were open, and bombs were being loaded into #3 Hold. At 08:30 on 10 November 1944, a party consisting of communications officer, Lt. Lester H. Wallace, and 17 men left the ship and headed for shore to collect the ship's mail. At 08:55, while this party was walking on the beach, the explosion occurred. Even at a distance of from the ship, the force of the explosion knocked Wallace and most of his men from their feet. Scrambling back into their boat, they headed back to the ship, only to turn around again shortly thereafter as "There was nothing but debris all around...". Mount Hood had been anchored in about of water. The initial explosion caused flame and smoke to shoot up from amidships to more than masthead height. Within seconds, the bulk of her cargo detonated with a more intense explosion. Mushrooming smoke rose to , obscuring the ship and the surrounding area for a radius of approximately . Mount Hoods former position was revealed by a trench in the ocean floor long, wide, and deep. The largest remaining piece of the hull was found in the trench and measured no bigger than . No other remains of Mount Hood were found except fragments of metal which had struck other ships in the harbor and a few tattered pages of a signal notebook found floating in the water several hundred yards away. No human remains were recovered of the 350 men aboard Mount Hood or small boats loading alongside at the time of the explosion. The only survivors from the Mount Hood crew were Lt. Wallace and the 17 enlisted men who had left the ship a short time before the explosion. Two of the crew were being transferred to the base brig for trial by court martial; and the remainder of the party were visiting the base chaplain or picking up mail at the base post office. Charges against the prisoners were dropped following the explosion. The concussion and metal fragments hurled from the ship caused casualties and damage to other ships and small craft within . The repair ship , which was broadside-on to the blast, was the most seriously damaged. All personnel topside on Mindanao were killed outright (including a crewman from Mount Hood who had been working on Mindanao at the time of the explosion—he was the only one of Mount Hood'''s deceased crew members