Show DANGER ON WAR SHIPS how narrowly serious accidents in our modern warships sometimes ba b are A averted is set get forth in a letter from ML a naval officer to the electric review the ships crew were at target practice tto at sea and the officer gives his hia ex peri per lence ence as follows ahyou As you probably know the heavy guns in the turrets are fired by electricity tri city the gun being discharged simply by pressing a but button the 0 officer fil in command of the forward turret on our ship during rapid firing praet practice ioe was just about to press the button to fire one of our big guns when a to gunners mate was seen to grab at sorab something on the wall of the turret turre tadd and then fall in a heap on the floor the officer pressed the button but the g gua was not discharged when the mate came to he was asked what had bias I 1 bened and he informed the officer that the breech of the gun had not beon been locked locked and that what he grabbed at oft the wall was the wires fo forming taft I 1 electric firing circuit when life ww that the officer was prepared to W the gun and at the same tt time oba erVett i that the breech of the gun was not locked the only thing that oc occurred currid to him to prevent the gun being discharged was to destroy the circuit which he did promptly and effectively when all this occurred there was a charge of pounds of powder in the gun another charge of the same size in the turret ready to be served and the passageway leading to the powder magazine was wide open but for the quickness of the gunners mate the gun would have been discharged the breech block would have blown out inside the turret the gases from the burning powder would probably have ignited the charge lying in the turret tills this explosion would have ignited the powder in the magazine and the chances are the whole ship crew and all would have gone up in the air A thought that has occurred to me is thiu this suppose the accident had occurred what do you imagine the ver dict of a board of inquiry as to the cause of the loss of the ship would have have been filrice this experience the department has adopted electrical means to prevent the discharge of any of the large guns until the breech Is ie locked |