QuoteOn October 24th, 1944, the USS Birmingham (CL-62) amd USS Irwin (DD-794) went to the assistance of the kamikazed Light Aircraft Carrier USS Princeton (CVL-23) off the coast of the Philippines. Despite heavy smoke and fire on the badly damaged carrier, damage control parties from both ships succeeded in extinguishing all topside fires by 1500hrs, but a fire below deck eventually caused the detonation of the entire of Princetons aft Torpedo magazine at 1524hrs. The shrapnel-filled blast wave swept the decks of all three ships, but Birmingham took the brunt of the blast. Heavily damaged along her entire Starboard topside, she suffered 233 of her crew killed and a further 426 wounded, more than half of her crew. Birming ham herself survived the blast and returned stateside for three months of repairs, but the Princeton was a total loss and scuttled later in the day.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FvBQK1rN.jpg&hash=ed07434cf8c522b3d5cdab0eb09ba6adbef1cffc)
More pics:
http://imgur.com/a/za69d#gH4hwEA (http://imgur.com/a/za69d#gH4hwEA)
I remember reading about this many years ago.
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Civilian yard employees refused to work aboard the ship due to the stench of as-yet undiscovered body parts within her perforated superstructure, leaving the grim task to US Navy personnel to complete.
War sucks... :(
So do yardbirds, it seems.