Between 1898 and 1955, fifteen warships blew up while they were at anchor, in harbour, with no enemy in sight. 6,696 men died. Eight navies lost ships this way: America, Japan, Brazil, France, Britain, Italy, Russia and the Soviet Union.
Every loss ended in an inquiry, and every inquiry had to decide who to blame. Four of them blamed an enemy, and one of those verdicts started a war. France, Britain and Japan blamed their own powder. Some were never solved. This film takes each case in turn: the ship, the night she was lost, what the inquiry decided, and what the evidence says today.
It also covers the one navy that never lost a battleship at anchor. The reason was chemistry, and the Royal Navy found it out at Jutland.

0:00 Havana, 1898
0:44 USS Maine
5:06 Mikasa
7:30 Aquidabã
9:23 Iéna
12:13 Liberté
14:31 HMS Bulwark
16:58 Benedetto Brin
18:56 HMS Natal
20:55 Leonardo da Vinci
24:07 Imperatritsa Mariya
26:40 Tsukuba
28:06 HMS Vanguard
30:31 Kawachi
32:15 The German Exception
34:54 Mutsu
37:33 Novorossiysk
40:52 After the Battleships