The report of the Board of Inquiry into the recent fatal accident on board H.M.N.Z.S. Monowai has now been issued. The official announcement says:— While carrying out firing practice on December 30, a serious accident occurred in H.M.N.Z.S. Monowai, resulting in four able seamen, members of a gun crew, being killed. Two other seamen were badly injured and one suffered minor injuries. Three officers also sustained minor injuries. Fire had been opened and the two guns on the forecastle got off their first salvo normally and almost simultaneously. In the second salvo there was a slight delay in the port gun, followed by a violent explosion and the breech block flew out to the rear, causing the casualties. The circumstances attending the accident have been fully investigated by the Naval Board of Inquiry, which found that the gun was correctly fired by the gunlayer, that a slight "hang fire" occurred and that one member of the gun's crew, who died of his injuries, started to open the breech of the gun—having failed to notice that his gun had not recoiled —as soon as he heard the starboard gun fire that salvo. The board also found that the breech mechanism was in a fully efficient condition, and that no mechanical defect or failure existed to which the accident could be attributed.

[Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 29, 4 February 1942, Page 5]