Classics magazine in 2006:

It was difficult to accept the way our shipmates had died; that your mortality was so easily swept away–your life gone without a trace as if it had never existed. Words must have been stopped in mid-sentence, or caught in the middle of a thought the moment she blew. I guess they never knew what hit them.

The board of investigation convened to look into the disaster didn’t know what hit them either, nor could they reach an ironclad conclusion. Although they decisively dispelled theories about Japanese midget submarines or an air attack, another notorious culprit came to the fore.

Their final report released in December noted, “Evidence indicates the possibility of the detonation of TPX loaded depth bombs while it was being loaded into the number three or number four hold.”

Torpex. This was exactly the same type of munition that had caused Naval Air Station Norfolk’s worst-ever disaster in September 1943, and a similarly catastrophic accident at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown just shy of two months later. The casualty count from those accidents, particularly the one at Yorktown, were limited in scope due to the limited amount of munitions involved. This time, however, the unstable depth bombs were being handled within a huge ammunition ship packed with ordnance. Mount Hood was acting as a mobile ammunition depot in its own right, containing all the munitions being used by the Third Fleet at the time.

USS Mount Hood appears in Measure 32 camouflage pattern in a print by David Hendrickson. (HRNM Study Collection S2015.4)

USS Mount Hood (AE 11) off Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia, July 16, 1944. She is painted in camouflage Measure 32, Design 18F. (Photograph 19-N-70330 from the Bureau of Ships Collection, National Archives and Records Administration)

Just a year before the disaster, Mount Hood had been the U.S. Maritime Commission C2 all-purpose cargo ship SS Marco Polo, but it had been converted at Norfolk Navy Yard into an ammunition ship.

Recommissioned on July 1, 1944, Mount Hood left Hampton Roads for the Pacific in August, arriving at Seeadler Harbor, Manus, on September 22, which was a major staging area northeast of Papua New Guinea for the invasion of the Philippines over 3,000 miles away.

USS Mount Hood (AE 11) underway in Hampton Roads, Virginia, August 6, 1944. (Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

Mount Hood was struck from the naval register on December 11, 1944, but her name lived on in USS Mount Hood (AE-29) for nearly three decades until she was scrapped in 2013.  Today, original prints of both Mount Hood and Argonne reside in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum's study collection, reminders of two overlooked support vessels that Sailors took directly into harm's way, giving the ultimate sacrifice three-quarters of a century ago.

USS Argonne, a Pearl Harbor attack survivor which also survived the Mount Hood disaster, was scrapped after the war. (HRNM Study Collection S2015.3)