USS Turner DD-648 (1/4) ~ New Jersey Scuba Diving

USS Turner DD-648 (1/4)

Type:: shipwreck, destroyer, Bristol class, U.S. Navy
Built:: 1942, Kearny NJ USA
Specs:: ( 350 x 36 ft ) 1700 displacement tons, 301 crew
Sunk:: Monday January 3, 1944
munitions explosion while at anchor - 138 casualties
Depth:: 55 ft

There doesn't seem to be a whole lot left of the Turner. The wreck was demolished and even partially removed by Navy. After much trolling around to anchor into "the big part" of the wreck, all that I found was a small patch of rubble.

In one part, the boilers were clearly evident, recognizable by piles of tubes. However, the rest of the wreckage is low. But with two foot viz ( four if you looked both ways ) I could certainly have missed a lot.

The explosion and subsequent sinking of the Turner are attributed to accidental detonation of Mousetrap ASW weapons during unloading, which is also thought to be the cause of the loss of the USS Solar.

Anti-Submarine Projector Mk 20 & 22 ( Mousetrap )

Though Hedgehog had been a success, its large dimensions, especially weight, caused much trouble in the fleet. In fleet destroyers, for example, one of the forward 5" mounts would have been due for removal if a Hedgehog was to be installed; this, among other reasons, caused Hedgehog in the U.S. Navy to be exclusively fitted to destroyer escorts and license-built British frigates and ASW refits of flush-deck destroyers.

However, the benefits of Hedgehog could be of use in the large number of small sub hunters, the PCs, which rarely even sighted a submarine but which made for good coastal escorts nevertheless. The new weapon, ordered developed early in 1942, was to fit on the small ships and yet be able to deliver an effective pattern of charges, 70 ft wide. Those were originally intended to be slightly larger than the original Hedgehog round, but problems with the development of that new charge caused it to be abandoned in favor of the original Hedgehog round. A rocket (in this case meaning a slow-burning propellant) was attached to the lower body to make it fireable without the recoil inherent in Hedgehog.

Mousetrap suffered from a far smaller pattern, lack of stabilization and range adjustment, and was not the equal of Hedgehog. It was, nevertheless, installed in large numbers aboard small craft and even on twelve fleet destroyers ( because it could be mounted alongside the superstructure. ) These weapons were Mk 22 projectors, paired to equal a Hedgehog salvo, but was unsuccessful, probably causing the loss of the destroyer Turner in early 1944.

Mk 20 was a four-rail projector, while Mk 22 added two rails on each side for a total of eight. Mk 22 was standard later in the war; Mk 20 being adapted to fit the additional rails.