Retaining rings are used to support the field winding end turns from the centrifugal force by the high speed of the field and these are the overstressed parts among the generator parts. There have been several retaining failures in Europe and America, all attributable to stress corrosion cracking in 18Mn-5Cr steel. Since then, each manufacture companies have developed a good 18Mn-5Cr steel in temperature, strength characteristic and it is used in many field now. From many findings and test results, we could conformed that the failure might be grown in the overstressed condition unrelated to the moisture particle.