Posted : July 2011
Author : Jeff Danelek
While literally millions of ships of all shapes and sizes
have been built over the centuries, only a handful have achieved anything approaching
fame. Most of those that have done so, however, were warships or vessels that
displayed such a degree of innovation that they were considered prototypes in
the evolution of ships. Other ships, however, achieved notoriety, not through
their accomplishments or because of their technological innovations, but
through catastrophic failure. In fact, the sea beds are littered with examples
of the power of both nature and the human propensity towards violence,
miscalculation, and simple bad luck. Of course, only a few vessels that met a
tragic fate are recalled by most people today, though their reasons for doing
so are as varied as the types of ships themselves: Some became famous as
vessels of war whose demise triggered a conflict or made such a major contribution
to a conflict that it was remembered in its own right; others became famous
because they carried huge fortunes in their holds when they went down or
because of the huge loss of life that resulted from their sinking. A few even
became famous because their loss was so unexpected and mysterious that they
became the stuff of legends. Unfortunately, there are literally dozens of
famous shipwrecks throughout history to choose from, making it difficult to
narrow it down to just ten, but this is my best effort.
When this Civil War-era side-wheel steamship sank during a
violent gale off the Georgia
coast in October, 1865, it went down with something other than the ordinary
goods most vessels of the era carried. In the case of the Republic, her holds
were filled with tons of silver and gold coins and ingots being transported
from the West Coast to help rebuild the war-ravaged south, making her loss an
incalculable financial blow to the country at a time when it was still struggling
to regain its economic legs after four years of civil war. (The only positive
thing from the sinking was that the ship’s entire crew and passengers managed
to get off safely before the ship foundered, making it one of the few famous
shipwrecks that did not result in loss of life.) The ship’s precise location
remained unknown until 2003, when she was finally located after an extensive
search some 100 miles off the Georgia
coast in nearly 1,700 feet of water. The subsequent recovery effort not only yielded
one of the largest caches of gold and silver coins in history, but included a
fascinating assortment of 19th century goods that revealed much about life in
the mid-nineteenth century. By the time the recovery was concluded, over 51,000
U.S. gold and silver coins had been recovered along with nearly 14,000
artifacts, making it not only the richest find in the history of salvaging, but
the highest-tech archaeological excavation ever conducted. So successful - and
lucrative - was the expedition, in fact, that it set a precedence for the
emerging field of deep-water shipwreck exploration and recovery.
9. Great
Lakes Ore
Carrier Edmund Fitzgerald, 1975
While most people imagine the vast oceans to be the most
dangerous waters to sail upon, some of the roughest waters in the world are
actually experienced on the Great Lakes, which
has more non-war related shipwrecks per square mile than any other body of
water in the world. Without doubt, the most famous of these took place on
November 10, 1975, when the gigantic ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald, at one time
the largest ship on the Great Lakes and holder of numerous tonnage records, was
caught in a vicious November gale and, after hours of battling high winds and
30-foot waves, suddenly disappeared from radar without as much as a single
distress call, taking all twenty-nine members of her crew down with her. The
loss would likely have remained little known outside the Great Lakes maritime
community had not singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot written a popular song about
the sinking in 1976, immortalizing the ship’s demise and making her the most
famous shipwreck on the Great Lakes. While the precise cause of the sinking has
never been determined, later surveys done on the wreck revealed that the
800-foot long craft broke in two, suggesting it either “bottomed out” on the
shallow lake bottom and broke in two, or it was wrenched in two by a rogue wave
and plunged to the bottom of the lake in mere minutes. Whatever the cause, the
ship remains off-limit to divers as a grave and continues to serve as a
reminder that even the largest vessels are no match for the Great
Lakes when - as the song says - the gales of November come early.
8. Union Ironclad U.S.S. Monitor, 1862
Though a comparatively tiny vessel whose foundering during a
gale off notorious Cape Hatteras,
Virginia on new year’s eve, 1862,
taking sixteen of her crew down with her, was barely noticed by the press at
the time, the sinking spelled a tragic end to one of the most revolutionary
ships of its era. The brainchild of a little known naval engineer by the name
of John Ericsson, the Monitor, in being the first all-metal, turreted warship
in history, became the prototype for what would become the standard for warship
design for the next century and a half. Derisively called a “cheesebox on a
raft” by both sides, the little ship changed the face of naval warfare forever
when it battled the South’s own ironclad warship, the CSS Virginia, to a draw
off Hampton Roads, Virginia in March of 1862. While the battle did little to
affect the outcome of the war, it signaled the end of wooden sailing vessels
with fixed cannons and initiated the age of steam-driven, ironclad warships
with revolving turrets, making the battle - and the ship - one of the most
important in history. The ship’s precise location remained unknown for over a
century until it was located 16 miles off the Virginia coast in 1973, after
which is was designated a national historic landmark, making it off-limits to
divers and salvagers. Eventually, however, the government gave authorization
for elements of the ship to be brought to the surface, resulting in the
recovery of its massive steam engine and, in 2002, its revolutionary turret.
The site is now under the supervision of NOAA, with many artifacts from the
ship, including her turret, cannon, propeller, anchor, engine and some personal
effects of the crew, being put on display at the Mariners’ Museum of Newport News, Virginia.
7. Italian Liner Andrea Doria, 1956
While not the most famous passenger liner ever to sink, when
the luxurious flagship of the Italian Line collided with the Swedish liner Stockholm in heavy fog off the coast of Massachusetts in July of 1956 and sank a few
hours later, it came as quite a shock to the world. What made it such a
surprise was not the scale of the catastrophe - only 46 of the 1660 people on
board died as a result of the collision - but the fact that such a disaster was
even possible in an age of radar and high tech ship-to-ship radio
communications. It was also famous for being one of the few major ship sinking
ever filmed while it was happening, giving the world a bird’s-eye view of the
proud and beautiful ship’s final moments and forever cementing her in maritime
legend. Eventually the fault for the collision was placed on both captains for
not only plunging through the pea-thick soup at over twenty knots, but for
managing to completely misinterpret what their counterpart was doing. It might
have even been funny had not it ended in the loss of life and the sinking of
one of the most expensive ships ever built. Today the Andrea Doria remains one
of the world’s most popular diving sites (it’s even referred to as the “Mount
Everest” of deep-sea diving), though because of its depth and the rapidly
deteriorating condition of the wreck, it remains a treacherous site to dive
on - as evidenced by the fact that it has claimed the lives of half a dozen
divers over the years.
6. German Liner Wilhelm Gustloff, 1945
It’s probably safe to say that few people have ever heard of
the Wilhelm Gustloff, making it reasonable to ask why it would make it into my
top ten most famous shipwreck list. The reason is because this list is not just
about the most famous, but the most significant shipwrecks as well, in which
case this German liner easily fits the bill. What makes it so? The fact that it
was responsible for the largest single loss of life in maritime history when
the overloaded vessel - fleeing the advancing Red Army into northern Poland in
the winter of 1944-45 - left the port of Danzig (modern day Gdansk) one cold
January evening in 1945 only to be sunk by a Russian submarine shortly after
reaching the open sea. Not only did it sink in a matter of minutes, but with a
water temperature just a degree or two above freezing, even those not trapped
below decks had a minimal chance of surviving in the frigid waters of the
Baltic. The final death toll from this horrific event? No one will ever know
the precise number of people who died when the Gustloff went down as the ship
had no passenger list and, as a refugee ship, was loaded to three times her
normal capacity. However, best estimates are that as many as 10,000 people were
jammed onboard the ship, with a mere 900 or so managing to be rescued from the
frigid waters, making it the greatest loss of life from a single ship sinking
in history.
5. American Battleship U.S.S. Maine, 1898
Warships are usually sunk as a result of the outbreak of
war; rarely are their sinkings the reason for starting the war in the first
place, but that’s exactly what happened when the small but powerful little
battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbor shortly after dusk on February
15, 1898, killing 261 of her 355-man crew. Though the cause of the
explosion - which literally blew the ship in half - remains a source for some
debate even to this day (a coal bin fire setting off ammunition in one of the
ship’s magazines being considered the most likely reason), within weeks of the
disaster investigators announced that the ship appeared to have been destroyed
by a mine attached to her hull. Since relations between the United States and
Spain were already pretty dicey as a result of Spain’s iron-fisted efforts at
putting down a large-scale rebellion in Cuba, most Americans quickly jumped to
the conclusion that the Spanish had destroyed the ship (despite the lack of
logic in doing so) and demanded retaliation. Buckling to public pressure and
spurred-on by the jingoistic flavor of the press of the day, a few weeks later
the McKinley administration declared war on Spain,
resulting in one of America’s
shortest and most successful conflicts (the Persian Gulf War being the other).
Fortunately for the largely under-armed United
States, Spain
was already in decline as a world power and lacked the means to adequately
defend its overseas colonies, forcing her to surrender after just three months
and cede Cuba, Puerto Rico
and the Philippines to the United States.
The victory marked America’s
entrance onto the world stage and her ascension as a genuine colonial power and
the rest is, as they say, history. So what became of the demolished battleship?
What was left of it was raised from the muck of Havana harbor in 1911 and towed
out to open ocean, where she was sunk - again - but this time on purpose and with
full military honors. Not much left of her today, of course, other than her
legacy and the rarely heard battle-cry “Remember the Maine!”
4. German Battleship Bismarck,
1941
Few ships manage to both sink on their maiden voyage and be
one of the most dangerous vessels ever to sail the seas at the same time (as
well as even have a song written about it), but the massive German dreadnaught
managed to do all three. The pride of the German navy and a ship once described
by Winston Churchill as, “a masterpiece of naval construction,” the fast and
heavily armed warship ran roughshod over the Royal Navy for eight days in May
of 1941, during which time she shocked the British by blowing the famous
battlecruiser Hood out of the water and badly damaging the spanking-new
battleship Prince of Wales off the Icelandic coast in a battle that lasted all
of twenty minutes. Finally cornered off the coast of France on May 27th, 1941
by the British battleships King George V and Rodney, the damaged ship put
up a furious fight against the overwhelmingly superior British force before
finally succumbing to the onslaught and slipping to the bottom of the Atlantic,
taking all but 115 of her 2,200 man crew down with her. The ship’s precise
location remained largely a mystery until 1989, when she was located by Dr. Robert
Ballard (the guy who eventually located the Titanic - see no. 1) and his team
using side-scan sonar and submersibles. Remarkably, because of her heavy-duty
construction, the ship remains largely intact on the seafloor despite the
battering she took, and stands today as a silent reminder of the immense cost
and futility of war.
3. British Liner Lusitania,
1915
While not quite as famous as the similarly sized liner Titanic,
in some ways the sinking of the Lusitania
was even more important in terms of historical ramifications than was the loss
of her better known colleague. While the loss of life was less - 1,200 men,
women, and children drowned when it was sunk by a German submarine off the
Irish coast on May 7, 1915 - its loss served as a catalyst for America’s eventual
entry into World War One, which likely changed the outcome of the war and
ensured the allies victory. The sinking was not without other controversy as
well: What was especially suspicious about the ship’s quick descent to the
bottom was that it was done in by a single torpedo when smaller vessels often
survived such a hit, leading many to suspect that the civilian liner was
illegally carrying munitions on board. Though the charge was roundly denied by
British authorities at the time, years later it was demonstrated that the
British were, indeed, using civilian ships to carry munitions and other
instruments of war in clear violation of international treaties. That doesn’t
necessarily justify the killing of innocent civilians, of course, but it did make
the British government somewhat culpable for the catastrophe - a prospect they
are loathe to admit to even to this day.
2. American Battleship U.S.S. Arizona, 1941
What makes this wreck so famous is not only that its loss
signaled the start of World War Two in the Pacific, but that it is the only
shipwreck one can visit without diving equipment or even getting their feet
wet. Sunk in the opening minutes of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 with a loss of nearly
two-thirds of its crew, the ship served as a symbol American resolve that was
to carry the country through the darkest days of World War Two. Today the ship
remains the most famous war grave in the world and one that sees more than a
million visitors each year, who come to visit the memorial built over the
rusted remains of the once mighty battleship. Despite having been immersed in
salt water for nearly seventy years, the ship is remarkably intact, however. It
also remains an active gravesite, with the cremated remains of the surviving
crewmen still being occasionally interned within the hull of the World War
One-era dreadnaught as they pass on to join their long-dead shipmates.
1. British Liner Titanic, 1912
Selecting the most famous shipwreck is easy. In fact, more
people know about this ship and its ill-fated maiden voyage - especially as a
result of the 1997 James Cameron movie - than any other ship in history. Of
course, everyone knows what happened by now: the White Star liner, fresh out of
the shipyard and sparkling new, was on its maiden voyage from England to New
York when it hit an iceberg just before midnight, April 14, 1912, opening her
up like a sardine can and sending her to the bottom in just a few hours. While
such a length of time should have given those onboard plenty of time to get off
the doomed vessel, the ship carried fewer than half the lifeboats required,
dooming over 1500 men, women and children (out of the over 2200 onboard) to a
watery grave and giving the status quo quite the black eye. The only positive
thing to come from the tragedy was improved safety and communications
procedures being implemented throughout the maritime community (which, in the
long run, probably saved more people over the next few decades than were lost
on the Titanic). The ship’s precise location remained unknown for the next
seventy years until it was located by a team of oceanographers led by the
famous Dr. Robert Ballard in 1985, thereby opening the doors to renewed
interest in the famous ship (and probably making the subsequent Cameron film,
parts of which were filmed on the actual wreck nearly two miles beneath the
surface of the Atlantic Ocean, so popular).
Other notable shipwrecks throughout history: General Slocum,
1904: paddlewheel steamer caught fire and burned to the waterline off New York,
killing 1,021; Sultana, 1865: steamboat paddlewheeler caught fire on the
Mississippi River, leaving 1,800 dead; Eastland, 1915: excursion boat rolled
onto its side at a Chicago pier, drowning 844 passengers and crew; Empress of
Ireland, 1914: Canadian liner collided with another ship on the Saint Lawrence
Seaway in heavy fog and sank in minutes, drowning 1,012; Estonia, 1994: massive
car ferry sank in heavy seas off the coast of Finland, taking over 800 down
with her; and the Hunley, 1864: Confederate submarine that sank minutes after
torpedoing the Union frigate Housatonic off Charleston, South Carolina, taking
her eight-man crew to the bottom. (She was subsequently raised and excavated in
2000, making her even more famous.)
~Blog Admin~
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