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June 19th, 1904

Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine

1330 Hours

The lunch whistle blew, and the men working on the construction of the new battleship USS Georgia took out their lunch pails and exited the work area.

A man with two lunch pails in hand approached the hull that was nearing readiness for launch. He placed one of the pails by one of the chocks keeping the ship in place and placed the second by the other. Each lunch pail contained 30 pounds of TNT. He turned on the timers and made a beeline for the entrance. Five minutes later, the bombs detonated, and the hull slipped off of the rear chocks and rolled forward and to the side. Substantial damage was caused, and the superstructure of the ship was heavily damaged. Her launch was delayed for another year.


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