Great 286-Ton Gun Blows Up On A Test.

New York Times 100 years ago today, December 10, 1912:
Earth Trembles at Sandy Hook and Three Officers Hear Music of a Thousand Steel Missiles.
IN THE THICK OF IT UNHURT
1,660-Pound Projectile Tears Up Railroad Yards — Type Designed for Panama Canal and Philippines.
    With a detonation that was heard for miles, followed by a rain of steel, the fourth of the big fourteen-inch guns sent to Sandy Hook by the Ordnance Department of the Government to be tested, exploded yesterday morning. It was the first full pressure round to which it had been subjected, and the $60,000 gun, in the words of one of the officers, "simply didn't meet the test and went to pieces."
    The Sandy Hook proving grounds, where most of the great guns intended for the coast defense and other arms of the service are tested, has had many explosions in the past, but it is said there never was one that so completely wrecked a gun or made so much thunder as did this one. Three officers, among them Col. Edwin B. Babbitt, the commander of the proving grounds, experienced the sensation of listening to the music of scores of big steel fragments as they whizzed with lightning-like rapidity past their heads.
    The gun jacket was blown into atoms, great chunks of it being hurled half a mile, the breech lock, weighing more than two tons, was thrown over a quarter of a mile, while another piece, weighing more than 300 pounds, was hurled like a piece of cork over the new life-saving station more than half a mile away and into the sea.
    The great steel projectile which was in the gun at the time, and the weight of which is 1,660 pounds, likewise did all that could be expected of it in such emergency, and, passing over the target which it would have struck had the gun stood the, test, it tore along the beach ripping holes in the earth and sand for a hundred yards. The gun muzzle, about ten feet long and weighing hundreds of pounds, shot for the railroad tracks, 300 feet distant, and striking there did not stop moving until about twenty yards of ties and rails had been ripped up.
    At the lime of the explosion the gun was pointed south along the beach. Previously lighter tests had been applied, but yesterday's was to have been the first full pressure round. Capt. William J. McCaughey of the Ordnance Department was in direct command of the soldiers who were to make the test, with Col, Babbitt and Major Jay E. Hoffer present overseeing it all. The gun is of the new fourteen-inch type which the War Department is going to mount in the fortifications guarding the Panama Canal, the new fortifications in Hawaii, and also those guarding the sea approaches to the City of Manila. Three of the guns had already been tested and proved to be all that was expected of them. There was every reason to believe that the one that went to pieces yesterday would prove to be just as strong as the others.
    The target against which the 1,660-pound projectile was to have been thrown was on the beach 300 yards away. The target was made of fourteen-inch armor plate, and the wrecking of it would have furnished a good idea of the destructive powers of the mighty piece of ordnance. The gun was fired from a temporary disappearing carriage, and a few seconds before the command to fire was given, the ordnance officers and soldiers, with the exception of Col. Babbitt, Major Hoffer, and Capt. McCaughey, took their stations behind the bombproof concrete wall, the regulations requiring that all enlisted men during the tests of new material of any kind shall seek adequate cover, so as to make certain their safety in the event of just such an accident as that of yesterday.
    Slowly the great gun was elevated on its carriage until it pointed straight for the target. The projectile was in position and the charge of 350 pounds of smokeless powder that was to send the projectile on its way was inserted. The information that all was ready was given to Capt. McCaughey, and a moment later McCaughey issued the command to let her go. The response was a terrific explosion that shook the houses on the hillocks of Sandy Hook until they rocked as if from an earthquake. The air was filled with flying particles of steel varying in size from thousands of little pieces that weighed ounces to other hundreds of pieces that weighed hundreds of pounds.
    On the tops of houses and in the yards and along the bench fragments of the jacket fell like rain drops in a Spring shower while a few of the Sandy Hook life savers in their rush for safety turned their heads in their flight and saw the giant breech-lock hurtling through the air and heard its hiss as it passed over their living quarters and fell into the ocean. In addition to the ordnance officers and their families and a full detachment of ordnance soldiers Sandy Hook is also the home of the officers and men of the six companies of coast artillery, comprising the garrison of Fort Hancock. There are also many civilians living there as well as a big force of Government life-savers.
    Immediately following the explosion these residents rushed for the proving grounds. Women and children, and men, too, no less excited, ran screaming. When they got to the beach they found officers and soldiers rubbing dust out of their eyes and everybody looking at everybody  else to see if any among them had been hurt.
    Col. Babbitt looked at Major Hoffer and Capt. McCaughey, and they looked back at Col. Babbitt The three had been exposed, and had stood still and listened to flying pieces of steel whizz past their heads. Not one of the three had so much as a scratch to show the danger they had been in. There was also one ordnance enlisted man, named Brennan, who had not been properly under cover, and he, too, had heard the deadly music.
    "Gee, but that was a narrow one," said Brennan to one of his comrades who rushed to his side, expecting to find him injured.
    Col. Babbitt made a preliminary inspection of the wrecked gun, and reported by wire to the Ordnance Department in Washington that the pressure at the time of the explosion was about 15 per cent. greater than the ordinary service pressure of 36,000 pounds. He did not venture to give the cause of the accident. That will follow in the full report to be mailed in a few days.
    The gun weighed, with its carriage, 286 tons. As compared with the 12-inch gun, Gen. Crozier, former Chief of Ordnance, and now head of the War College, has stated that its range was 30 per cent. greater, and that up to a distance of 12,000 yards no armor had yet been manufactured that its projectile would not penetrate.