5. However, be this as it may, there remains the conclusive point referred to in paragraph 5(2) of the acting Colonial Secretary's letter of the 51st May,
1946.
The "act of war" relied on by you as the cause of the explosion is the storage by the Japanese of ammunition in the tunnel (and there is no evidence that ammunition was stored there by anyone else) and that act was not the proximate cause and could not in law be relied upon. That act is a cause of extreme remoteness and the intervening events before the occurrence of the explosion were many and complex e.g. the artial removal of the ammunition in October, the blocking of the tunnel mouth twice at the end of December, followed by the breaking down of the blocks by looters, the uncompleted effort to remove all the ammunition and (almost certainly) a rock fall.
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4. The proceedings and findings of the Court of Enquiry have been most carefully studied.
In the opinion of the Government's advisers there is not one iota of evidence on the record to justify the Court's conclusion that of all possible causes of the explosion the most likely was "interference with ammunition by looters including possibility of lighting cordite in situ".
The evidence is overwhelmingly strong that the cause of the explosion was a rock fall which detonated the explosives or caused fire (by breaking a phosphorous grenade) resulting in the explosion.
Here and here alone lies the proximate cause and this is wholly outside the terms of the above mentioned Kar Office letter.
5.
Whose, then, was the responsibility for there being in situ on the 2nd January, explosives capable of being detonated?
There is no hint on the record that the removal of the ammunition could possibly be the responsibility of any branch of the Civil Affairs Service, Police or otherwise. It was a Military responsibility.
The record of the evidence of Captain A.G. STALEY, I.A.0.C. shows that he was in October in charge of the collection of explosives from various tunnels and dumps to a central dump.
He states that he did not enter the tunnel in question to inspect the ammunition in detail and appears to have placed Flight Lieut. Duke in charge of the removal.
He states that at the beginning of November the last-named officer reported verbally that the tunnels had been cleared. Flight Lieut. Duke had left the Colony before the date of the Court of Enquiry.
The evidence of Captain F.E. HAWDON, R.M. (not to speak of the explosion itself) shows that not only was there a considerable quantity of ammunition lying loose in the first out of the tunnel but there was second cut of the tunnel in which some four or five tons of ammunition and explosive remained untouched.
One is reluctantly forced to the conclusion that there was a grave derelâction of duty by Flight Lieut. Duke in not olearing the tunnel and a further dereliction of duty by Captain STALEY in not taking steps to see that the work for which he was responsible had been duly cared.