April the fourteenth might just be a bad day for ships1 . Not only is it the date the RMS Titanic had it's fateful (and fatal) encounter with an iceberg but thirty two years later there was another maritime disaster, the explosion of the SS Fort Stikine.
On April the 12th 1944 a smallish Canadian built steamship docked at Victoria Dock in Bombay (Mumbai); two days later fire on board caused it's cargo of munitions to explode, devastating the docks and killing hundreds. The death toll is still unknown, at least 800 but possible even exceeding the 1,517 of the Titanic.
The ship was new, less than two years old, wartime construction, and had travelled from Birkenhead with a cargo for Karachi and Bombay; aircraft parts and disassembled Spitfires, gliders, machine tools and spare parts, and almost 1,400 tonnes of munitions. Amongst them were filled shells, torpedoes, depth charges and mines, thousands of signal rockets and 238 tons of highly sensitive 'A' class explosives.
At Karachi she took on, over the protests of her master, about ninety thousands bales of cotton for the textile mills of Bombay and hundreds of drums of lubricating oil. As her captain, Alexander Naismith, said "We are carrying just about everything that will burn or blow up''. 2
What exactly happened that day isn't known, barring time travel it never will be. The first signs of fire were spotted around 14:00, and the crew (well aware of their cargo though, due to wartime secrecy, most others were not) mobilised to fight the blaze in the No. 2 hold and called for assistance. Despite the efforts of the ship's crew and, eventually, dockside fire fighters and and fireboats they were unable to extinguish the conflagration (more than 900 tonnes of water were pumped into the ship).
It was reported that water was boiling all around the vessel from the heat being produced.
The order to abandon ship was given at 15:45 after Naismith verified that explosives were burning; at 16:06 there was the first explosion, breaking the Fort Stikine apart, followed by a second huge blast at 16:34.
And that explosion was huge; it showed up on seismographs over 1,500km away, was audible to 80km, shattered windows 12km away and dispersed burning cotton and oil for more than 1,000m, all over the Bombay docks and the surrounding slums. In all about five square kilometres burned, including about 50,000 tonnes of stored food. Thirteen other ships, docked nearby, were sunk with a dozen others damaged.
Naismith and his chief officer (W. D. Henderson) had returned to the ship, it's believed to try and open the ship's seacocks to flood her hull. Both were killed.
The death toll isn't known exactly, wartime censorship and secrecy didn't help, but 66 fire fighters and 167 other ship and dockside personnel (including Naismith and his chief officer) were killed along with *at least* 500 civilians.
Plausible estimates say more than 1,300 died and the death toll of the Titanic (1,517) may have been exceeded.
Parts of the ship and cargo, including those gold bars, were launched through the air onto the city; a resident living about 2km away had a bar descend through his apartment's roof into his sitting room, missing him3 . A secondary school 5km away had most of a propeller embed itself in the building's wall. A 'squid' anti-submarine gun weighing over ten tonnes was launched nearly 200m. The fires burned for more than a week, with 7,500 soldiers and fire fighters working to douse them. The destruction of food in storage led to malnutrition and profiteering. More than sixty thousand people were left homeless and property damage was estimated at twenty fire million pounds.
The cause of the fire and explosion have never been determined; sabotage was possible (the Japanese certainly claimed it) but so is carelessness and mischance. The Bombay docks averaged one serious fire every five weeks during the war.
The wartime secrecy didn't help; the ship's manifest did not list the munitions or the gold. Hence the ship was berthed among other vessels, didn't fly the warning flag and wasn't prioritised for unloading. It took over an hour for the crew's frantic calls to elicit fire engines and boats to assist.
Gold bars have been recovered from the bay as recently as 2011, some are still missing.
1 Actually it isn't, 14APR is a pretty good day, besides Fort Stikine and the Titanic, the only other major loss was the HMS Namur in 1749. Now 16APR, that's a bad day; Lampo, Grandcamp, Powhattan, HMS Affray, Goya, HMS Mohawk. Goya alone say more fatalities that the three 14APR ships.
2 Wartime necessity required that Karachi's cotton reach Bombay's mills and regulations in force prohibited it's carriage by rail.
3 He returned it and donated the 999 rupee reward to the relief fund.
On April the 12th 1944 a smallish Canadian built steamship docked at Victoria Dock in Bombay (Mumbai); two days later fire on board caused it's cargo of munitions to explode, devastating the docks and killing hundreds. The death toll is still unknown, at least 800 but possible even exceeding the 1,517 of the Titanic.
The ship was new, less than two years old, wartime construction, and had travelled from Birkenhead with a cargo for Karachi and Bombay; aircraft parts and disassembled Spitfires, gliders, machine tools and spare parts, and almost 1,400 tonnes of munitions. Amongst them were filled shells, torpedoes, depth charges and mines, thousands of signal rockets and 238 tons of highly sensitive 'A' class explosives.
At Karachi she took on, over the protests of her master, about ninety thousands bales of cotton for the textile mills of Bombay and hundreds of drums of lubricating oil. As her captain, Alexander Naismith, said "We are carrying just about everything that will burn or blow up''. 2
What exactly happened that day isn't known, barring time travel it never will be. The first signs of fire were spotted around 14:00, and the crew (well aware of their cargo though, due to wartime secrecy, most others were not) mobilised to fight the blaze in the No. 2 hold and called for assistance. Despite the efforts of the ship's crew and, eventually, dockside fire fighters and and fireboats they were unable to extinguish the conflagration (more than 900 tonnes of water were pumped into the ship).
It was reported that water was boiling all around the vessel from the heat being produced.
The order to abandon ship was given at 15:45 after Naismith verified that explosives were burning; at 16:06 there was the first explosion, breaking the Fort Stikine apart, followed by a second huge blast at 16:34.
And that explosion was huge; it showed up on seismographs over 1,500km away, was audible to 80km, shattered windows 12km away and dispersed burning cotton and oil for more than 1,000m, all over the Bombay docks and the surrounding slums. In all about five square kilometres burned, including about 50,000 tonnes of stored food. Thirteen other ships, docked nearby, were sunk with a dozen others damaged.
Naismith and his chief officer (W. D. Henderson) had returned to the ship, it's believed to try and open the ship's seacocks to flood her hull. Both were killed.
The death toll isn't known exactly, wartime censorship and secrecy didn't help, but 66 fire fighters and 167 other ship and dockside personnel (including Naismith and his chief officer) were killed along with *at least* 500 civilians.
Plausible estimates say more than 1,300 died and the death toll of the Titanic (1,517) may have been exceeded.
Parts of the ship and cargo, including those gold bars, were launched through the air onto the city; a resident living about 2km away had a bar descend through his apartment's roof into his sitting room, missing him3 . A secondary school 5km away had most of a propeller embed itself in the building's wall. A 'squid' anti-submarine gun weighing over ten tonnes was launched nearly 200m. The fires burned for more than a week, with 7,500 soldiers and fire fighters working to douse them. The destruction of food in storage led to malnutrition and profiteering. More than sixty thousand people were left homeless and property damage was estimated at twenty fire million pounds.
The cause of the fire and explosion have never been determined; sabotage was possible (the Japanese certainly claimed it) but so is carelessness and mischance. The Bombay docks averaged one serious fire every five weeks during the war.
The wartime secrecy didn't help; the ship's manifest did not list the munitions or the gold. Hence the ship was berthed among other vessels, didn't fly the warning flag and wasn't prioritised for unloading. It took over an hour for the crew's frantic calls to elicit fire engines and boats to assist.
Gold bars have been recovered from the bay as recently as 2011, some are still missing.
1 Actually it isn't, 14APR is a pretty good day, besides Fort Stikine and the Titanic, the only other major loss was the HMS Namur in 1749. Now 16APR, that's a bad day; Lampo, Grandcamp, Powhattan, HMS Affray, Goya, HMS Mohawk. Goya alone say more fatalities that the three 14APR ships.
2 Wartime necessity required that Karachi's cotton reach Bombay's mills and regulations in force prohibited it's carriage by rail.
3 He returned it and donated the 999 rupee reward to the relief fund.
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