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Boat Blast \*Repudiated!Monday, May 21The Newport Liberation Front, which said Saturday that Newport Harbor had been “mined, said in a second letter today it was as surprised as others by an explosion on a gas barge near the Newport Bridge, The seeor*d letter was leEt Saturday night at the office af All Hands Abandon Ship, a local underground newspaper, and was released today.The front said it pulled the stunt” to give “people around here a small feeling of what the people to % seaport cities In Vietnam felt like when they woke lip one morning to find their harbora mined.1'The letter went on, And then that barge blew up. Lordy, you think you were surprised! We were just about ready lo ‘turn in our guerrilla badges and retire to Toledo,The so-ealled mining was reported in a letter left at the Daily News sometime Friday night. The mines turned out to be about 100 balloons tied to bricks exlenting from GoatIsland to Fort Adams.An explosion aboard a gas barge, the Oiesfer A. Poling, * about noon Saturday near the Newport Bridge was linked with the mining in an Associated Press story. The Dally News office was flooded wtih calls from news media through out the country seeking more Information.The Coast Guard said the explosion was caused by an electrical malfunction aboard the ship.The second letter from the NLF” said the group was not an organization ('NLF jual had a nice ring to if) We’re just a group of friends, who are really sick of this war. Some of us have fought in it, some of us are in the Navy and might have to. (All of us work, by the way.)”We’re not violent—at leastnot against other people who, like ll3j just want to live like human beings.”The explosion aboard the' Poling blew a hole in the dock and blew off three hatches, Jamestown Fire Capt. Howard V, Holland Jr. said. Ttic blast rocked sections of Jamestown and that town sent Its rescue boat to the vessel, and all its engines and the rescue wagon went to the Newport Bridge, Theodore R; Carr, supervisor at the Newport Bridge, who was in the administration office at the time of the explosion, said he was unaware that anything J was wrong until the Jamestown Fire department began ( crossing the bridge. He at* v tributed this to the northeast wind, which blew the sound away from this area.Frank J. Krebs of Bay View Drive, adjacent to Newport Bridge, said he was not an eye ■ witness, but he heard the ex- ■ plosion and went to a window of his house overlooking the bay and saw a puff of smoke and a flash of Fire from the gasoline barge, which was heading up the bay at b fast rate of speed.He saw a man running with a hose to extinguish the blaze and the boat made a u-turn about 500 feet soulh of the bridge,Fire Chief Arthur S. Clarke, Jr., said the fire department administered oxygen to a coast guardsman and a member of the ship's crew who were overcome by the fumes. The Coast Guard said no injuries were reported to the Coast Guard.Jamestown Police Chief Frederick C. B. Smyth and Patrolman William H. Murphy witnessed the explosion from the police station. At that time the Coast Guard had advised them that the Dally News had received a letter saying the bay was mined with balloons.
Newspaper Details
Newport Mercury
Newport, Rhode Island, US
Fri, May 26, 1972
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
John R.
USA 05 Nov 2019
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