On September 10, 1939 the British submarine HMS Oxley was sunk off the coast of Norway, for a loss of all but two of her crew. More shocking, however, was the circumstance of the boat’s loss, an event clouded by wartime secrets and propaganda.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.