Death on the Saint Paul

With the punctuality of a suburban commuter catching the 8:01, the 13,500-ton U.S. cruiser Saint Paul one morning last week slipped through the early morning fog into the North Korean port of Kojo.

Quietly her 1,700-man crew, to whom Korea's war at sea has become a businesslike and boring routine of daily shelling, went to general quarters. Earsplitting salvos reverberated all morning and afternoon as the Saint Paul's 5-and 8-in. guns plastered Communist shore installations. The blast came at 3:55 p.m. Suddenly the cruiser lurched like a hooked marlin, rattling from stem to stern. Not enemy action but a gunpowder fire of undetermined origin had set off a blast in one of the Saint Paul's forward eight-inch turrets. Damage-control teams pulled 30 bodies out of the steeled compartment while poisonous powder flames were still swirling. For two hours, while the ship stayed in line shelling the shore, shipmates gave artificial respiration to the men. None could be revived: all had died by suffocation. It was the Navy's costliest loss at sea in the Korean war.

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