The fact is that there is not enough left of the magazine area to ascertain exactly what happened, so everything is guesswork. The "black powder" theory was proposed in a 1944 BuShips report. The explosion of the shell itself (it wasn't a 'bomb' in the proper sense) could just as easily have ignited the powder in the main magazine.
I only questioned your summation this way because you stated it so emphatically, as though it were a proven fact, when in fact it's not a fact at all.
__________________
“Never do anything you can't take back.”
—Rocky Russo
|