Iowa’s Skipper Agrees Sabotage Caused Blast but Refuses to Say Hartwig Did It

WASHINGTON —  The skipper of the battleship Iowa on Monday refused to endorse the Navy’s official conclusion that Petty Officer Mate Clayton M. Hartwig probably caused the April 19 gun turret blast that killed Hartwig and 46 other sailors.

Capt. Fred P. Moosally, in his first public testimony since the devastating blast, said he believed the explosion was a deliberate act of sabotage, but he said that he was not qualified to support the Navy’s belief that Hartwig was responsible.

“To me, the only conclusion that counts is that there was a wrongful intentional act and I agree with that conclusion,” Moosally said. But, later in his testimony, he said: “I would not make a statement that . . . Hartwig committed that act.”

Moosally began his appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee with a vigorous defense of the Iowa, its 1,500-member crew and his leadership. But by the end of the nearly three-hour hearing, the 23-year Navy veteran was obviously weary and dispirited.

He was forced repeatedly to answer questions about problems with the quality of the Iowa’s crew, its training and the usefulness of the World War II-vintage battleship in the modern Navy. He said the ship was rife with drug abuse, unqualified personnel and high absenteeism when he took command in May, 1988, but he contended that he had corrected the deficiencies.

Adding to Moosally’s misery, Hartwig’s mother, Evelyn Hartwig of Cleveland, confronted the skipper after the hearing and demanded that he explicitly clear her dead son’s name. An emotional Mrs. Hartwig said of her son: “He loved the Iowa and the Navy as much as you do, captain.”

“I know he did, ma’am,” Moosally said, gently laying a hand on her shoulder.

In a hallway press conference after the hearing, Moosally called Hartwig “a good gunner’s mate.” The skipper said of the blast, “I don’t think I can say a certain individual did it. . . . All the witnesses are dead. I don’t know if there will ever be an answer” to what caused it.

Kathleen Kubicina, Hartwig’s sister, said she believes “someone has gotten to” Moosally to force him to support the Navy’s sabotage theory. “If he doesn’t think my brother did it, then who does he think did it?” she asked. Kubicina has long contended that the explosion was an accident caused by sloppy training and operations and that her brother was being made the scapegoat in a Navy cover-up.

The Hartwig family’s lawyer, Kreig Brusnahan, angrily declared: “The Navy has no evidence to support the conclusion that Clay did it. They’d better back away or they’re going to face some consequences.”

Much of Monday’s hearing focused on the Navy’s findings of serious deficiencies in crew training and discipline aboard the battleship. Moosally acknowledged that he found rampant problems when he took charge, but he said that by the time of the April explosion, most of the troubles had been solved.

“You have before you a paradox--a tale of two ships,” Moosally told the four members of the 20-member Senate panel who showed up for the hearing. “One ship is this Iowa you read about in the newspapers, a ship of laid-back attitudes, failure and ineptitude. The other Iowa is the Iowa that I command: an Iowa that is well-trained, well-maintained and professional.”

While Navy investigators said that they found numerous instances of lax command oversight aboard the giant warship, they said that the problems did not contribute to the explosion.

The Navy, in a Sept. 7 report, concluded that Hartwig “most likely” caused the explosion by inserting some type of detonator between bags of gunpowder in one of the ship’s 16-inch guns.

Navy officials acknowledged their evidence was circumstantial because all the witnesses, including Hartwig, were killed in the blast.

FBI technicians have raised questions about the Navy’s findings, saying they could not duplicate Navy laboratory tests that found traces of a foreign substance in the gun barrel.

The Navy has steadfastly defended its conclusions, saying there is no other plausible explanation for the blast.

BACKGROUND

The explosion aboard the battleship Iowa on April 19 took place in the No. 2 gun turret during a gunnery exercise, killing 47 sailors. Navy officials said the blast occurred as the gun was being loaded with ammunition for its first practice shot of the exercise.