How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed [Hardcover]

Hyman George Rickover (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1995

Using modern technical knowledge, Admiral Rickover offers convincing evidence that it was not the Spanish but spontaneous combustion in a bunker filled with coal that caused a fire which triggered the explosion of the Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898. First published in 1976, the book has been updated to include new data.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 178 pages
• Publisher: Naval Inst Pr (April 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557507171
• ISBN-13: 978-1557507174
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,341,438 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most concise and accurate report of the Maine story, July 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed (Hardcover)

The story of the U.S.S. Maine and the disaster it encountered has been written many times. The tragic loss of 266 lives was blamed on a mine, and it was a partial cause of the Spanish-American war. Admiral Rickover's couriosity was tickled by a newspaper article, which indicated that the original Court of Inquiry ivestigating the cause of the explosion and destruction of the ship had some peculiar irregularities involved. The Court did not call on existing experts in explosions and mines to testify or examine the available evidence, and the ship's captain who might have been responsible was allowed to attend all court sessions and question witnesses. Admiral Rickover assembled a team of historians and explosions experts to examine all original records and evidence to form his own picture of what happened in the light of modern day knowledge of explosions. The book is the rsult of his team's work, and the first, and so far only, work that has dealt accurately with the technical aspects of the ship loss. All his team members were competent in their field, drawn from Navy experts, and there can be no doubt that his finding that the cause of the explosion was internal and purely accidental is accurate. His book is the definitive verdict on the story, and it is presented very clearly, even the technical details are explained so a layman can understand them, although not proven in the sense that scioentists would demand. From a purely scientific point of view, the reader will have to believe in the expertise of Admiral Rickover and his team. But who is to doubt the father of the nuclear submarine?

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough, but not boring, November 13, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed (Hardcover)

If you want to know what happened to the Maine, read this book. There's a little historical background, but not the hundreds of pages that some authors devote to this subject.

It deals mostly with the "nuts and bolts" of the explosion and what caused it.