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Into the Breech is the 97th overall episode of JAG and the 12th episode of Season 5.

Synopsis[]

Harm and Mac are assigned to counsel teenage cadets at the Iron Forge Naval Academy in Virginia, holding a mock trial. One of the cadets plays the role of the defendant, Gregory Riordan, a gunner's mate on the battleship Minnesota who allegedly caused an explosion in one of its main turrets, resulting in 29 deaths (including his own). Tolerating teenage awkwardness and young love, Harm assists the prosecution while Mac works with the defense. An unexpected twist occurs when several former Minnesota crew members come forward to offer actual testimony about Riordan and the hazings he endured. Eventually Harm learns that Riordan's wife was involved in a love triangle with him and a fellow gunner's mate, Michael Saunders, who barely survived the explosion. At last, Saunders comes forward to give full disclosure: he had orchestrated most of the hazings on the perfectionist Riordan and gotten into a scuffle with him on the morning of the explosion. In a fit of anger, he chose not to inform Riordan that one of his loaders had rammed too much propellant into one of the main guns of the Minnesota, causing overpressure that shattered the breech.

Meanwhile, television producer Renee Peterson tries to work around JAG headquarters to shoot a Navy recruiting commercial.

Notes[]

  • This episode was inspired by the turret explosion aboard the U.S.S. Iowa (BB-61) on April 19, 1989. There were 47 fatalities; the exact cause of the explosion was never determined, although the blame was initially placed on an individual sailor who was killed.
  • The Minnesota is depicted as a fictional Iowa-class battleship, hull number BB-65. That hull number had been assigned to the U.S.S. Kentucky, whose construction was suspended in the late days of World War II and never completed.
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