Whoops!

In a bit of a companion piece to yesterday’s article about battleship mutinies, today I offer a short look at some of the most dreadful accidents in the history of the battleship form…

Battleships were enormous investments of national treasure. They did not merely represent national power; they were the physical manifestations of that power. They embodied the prestige of the nation, with all of the emotional commitment that implies. This made it especially heart-breaking when battleships were sunk in action. But it was perhaps worse when battleships were lost to no fault of the enemy at all. No enemy hardly meant no effort to find fault, however.