American Notes THE NAVY

He owned two books detailing how to build a detonating device. He had talked about dying in an explosion. He was the gun captain in Turret 2 of the U.S.S. Iowa on April 19 when a huge explosion in a 16-in. gun killed 47 sailors. On such admittedly circumstantial evidence, the Navy concluded last week that Gunner's Mate Clayton Hartwig, 24, who died in the blast, was "most likely" responsible for the tragedy.

A board of inquiry ruled out accidental causes, called the explosion a "wrongful, intentional act" and said it had found "foreign material" in the key gun barrel. The admirals theorized that a detonator had been placed between powder bags and that someone had rammed the bags more tightly than normal. Hartwig was, the Navy said, in the best position to direct this. The board did not cite a motive, and one of its members said it had "no hard evidence" to confirm reports that Hartwig may have been a homosexual who was distraught over the ending of a friendship with another sailor.

The investigators, however, did not check out another possibility: that the detonator had been placed inside one of the powder bags before it reached the turret's gun level. Many sailors had access to the bags while they were stored in the turret's powder magazine. Hartwig's angry sister Kathy called the board's findings "obscene and incredible" and threatened to sue the Navy.