From Thu Nov 20 21:25:32 1997
>Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 23:25:10 -0500
>From: Brooks A Rowlett
>Organization: None whatsoever
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01-C-MACOS8 (Macintosh; I; PPC)
>To: mahan@microworks.net
>Subject: Re: Scapa Flow Scuttle (was: Warships sunk during Guadalcanal)
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>Eric Bergerud wrote:
>
> > >
> > My command of the field of metallurgy is not encylopedic, but I am VERY
> > skeptical about the radiation shielding. Iron ores or several > types are very
> > common and finding “uncontaminated” ore I should would be very easy.
>
>….(largish snip)
>
>. The Scapa Flow bit sounds
> > like one of those “urban legends” to me. If not, it would be one heck of a
> > good bit of WWI trivia for us all to cherish.
>
>I have addressed this bit once before. There are two problems with
>newly dug iron ores – fallout and a practice of using radiation
>sources for measurements in the blast furnaces, not a technology
>employed until after WW2. The smelting process blows air through the ore
> mix and the air bears the minute quantities of contaminants. Radiation
>sheilding made from old armor is cut straight from plates without
>remelting/resmelting.
>
>The expalnation of this I found in:
>
>THE SOPHISTICATED LADY: THE BATTLESHIP _INDIANA_ IN WORLD WAR TWO, by
>Myron J Smith, Jr.; Ft Wayne Public Library, 1973.
>
>”Some 210 tons of her plate now forms a lead-lined laboratroy for
>radiation research under the lawn of the medical center at Salt Lake
>City, Utah. It was chosen because it was free from cobalt-60, now
>present in steel blast furnaces as an indicator, which could effect
>(sic) those sensitivbe experiments involving the measurement of
>radioactivity. Another 65 tons of her armor serves a similar purpose at
>the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in hines, Illinois.” He has a
>reference to the Navla histoprical Center’s HISTORIC SHIP EXHIBITS IN
>THE UNITED STATES, of 1969, which was also partly or entirey published
>as an appendix in a DANFS volume.”
>
>(Myron SMith later became the author of several books on the slow
>older battleships, published in a long softbound format like Squadron
>’In Action’ series. with names like KEYSTONR STATE BATTLEWAGON,
>MOUNTAINEER STATE BNATTLEWAGON, etc.)
>
>Brooks A Rowlett
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