Note: If you look to the rear, you
will see a small tree line. That is the Navy Road approximately a
mile from the pier facilities. At the time, I was living on the
Dorbrook farm in Colts Neck.
NIKE
BASE DISASTER PROBED.
10
KILLED IN VIOLENT EXPLOSION.
Middletown,
N.J. (AP) -- Investigators searched a Nike base near here today in an
effort to learn what caused eight fully armed missiles to blow up in a
furious mushroom of fire and death.
The
explosion yesterday killed 10 persons and scattered explosive warheads
across a wide area of the countryside.
The disaster as described by a general was an accident that could not
happen but did, was set off by a single missile that exploded.
A split-second chain reaction turned the entire area into a flaming pit
of destruction that one eyewitness called horrible beyond belief.
Mangled bodies and fragments lay strewn about where a moment before men
had stood. The disintegration of the victims made it difficult to establish
identities of all.
Three others were injured, one seriously.
The dead included six soldiers and four civilians.
Military
Victims:
Sgt. DANIEL J. LAVENGOOD.
Sgt. JEROME W. MOULD.
SP3 WALTER E. BERRY.
SP3 WILLIAM I. COCHRAN.
PFC DONALD L. MARSH.
Pvt. NICKLOS J. COMPOSINO.
Civil Corps Civilian Victims:
JOSEPH ARCIERE.
JOSEPH F. BROKOS.
LEE A. PARKER.
CHARLES ROMANOW.
Two
servicemen in a 20-foot-deep pit under a missile's launching pad miraculously
survived the holocaust.
Staff Sgt. JOSEPH W. McKENZIE, 33, a launcher section chief from Framingham,
Mass., stepped from the pit unhurt. His partner, Pfc. JOSEPH ABOTT, 24,
Grindstone, Pa., was treated for shock and hysteria.
The
missiles, known as the Ajax type, exploded at about 1:20 p.m. while a
team of experts was working on them. They were to be replaced next year
by Hercules missiles capable of carrying atomic warheads.
Each
of the Ajax missiles carried three conventional warheads of explosives
and shrapnel.
Most of the explosive devices were accounted for, but some had still not
been located today.
Duff said ordnance experts had found that all of the eight missiles had
left the launching area, flying various distances.
A 12-foot section of one missile landed in a back yard three-quarters
of a mile away.
Patrolman
Daniel Murdoch, one of the first at the scene, told of "the horror
of seeing men, their bodies still afire, and the head of at least one
of the men blown away by the force of the explosion."
The
Army flew in three inspectors from the office of the chief of ordnance
in Washington to investigate the explosion. What set it off may never
be known.
Residents of this area had protested in vain against erection of the installation
18 months ago. The Army had told the public no such accident was possible
and that the missiles would only be fired in case of war.
Windows
were shattered and doors blown in a mile or more from the explosion scene.
One woman was blown out of a chair in the living room of her home.
The Ajax, about 32 feet long and a foot in diameter, weighs about a ton
and is designed to bring down enemy aircraft at altitudes of up to 60,000
feet. It has a range of 15 miles.
Chester
Times Pennsylvania 1958-05-23
|
