Ships
The Grandcamp was a recently re-activated 437-foot-long (133 m) Liberty ship. Originally christened the SS Benjamin R. Curtis in Los Angeles in 1942, the ship served in the Pacific theatre and was mothballed in Philadelphia after World War II. In a Cold War gesture, the ship was assigned to the French Line to assist in the rebuilding of Europe. Along with ammonium nitrate—a very common cargo on the high seas—it was carrying small arms ammunition, machinery, and bales of sisal twine on the deck. Another ship in the harbor, the SS High Flyer, was docked about 600 feet (200 m) away from the SS Grandcamp. The High Flyer contained an additional 961 tons of ammonium nitrate and 3,600,000 pounds (1,800 tons) of sulfur. The ammonium nitrate in the two ships and in the adjacent warehouse was fertilizer on its way to farmers in Europe. The Grandcamp had arrived from Houston, Texas, where the port authority did not permit loading of ammonium nitrate.
Read more about this topic: Texas City Disaster
Famous quotes containing the word ships:
“Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“A modern fleet of ships does not so much make use of the sea as exploit a highway.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“Oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined
And druid herons’ vows
The voyage to ruin I must run,
Dawn ships clouted aground,
Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue,
Count my blessings aloud....”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)