| USS TURNER (January 3, 1944)
Returning to the USA after completing her third Atlantic convoy duty, the destroyer Turner anchored in the Ambrose Channel off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, awaiting to enter the Brooklyn Navy Yard for repairs. At about 6.30am next morning, the destroyer was shaken by a series of internal explosions in her ammunition storage areas while the crew was preparing for breakfast. The explosion ignited the fuel tanks turning the ship into a raging inferno. Another explosion blew the bottom out of the vessel and the blazing ship began to sink by the stern. It is not known what caused the explosions which took the lives of 15 officers and 138 ratings. There were 165 survivors who were rescued by nearby ships and taken to the hospital at Sandy Hook. Many lives were saved when several cases of blood plasma were flown in from Brooklyn, New York, in a U.S. Coast Guard Hoverfly helicopter. This was the first recorded lifesaving flight conducted by a rotary-wing aircraft.
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On weald of Kent I watched once more
Again I heard that grumbling roar
Of fighter planes; yet none were near
And all around the sky was clear
Borne on the wind a whisper came
'Though men grow old, they stay the same'
And then I knew, unseen to eye
The ageless Few were sweeping by
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