West Loch disaster - Pearl harbor.
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 6:08 pmA little know disaster occurred at Pearl Harbor two years after the Japanese attack on the navy base.
More info is available here
http://battle.netgate.net/westloch/westloch.htm
Basically what happened was that 29 Tank Landing ships were preparing for the assault on Saipan and loading ordnance and fuel for the invasion. (West Loch is the US Navy's ammunition point at Pearl Harbor. Somehow a fire broke out and quickly got out of control. A chain reaction of ordnance exploding and fuel feeding the fires caused a mass of panic and mayhem.
In all, 6 ships were lost and 163 men killed with 396 wounded.
It was the best kept disaster secret of WWII. The invasion of Saipan was only set back by one day.
All that remains of the event is this rusting hulk of the ship known only as LST-480.
Google Earth link
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=21.3 ... &z=17&om=1
Click on the image for a larger view
More info is available here
http://battle.netgate.net/westloch/westloch.htm
Basically what happened was that 29 Tank Landing ships were preparing for the assault on Saipan and loading ordnance and fuel for the invasion. (West Loch is the US Navy's ammunition point at Pearl Harbor. Somehow a fire broke out and quickly got out of control. A chain reaction of ordnance exploding and fuel feeding the fires caused a mass of panic and mayhem.
In all, 6 ships were lost and 163 men killed with 396 wounded.
It was the best kept disaster secret of WWII. The invasion of Saipan was only set back by one day.
All that remains of the event is this rusting hulk of the ship known only as LST-480.
Google Earth link
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=21.3 ... &z=17&om=1
Click on the image for a larger view
