1944 – Sep 15, Explosion, Naval Ammunition Depot, 9M SE of Hastings, NE — 9
Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 3-21-2024 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
–9 Blanchard. All sources except Moran note 9 deaths (as do several others consulted but not
reference here). This includes the last Nebraska newspaper article we could locate in Newspaperarchive.com referencing fatalities (Sunday Journal and Star, Lincoln, Sep 17.
–10 Moran. Explosive Accident Summary: [WW] II. DoD Explosives Safety Board, 1992
– 9 Adams County Nebraska Historical Society. “The Naval Ammunition Deport.” 2013.
— 9 History Nebraska. “Marker Monday: U.S. Naval Ammunition Depot.” Accessed 3-21-2024
— 9 Sehnert, Walt. “The Hastings Naval Ammunition Depot. McCook Daily Gazette, 4-26-2010
— 9 Sunday Journal and Star, Lincoln NE. “Nine dead in depot blast.” 9-17-1944, p. 1.
Narrative Information
Adams County Nebraska Historical Society: “Hastings was buzzing with excitement on June 10, 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor, when Senator George Norris and Congressman Carl Curtis announced that the Navy had authorized the establishment of a $45,000,000 Naval Ammunition Depot southeast of Hastings. The Hastings area was chosen because of its abundance of electrical power from the Tri-County project, its location equidistant from both coasts and the availability of railroads. The government immediately began the process of taking 48,753 acres of farmland, located mostly in Clay County, from 232 owners. Construction began July 14, 1942… The initial construction lasted 18 months and employed over 5,000. To relieve a critical housing shortage, the Navy established a 20-acre trailer court at 14th and Burlington, site of the Adams County fairgrounds, and constructed Spencer Park in southeast Hastings.
“The first Marine guards arrived in December 1942 and a year later the Coast Guards K-9 patrol dogs arrived. The Navy began to hire men and women for the manufacture and storage of ammunition in January 1943. The NAD was commissioned on February 22, 1943, with Captain D.F. Patterson as commander. The first test run of projectile loading was made July 1, 1943 and three days later on July Fourth, the first loaded ammunition came off the production lines ready for the fleet. Employment and production reached their maximum in June and July 1945, when the Depot was manned by 125 officers, 1,800 enlisted men, and 6,692 civilians. An additional 2,000 civilians were still working for construction companies…. Among the types of ammunition produced at the Hastings NAD during the war years were bombs, mines, rockets, 40mm shells and 16-inch projectiles. One of the ingredients used on some loading lines was “Yellow-D” a powder which left a residue of yellow on workers’ skin….
“The NAD maintained a good safety record, which is remarkable considering the vast amounts of ammunition manufactured and the speed with which it was produced. But there were occasional explosions. The official Navy history of the NAD lists only two explosions, but four occurred, all in 1944. The first was on January 27, when a six-inch shell which was being gauged exploded in the black powder room. Three men of the Negro Ordnance Battalion were killed: Adolph Johnson, Jesse Wilson, and J. C. Miles….
“The largest explosion occurred at 9:15 a.m. on September 15, 1944, when the south transfer depot of the railroad line blew up, leaving a crater 550 feet long, 220 feet wide, and 50 feet deep. Reportedly, nine servicemen were killed and fifty-three injured. Those killed were Coast Guard S1/C Bert E. Hugen, and Navy S1/C Leslie Williams, S1/C Freeman Lorenzo Tull, S1/C Willie Williams, S2/C Daniel Casey, S2/C Frank William David, S2/C Samuel Burns, S2/C Clarence Randolph, and S2/C Ulysses Cole, Jr. There is still speculation that the number of dead and injured was higher. The blast was felt as far away as Kansas and Iowa. There was damage in all the towns around. A portion of the roof at the Harvard school caved in, injuring ten children. The earthen barricades in front of the storage igloos loaded with explosives held, preventing an even greater loss of life and property. Newspaper accounts of all the explosions are limited due to the wartime security issues involved. A complete study of Navy records is yet to be done….” (Adams County Nebraska Historical Society. “The Naval Ammunition Deport.” 2013.)
History Nebraska. “Marker Monday: U.S. Naval Ammunition Depot”:
“Marker Text
The U.S. Naval Ammunition Depot, known locally as “the NAD,” was the largest of the navy’s World War II inland munitions depots, occupying almost 49,000 acres of Adams and Clay County farmland. Construction began in July 1942; loading, assembly, and storage of ordnance continued until final closing in June 1966. By V-J Day in 1945, the NAD employed 10,000 military and civilian workers. At one point during the war the NAD was producing nearly forty percent of the navy’s ordnance, including sixteen-inch shells.
Costing $71 million, the NAD had 207 miles of railroad track, 274 miles of roads, and 2200 buildings, including hundreds of igloo-shaped explosives storage magazines. The depot embittered farmers whose land was taken by the government, but it produced an economic boom as Hastings’s population jumped from 15,200 in 1942 to 23,000 in 1943. A September 1944 explosion killed 9 workers, injured fifty-three, and left a 550-foot-long crater. The blast was felt 100 miles away and shattered windows for miles around.
Moran: “On 15 September 1944 a detonation of 550 tons of Torpex-loaed mines detonated in a Cooling Building with ten loaded railcars alongside, killing 10, and injuring 61. Barricaded on both sides, the blast carved a crater measuring 525 in length, 140 feet wide and 30 feet deep. Structural damage was registered at 3,500 feet, window breakage at 15 miles. Chunks of concrete weighing 500 pounds were thrown a mile. One was found at 7,300 feet.” (Moran, Edward P. Jr. Explosive Accident Summary: World War II. DoD Explosives Safety Board, Aug 1992, pp. 115-116.)
Sehnert: “During World War II Nebraska was very much involved in the war effort. Besides sending so many of our young men to fight in the Armed Forces, there was the SAC Headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha. Eleven other airfields were scattered across the state, including the one at McCook. Nebraska, was home to a number of Prisoner of War Camps, including one at Indianola. Another facility, so very important to the war effort was the Naval Ammunition Depot at Hastings.
“The United States military commanders chose Hastings to be the site of the Ammunition Depot for several reasons. 1. It was in almost the exact center of the United States, and so was considered safe from enemy air attacks. 2. It was at the hub of three railroads, making transportation convenient, into and out of the facility. 3. There was an ample supply of underground water. 4. There was an abundant and dependable supply of cheap electricity, from the Tri-County dams’ project. 4. There was an adequate source of skilled and unskilled laborers, who were known to be good workers….
“In September, the largest accident occurred, when the south transfer depot of the railway line blew up, leaving a crater 550’ long, 220’ wide and 50’ deep. The blast was felt as far away as Western Iowa and Central Kansas. Nine service men were killed, and another 53 were seriously injured. All the towns surrounding the NAD suffered damage. A roof on the schoolhouse at Harvard collapsed, injuring 10 school children. The earthen barricades in front of the storage igloos (filled with explosives) held, preventing even more wide-spread damage….”[1] (Sehnert, Walt. “The Hastings Naval Ammunition Depot. McCook Daily Gazette, 4-26-2010.)
Newspaper
Sep 15, AP: “Hastings, Neb., Sept. 15 – (AP) – Three negro sailors and one coast guardsman were killed this morning when a large amount of ammunition exploded at the Hastings Naval Ordnance depot, the Hastings Daily Tribune said this afternoon. The newspaper said it learned on reliable authority that 21 persons – 11 civilians, five coast guardsmen, and five sailors – were injured. The blast which shook communities as far as 125 miles distant, dug a crater 550 feet long and 25 feet deep in the transfer station in the south part of the 48,000-acre deport, largest military installation in Nebraska.
“Although the explosion scene was 22 miles from Hastings at least 23 business houses here suffered damage, mostly broken plate glass windows.
“The blast at the 48,000-acre installation about nine miles southeast of here was the second in six months and the third this year. A blast last April 6 claimed eight lives and on January 7 three seamen were killed in an explosion.
“Mayor Ray Carter said he understood that Glenvil, small village on the border of the depot area which was heavily damaged in the April blast, again suffered heavily. Two fires which broke out in Glenvil were brought under control, he said.
“An enormous cloud of smoke billowed up from the ordnance plant area about nine miles from Hastings. Windows all along Hastings’ main street were knocked out by the blast….
“The blast occurred at approximately 9:25 a.m. (CWT). The first casualties brought to the dispensary in the depot area were Negro sailors….The explosion occurred in the south transfer depot 5 to 8 miles east and a little south of the site of last April’s explosion and east of Glenvil, small town on the depot area border, which was badly damaged by the last blast. The blast was felt as far away as Lebanon, Kas., about 95 miles southwest, and reports of windows broken and window sashes torn out of frames came from Red Cloud, Inland, Ayr, Fairfield, and Clay Center in Nebraska. Merchandise was blown off shelves in Hastings, where an early count showed 23 business houses damaged. McCook, 125 miles from Hastings, reported the blast was heard there.”
(Associated Press. “4 Dead in Hastings Blast…21 Sain Injured at Naval Depot.” The Lincoln Star, NE. 9-15-1944, p. 1.)
Sep 16, AP: “Hastings, Neb., Sept. 16 – (AP) – Damage to the Hastings Naval Ammunition depot in Friday morning’s explosion was estimated by reliable sources today at $175,000. The south transfer depot, principal building to go up in the blast, cost $161,000. Damage in downtown Hastings, principally window breakage, has been estimated at approximately $10,000….
“A time lag between the ignition and the subsequent terrific blast probably saved the lives of almost a hundred workers at the scene.
“The blast, under investigation today by a naval board of inquiry, killed three servicemen and injured 70 persons, 56 at the scene and 14 in nearby communities.
“Melvin Stichweb, 21, laborer at the loading dock, said ‘we heard the first bomb go off and everyone started running,’ and added that 20 seconds later hot metal and rock were flling around him. Navy Gunner L. C. Anderson, officer in charge of the transfer station and one of two men who stayed to fight the initial blaze while an estimated 98 other workers escaped behind earth barricades, told a similar story. When it became evident they could not extinguish the fire, he said, the two still had time to reach safety before the explosion scooped out a gully 550 feet long and 25 feet deep.
“Two negro sailors and a coast guardsman were killed. The coast guardsman had rushed to the depot when he heard of the fire which preceded the explosion. Ten children and their school principal were injured when the concussion caved in the roof over a hallway at nearby Harvard, and at Glenvil, three high school seniors…were cut by flying glass. One of the injured, W. B. McQuaid, was the husband of Mrs. Mary E. McQuaid, one of the eight killed in an explosion at the depot April 6…
“Fred Schoenroeck, who was flying a mile south of Hastings when the explosion occurred, said the concussion rocked his plane….” (Associated Press. “Explosion Damage Set at $175,000.” The Lincoln Star, NE. 9-16-1944, p. 1 and 3.)
Sep 19: “The toll of dead in the Hastings naval ammunition depot’s Friday explosion mounted Saturday night when Ninth naval district headquarters in Chicago announced nine persons are dead or missing. The Associated Press quoted the navy as reporting 47 other civilian employes and enlisted men at the depot received medical attention for minor injuries. No cause has been determined, but investigation continued. Previous reports had listed only three dead and 56 injured, tho the list of injured reached 70 when those cut by flying glass in nearby towns were included….
“The navy’s latest casualty list:
Seaman 1/c Leslie Williams, Atmore, Ala.
Seaman 1/c Freeman Lorenzo Tull, Pocomoke City, Md.
Seaman 1/c Willie Williams, Atmore, Ala.
Seaman 2/c Daniel Casey, Carteret, N.J.
Seaman 2/c Frank William David, Lincolnton, N.C.
Seaman 2/c Samuel Burns, Delhi, La.
Seaman 2/c Clarence Randolph, Barton, Fla.
Seaman 2/c Ulysses Cole, Jr., Idabel, Okl.
Seaman 1/c Bert ER. Hugen, Hastings, Neb.
(Sunday Journal and Star, Lincoln NE. “Nine dead in depot blast.” 9-17-1944, p. 1.)
Sources
Adams County Nebraska Historical Society. “The Naval Ammunition Deport.” 2013. Accessed 4-19-2013: http://www.adamshistory.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=42
Associated Press. “4 Dead in Hastings Blast…21 Sain Injured at Naval Depot.” The Lincoln Star, NE. 9-15-1944, p. 1. Accessed 3-21-2024 at:
https://newspaperarchive.com/lincoln-star-sep-15-1944-p-1/
Associated Press. “Explosion Damage Set at $175,000.” The Lincoln Star, NE. 9-16-1944, p. 1. Accessed 3-21-2024 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/lincoln-star-sep-16-1944-p-1/
History Nebraska. “Marker Monday: U.S. Naval Ammunition Depot.” Accessed 3-21-2024 at: https://history.nebraska.gov/marker-monday-u-s-naval-ammunition-depot/
Moran, Edward P. Jr. Explosive Accident Summary: World War II. DoD Explosives Safety Board, Aug 1992. Accessed 4-19-2013: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA507027
Sehnert, Walt. “The Hastings Naval Ammunition Depot. McCook Daily Gazette, 4-26-2010. Accessed 4-19-2013 at: http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1629594.html
Sunday Journal and Star, Lincoln NE. “Nine dead in depot blast.” 9-17-1944, p. 1. Accessed 3-21-2024 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/lincoln-nebraska-state-journal-sep-17-1944-p-1/
[1] Cites: Walt Miller, Hastings NAD historian; Adams County Historical Society.