A Glimpse of Hell (book)
Cover of the book
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| Author | Charles C. Thompson II |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | USS Iowa turret explosion |
| Published | 1999 (W. W. Norton & Company) |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 430 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 39890431 |
A Glimpse of Hell: The Explosion on the USS Iowa and Its Cover-Up is a nonfiction book of investigative journalism, written by Charles C. Thompson II and published in 1999. The book describes the USS Iowa turret explosion that took place on April 19, 1989, and the subsequent investigations that tried to determine the cause. The explosion aboard the United States Navy battleship Iowa killed 47 of the turret's crewmen.
Soon after the explosion, Thompson was informed by an Iowa crewman that the Navy was conducting a dishonest investigation into the cause of the tragedy. Thompson, a producer for the television newsmagazine 60 Minutes, later produced several television reports which disputed the Navy's conclusions as to what had caused the explosion.
Based on his work for the 60 Minutes reports plus further investigation on his own, Thompson wrote A Glimpse of Hell. The book was published by W. W. Norton & Company. Thompson's book was extremely critical of most of the Navy personnel involved in the investigation, concluding that the Navy had orchestrated a cover-up to conceal the true cause of the explosion.
Upon its publication, the book received favorable comments from book reviewers. Thompson later claimed that the Navy tried to suppress sales by banning the book from Navy exchange stores on Navy bases throughout the world. In 2001, five Navy servicemen named in Thompson's book sued Thompson, the book's publisher, and one of Thompson's sources for libel, false light privacy, and conspiracy. The suit was settled out-of-court in 2007 for undisclosed terms.
On the morning of April 19, 1989, the United States Navy battleship USS Iowa, under the command of Captain Fred Moosally, was 260 nautical miles (480 km) northeast of Puerto Rico, steaming at 15 knots (17 mph; 28 km/h), and preparing to engage in a live-fire exercise with its 16-inch guns. At 09:53, as the ship's 16-inch Turret Two loaded and prepared to fire its three guns, a fireball between 2500 and 3000 °F (1400 and 1650 °C) and traveling at 2,000 feet per second (600 m/s) with a pressure of 4,000 pounds per square inch (28 MPa) blew out from the turret's center gun's open breech. The fireball spread through all three of the turret's gun rooms and through much of the lower levels of the turret. All 47 crewmen inside the turret were killed.
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