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C.H. Graves
Removing the dead from the ship, following her boiler explosion at San Diego, California
1905, 21 July
Stereocard, detail
U.S. Navy
Naval History and Heritage Command, NH 89081
LL/37646
UNITED STATES GUNBOAT BENNINGTON
"It is one of the strange twists of fate that a defective boiler on board the Bennington should have inflicted far greater disaster upon the American navy than two Spanish fleets were able to inflict in two history-making battles." The accident which is said to be unprecedented in the history of the United States navy occurred on July 21, while the gun boat Bennington was about to sail from San Diego harbor, California, to convoy the monitor Wyoming to Mare Island navy yard, San Francisco. Steam was up and everything was in readiness when the starboard boiler exploded and was jammed back on another boiler which in turn exploded. Human bodies were hurled more than a hundred feet upward and when the smoke had cleared away only a few men could be seen on deck, while a number were floundering in the water. A good many of the latter were saved. At the time of the explosion, more than a hundred and ninety men were aboard the warship. Lieut. Newman K. Perry Jr. and 61 men were killed and 48 of the crew were seriously, some of them fatally injured. So great was the damage done to the ship, that it had to be beached as shown in our picture, in order to prevent sinking. The ill-fated Bennington was among the first vessels built for the new navy, having been placed in commission in 1891
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