monium nitrate as a result of several explosions, including a fatal blast attributed to the presence of petrolatum in an evaporating pan.

The record of the court proceedings in the test case relating to the Texas City disaster comprises 39 volumes and some 33,000 pages of testimony and exhibits. In addition there are three volumes of typewritten transcript of committee hearings. It would be a most difficult task resulting in a voluminous report if the committee was to go into a detailed account and analysis of all the testimony. For this reason and to simplify matters there has been set out in the appendix a compendium of statements, all by responsible officials and agencies of the United States Government." The committee believes that these statements clearly demonstrate the Government's awareness and knowledge of the dangers and explosive characteristics of FGAN. Events subsequent to 1946 (initiation of foreign fertilizer program)

In the face of the history of explosions, however, and despite the need for further testing of FGAN's dangerous potentials, the Government in mid-1946 expanded the production of FGAN to meet its program commitments of providing fertilizer for Japan, Korea, and Germany. It is clear that Ordnance was preoccupied with the suitability of FGAN as a fertilizer rather than as an inherently dangerous explosive. The Government viewed itself as "an industrial organization" and considered the FGAN program a "commercial venture" in which the primary purpose was to insure only that its product met specific requirements as a fertilizer. It was reported at a field director's meeting for ammunition plants in August, 1946 that: The inspection in this program should be held to the minimum that we need to determine that the material produced is in accordance with the specifications. It isn't intended that there will be an elaborate inspection division at any of the plants, but it will be necessary that inspection be performed. This is a commercial venture, and a great deal of money has been entrusted to the Ordnance Department to produce a quantity of acceptable material.

Complaints of charred and broken paper bags

In the procedures adopted by Army Ordnance there was no substantial opportunity for the FGAN, after being processed at high temperatures, to cool. It was, in many instances, after being packed in paper bags, loaded into sealed boxcars for shipment. Metal containers, which would have minimized the danger in bagging at such high temperatures, were not used. The inescapable result of bagging hot FGAN in paper containers was a continuing history of complaints relating to charred, broken bags. Texas City and other ports continually were making complaints to Army Ordnance centers. The vice president of the Texas City Terminal Railway Co. (warehousemen for the FGAN at Texas City) testified that hot and damaged bags were received at Texas City as early as June 1946. He complained to one Ordnance plant that the bags were "scorched to the breaking point" and were "so hot, in many instances, that it was impossible for our men to handle the bags until they were allowed to cool off."

Failure of Government to give notice

The Government, however, did little about those complaints. The delivery of FGAN to the carriers and other people handling the ship

The compendium of statements was submitted as an exhibit by the attorneys appearing for claimants at the hearings before the special subcommittee in Galveston, Tex., and it is a part of the record of those hearings.

ments continued without change in handling procedure or notification of FGAN's dangerous characteristics. Instead, the Government emphasized that FGAN was a fertilizer rather than an inherently dangerous explosive. The labeling on the bagged FGAN was as follows:

"FERTILIZER" in large letters; in smaller letters underneath, "Ammonium Nitrate, nitrogen 32.5%"

According to the testimony, the word "fertilizer" is normally regarded in industry as a familiar and harmless substance. Workmen who handled the material at Texas City testified that they viewed FGAN as no less safe and inert than flour or cement.

FERTILIZER WHICH BLEW UP AT TEXAS CITY

Produced by Government and "sold" to private producer

The particular fertilizer which blew up at Texas City had been produced at three of the Army ordnance plants reactivated by the Government for the fertilizer program and pursuant to the sell-back arrangement was allotted to the Lion Oil Co., one of the commercial producers which had furnished fertilizer to the Government in 1946. The sale to Lion Oil Co. was covered by a contract dated January 10, 1947, which expressly provided that title to the fertilizer being sold by the War Department was to pass to Lion Oil upon its making payment for the FGAN to the Quartermaster purchasing office in New York City. Since the contract provided that Lion Oil could designate a third party recipient, Lion contracted for resale of the fertilizer with the French Supply Council, a French Government agency. The French Supply Council had earlier secured a preferential fertilizer allocation from the Civilian Production Administration, and, in pursuance thereof, the French shipping orders were transmitted to Lion Oil, which turned them over to the Army for execution.

The fertilizer, in accordance with contract requirements, was shipped by rail, under Government bills of lading, from ordnance plants in Nebraska and Iowa to the French Supply Council as consignee in Texas City. It was stored in shipside warehouses in Texas City. Loading of FGAN on steamship "Grandcamp"

By April 15, 1947,.1,850 tons of FGAN had been loaded on the steamship Grandcamp, a French Liberty ship owned by the Republic of France, and 1,000 tons on the privately owned steamship Highflyer. Loading of the fertilizer from warehouse to ships' stowage was performed by independent stevedores in the employ of the vessels. The Grandcamp carried, in addition, a quantity of munitions originally consigned to Venezuela but for undisclosed reasons not discharged there. The Highflyer also had an additional cargo of 2,000 tons of sulfur.

The customary method of stowing an inert cargo, which was the accepted method of stowing FGAN, was followed in loading the steamships Grandcamp and Highflyer. Dunnage, consisting of wooden boards and paper to protect the cargo, was laid on the floor of the holds. This dunnage, of course, was carbonaceous and therefore combustible. The bags of FGAN were packed one on top of the other in solid layers with no space for ventilation.

• Payment was not made, however, until long after the disaster.

Explosions at Texas City

Loading of No. 4 hold of the Grandcamp, where the fire started, ceased at 5 p. m. in the afternoon of April 15, and its hatch was closed and remained battened down until 8 o'clock the following morning when longshoremen boarded the ship and started removing the hatch covers. At approximately 8:15 a. m. smoke was observed coming from hold No. 4 containing 880 tons of FGAN and, upon inspection, fire was discovered. Efforts to halt the fire were unavailing. The captain ordered all personnel off the ship. Meanwhile the hatches were covered and steam was introduced into the holds to smother the flames and put out the fire. This is a normal and accepted method of fighting fire on board ship.

At 9:15 a. m. the fertilizer on the Grandcamp exploded with tremendous force. The explosion resulted in the spread of the fire to warehouses and other nearby structures and to the steamship Highflyer in a nearby slip. The fires continued all day and into the night. At approximately 1:10 a. m. on April 17 the FGAN in the Highflyer detonated, completely demolishing that vessel and the S. S. Wilson B. Keene which had been lying alongside. These explosions and resulting conflagrations virtually leveled the dock area in Texas City. In addition, approximately 1,000 residences, industrial plants, and other buildings were either totally destroyed or suffered major structural damage. Flying steel fragments and portions of the cargo of Grandcamp including a 30-foot-long drill stem weighing over a tonwere found 2 miles distant. As noted earlier about 570 persons suffered violent death. More than 3,500 other people were injured and suffered either delayed death or mental and physical anguish attendant upon months of hospital confinement and medical care.

CAUSATIVE FACTORS OF EXPLOSIONS

In the opinion of the committee, the evidence demonstrates that the tremendous tonnage of coated FGAN, hot and tightly packed in the hold of the Grandcamp, ignited and exploded. Two and twothirds Liberty ships were completely obliterated and destroyed and, with them, evidence which may have enabled everyone to know the exact process which produced the fire in the hold of the Grandcamp and the explosion. It was suggested, as a plausible explanation of the origin of the fire, that a lighted cigaret butt may have been dropped into the hold of the Grandcamp in the space between the ship's shell and the stacked FGAN, during the loading operations. However, a review of some 33,000 pages of testimony and exhibits disclosed no direct or dependable evidence in support of this supposition, The committee considers as a more reasonable explanation-one recognized by the Government itself-that the coated FGAN (which generated its own heat), being hot and tightly confined in great mass in the hold of the Grandcamp without proper ventilation, ignited spontaneously and exploded. As one Bureau of Mines' expert who investigated the disaster testified, these explosions were a classic example of simple factors of mass, heat, density, and confinement.

This analysis of the cause of the explosion in the Grandcamp is firmly substantiated by Government tests, by scientific authority, and by expert witnesses who testified in the case before the Federal courts. (See, for examples of the Government's recognition that

78228-56- -1

FGAN is capable of spontaneous combustion, Bureau of Mines Report I. C. 7463, June 1948; Bureau of Ordnance, Official Report Texas City Disaster, Circular No. 719.) The Government, in an official Picatinny Arsenal report, sets for the probable manner in which the FGAN exploded (Rpt. No. 1675, 1948).

b. When the hatch covers were removed on the following morning, the warm air in the hold started to rise and the air currents quickly fanned the smoldering fire and caused it to spead rapidly. The fire probably progressed most rapidly where the greatest amount of fuel-wooden dunnage and paper-was in contact with the bagged FGAN and the air could circulate most freely. During this time, molten FGAN probably flowed down the burning face to the bottom of the hold.

c. Within a relatively short time, some of the wooden dunnage burned away and the cargo began to shift and settle, probably against the shell of the ship, thus confining some of the molten burning FGAN in a closed space where gas pressure could develop rapidly. It was probably here that detonation originated and was propagated to the rest of the cargo.

If additional evidence was needed to buttress the above statements as to the cause of the disaster, it need only be pointed out that part of the FGAN which was on the docks at Texas City awaiting stowage at the time of the explosions was later reshipped by rail to the port of Baltimore, Md., where it was stowed aboard the steamship Ocean Liberty for shipment overseas. On July 28, 1947, at the port of Brest, France, that FGAN exploded and completely demolished the Ocean Liberty and all its cargo. Thereafter, in a suit filed in admiralty against the charterers of the vessel and its general agent, the evidence established and the district court found that the fire and explosion which destroyed the Ocean Liberty was due to the spontaneous combustion of the FGAN. (A/S Ludwig Mowinclels Rederi v. Accinanto, Limited, 99 F. Supp. 261, 264, 274). While the case was reversed on other grounds and remanded, the Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, nevertheless accepted the district court's finding of facts that the explosion was due to the spontaneous combustion of the FGAN (199 F. 2d 134, 138).

GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY

The event of the disaster at Texas City was, of course, the best proof that FGAN is an inherently dangerous explosive. The Army had been using ammonium nitrate for years as a component in the manufacture of explosives. The particular FGAN which blew up at Texas City was manufactured under an explosives patent at Army ordnance plants formerly used for the manufacture of munitions. The production program was placed under the immediate direction of the Army's Field Director of Ammunition Plants. Advice on the methods of manufacture and the hazards of processing the fertilizer was sought from experienced commercial producers of high explosives. There was a continuing history of fires, complaints of overheated FGAN in charred bags, and incidents of ammonium nitrate explosions. The committee is of the opinion that there is not the slightest basis for the belief that FGAN was an impotent product.

Yet, in the shipment of this product, the Government treated it as an everyday commodity of commerce. Common carriers and people who handle cargo in transit cannot be expected to possess the facilities or the technical knowledge to determine for themselves the latent and inherent dangers of complex compounds. It is incumbent upon manufacturers today to keep pace with the times and use the greatest caution and integrity to insure the safety and well-being of all.

Any Government claim, therefore, that FGAN's hazards were unforseseen is unavailing in the light of its knowledge that FGAN possessed explosive characteristics. It had the duty and obligation to know its own product and to ascertain the enormity of the forces it was turning loose upon unsuspecting persons.

It has been urged that intervening acts of negligence--longshoremen allegedly smoking about the holds of the Grandcamp-may have caused the explosions. This contention is entitled to little weight when it is recalled that FGAN is an inherently dangerous explosive and that there was an absence of any warning that it was either inflammable or explosive.

RELATIONSHIP OF UNITED STATES TO FERTILIZER AT TEXAS CITY

Much argument has been advanced concerning the passage of title or ownership of the particular FGAN which blew up in Texas City to the Lion Oil Co. and, in turn, to the French Supply Council. It has been urged that when the Government returned the fertilizer to Lion Oil by delivery to the railroad cars at the ordnance plants, it completely divested itself of all ownership, possession, and control of the FGAN. When the facts are carefully analyzed, however, and viewed in the light of the Government's entire foreign aid fertilizer program, it is believed that it made very little difference whether title to the FGAN passed or did not pass legalwise to Lion Oil because the Government had already committed the material to France and was in control, through a system of priorities, of the materials course. While the Government did not ship the FGAN directly itself and the material traveled through private industry to comply with the sellback arrangement, private producers nevertheless were still required to ship the fertilizer according to and in compliance with Government directions. The Government was permitting a deviation of its method but not of its objective.

Initiated for relief of occupied areas

It will be recalled that the whole fertilizer program was originally set up to take care of occupied areas only, i. e., Germany, Japan, and Southern Korea. The FGAN taken from the commercial producers was supposedly a temporary measure to be used until such time as the reactivated Army ordnance plants could get into full production.

The War Department secured fertilizer under this temporary measure by obtaining an allocation for the material from the Combined Food Board. The Department paid the commercial producers for the fertilizer and, under a sell-back arrangement as required by Combined Food Board allocation, it agreed to return an equivalent amount of the fertilizer supplied.

Program expanded

Under the temporary sell-back arrangement, return FGAN was to be supplied from Ordnance production during the spring of 1947. However, the nitrogen condition in the world continued to be serious. War ravaged countries like France, while not occupied areas, never

The Combined Food Board was an international agency which allocated food, fertilizer, and other scarce commodities among the United States and its allies. The Board's allocations of United States production were enforced by the Civilian Production Administration, the governmental agency controlling priorities. Advising the Civilian Production Administration on the question of nitrogen supplies was the Nitrogen Producers Industry Advisory Committee, a committee composed of commercial producers and headed by the Deputy Director of CPA's Chemical Division.