Byline: Combined wire services
The bodies of 47 sailors killed in the gun explosion on the Iowa arrived in the United States on Thursday as the Navy tried to figure out what caused the battleship's turret to blow up.
None of the guns in the No. 2 turret had been fired before the explosion instantly killed the seamen, Navy officials said. They discarded a theory that the blast had been sparked by red- hot debris left in the gun's breech by earlier rounds.
The Navy organized a board of inquiry and placed a moratorium on firing 16-inch guns, found only on the Iowa and its three sister battleships, the New Jersey, the Wisconsin and the Missouri.
The Iowa was headed back to its home port at Norfolk, Va., while the bodies of the dead were flown to the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and families of the battleship's 1,600 crewmen waited to learn whether their relatives were among the dead.
At the White House, chief of staff John Sununu announced that President Bush will attend a memorial service Monday for the victims in Norfolk. …
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