ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: A debt of gratitude is owed to Mr. J.D. Robinson for allowing me use of photos he took during that most tragic time in Texas City, Texas. Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: I also owe a debt of gratitude to Deputy Terry Bourgeois and Deputy John Fernandez of the Galveston County Sheriffs Office for their assistance in helping me find the answers to questions regarding the Texas City Disaster. Thank you Deputy Bourgeois and Deputy Fernandez.

Wednesday April 16, 1947 was a sunny spring morning in Texas City, Texas. Activity in the harbor was as could be expected with ships from various parts of the world arriving and departing. On this particular day, the four-hundred-forty foot Grandcamp was docked in Slip Number One; about six hundred feet away, docked at Slip Number Two was the SS High Flyer. Each of the two vessels contained within its hold a large amount of ammonium nitrate. The Grandcamp alone was carrying 7,700 tons of it and the SS High Flyer was carrying about 900 tons of it with 1800 tons of sulphur. In addition, dockside there was a warehouse containing even more ammonium nitrate, waiting to be shipped to Europe.

The Grandcamp had originally been christened the SS Benjamin Curtis, a U.S. liberty ship, as they were called. It was built as a military vessel and served in the Pacific Theater of War. Following the war, it was "mothballed" (taken out of service) at the Philadelphia Naval Facility. It was brought back into service for the French government, to assist in the rebuilding of European countries.

At approximately 8:10 a.m., a fire was discovered in the hold of the Grandcamp. This in itself was no cause for major alarm. Shipboard fires happen and there are procedures for handling most of them. Consideration had to be given to the remaining cargo also.

At a few minutes before 9 a.m., the captain of the Grandcamp ordered that the hold be steamed. Had it been effective, the fire would have been extinguished and the remaining cargo would not be damaged severely.

At 9:12 a.m., the Grandcamp exploded, killing hundreds of people. In Galveston, ten miles away, people were knocked down by the shockwave. Windows were broken in Houston, forty miles away and in Dallas, two hundred seventy miles away, windows rattled. The explosion blew 14,000,000 pounds of ships steel into the air at supersonic speed. The Monsanto and Union Carbide chemical plants, located in Texas City, were ablaze, along with many other businesses and oil storage facilities. Homes were blown completely away and some left burning.The High Flyer, being so closely positioned to the Grandcamp, was heavily damaged and ablaze. The crew heriocally fought the fire for about an hour, then abandoned ship, realizing it was hopeless.

Twelve hours after the explosion of the Grandcamp, tugboats were dispatched from Galveston to assist. The tugboat crews spent hours trying to free the anchor from the High Flyer, which had to be accomplished in order to tow the ship. They were unsuccessful. With a fire raging in its hold and the entire local 28-man volunteer fire department fighting the inferno, the High Flyer detonated! For the second time in less that a 15 hour period, fire and steel rained on Texas City! The entire volunteer fire department was wiped out, including firefighting equipment parked on the dock. The Wilson B. Keene was demolished by this explosion. The death toll then climbed by hundreds more.

The 10,640 pound anchor of the Grandcamp was hurled a distance of one-half mile and landed with such an impact that it buried itself in the soil. It would be almost two years before the anchor of the Grandcamp would be found. After excavating and examining it, it was determined to be the anchor of the Grandcamp. Today, it is located in Anchor Park in Texas City.