The theme I have chosen to work with
is Shipwrecks, Looking at The 10 most famous Shipwrecks worldwide. I thought
this would be really interesting to work with visually and plus a nautical
theme is something I've wanted to work with for ages!
10. Steamship S.S. Republic, 1865
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.)
