The USS Mount Hood

I might have mentioned this naval disaster before, so forgive me if I'm sounding a bit redundant, but for the occasion of veterans day I find this rather suitable. The USS Mount Hood was munitions ship that was docked near New Guinea during WWII. As a munition's ship its job was to supply battleships with ammunition for the Philippine offensive. To say the least something went very wrong with a routine ammo refill when all of a sudden the Mt Hood was erased from existence by two blinding and deafening explosions. My Uncle August who was on a neighboring small battleship was knocked off of a ladder by the shockwave of the hood exploding., His ship was one of the lucky ones, because a small fueling ship next to the Mt. Hood was also reduced to smithereens, and sailors on other nearby ships were killed by the explosion and debris. When my Uncle August regained his senses, he went above the deck to witness the full scope of the carnage. There was a huge mushroom cloud where the Mount Hood once was, and there were human remains in the water. Despite this traumatic event, my uncle still loved his time in the service and refers to it as the best time of his life. Now I'm sure that he's meeting with his fellow WWII veterans on Veterans day and reminiscing about these dark events as well as some of the brighter ones, like the time him and his comrads stole a tub of ice-cream from their superior officer and "ate the whole damn thing" or the time that he shot at aquatic surface mines with his buddies as target practice (it was also his job to be on a lookout for mines and subs.) I just wanted to bring this up because Mr. Bennett used to assign an interview assignment to his students, where they had to interview a veteran. While I couldn't track down the elusive U-boat captain, "Captain Stine" (or something like that), I took the liberty in talking to my uncle about his time in the service, and it proved to be quite the eye opener.