Explosive Accident Summary: World War II

Abstract

The DoD Explosives Safety Board is developing an electronic data base which lists and characterizes explosive accidents stored in historical files. While this data base is far from complete now, it may someday serve as a standard reference for the complex anatomy of explosive incidents. Accidents exact a tragic value: their causes give us clues to prevent recurrence, and their effects provide insight to those who design safety into operating facilities. While accident investigations fail to quantify phenomena to the degree that we obtain from explosives testing, they painfully substantiate hazards and underwrite safety programs. In the course of searching historical files, a summary of World War II explosive accidents appeared which may be of interest to the field. While the explosions listed in this collection are not presented in depth, many are detailed in the classic abstracts written in the 1940s by the Office, Chief of Ordnance. They are the foundation upon which the Ordnance Safety Program was built. Many of these disasters may not be familiar even to those who served.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 1992
Accession Number
ADA507027

Entities

People

  • Edward P. Moran Jr.

Organizations

  • United States Department of Defense

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter IED
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Accident Investigations
  • Accidents
  • Ammunition
  • Blast
  • Databases
  • Department Of Defense
  • Energetic Materials
  • Explosions
  • Explosives
  • Materials
  • Materials Laboratories
  • Munitions
  • Second World War
  • Standards
  • Surface Transportation
  • Training

Readers

  • Aviation Safety Risk Assessment.
  • Computer Science.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics