Although the wreck of the Housatonic was located easily, the wreck of the Hunley remained elusive for over a century, as searchers never thought to look on the seaward side of the wreck of the Housatonic, assuming the Hunley had to be on the landward side since that is the direction the attack had come from. Sadly for the crew of the Hunley, all 8 men aboard the sub died as the Hunley was destroyed by the blast that sunk the Housatonic. ![]() Using a large explosive charge at the end of a 22 foot long pole driven against the hull of the unsuspecting Housatonic blew a big hole in that ship, sinking the US Navy ship and creating panic among the Union vessels blockading the Charleston, South Carolina harbor. We have previously discussed the Hunley in “10 “ Oops!” Moments in Naval History” and the fact that this first ever combat effective submarine had accidentally sunk itself twice before it became the first submarine in naval history to sink another ship, the USS H ousatonic, in 1864. Hunley in sodium hydroxide bath, July 2017. HL Hunley, Confederate Submarine, sunk 1864, recovered 2000. Today we list 10 of the most famous or interesting such shipwrecks (though 5 of them are from one incident!). The Hunley joins the roster of famous or infamous vessels that have been discovered on the sea floor and either raised or with major parts of the vessel recovered. Hunley were raised to the surface 136 years after this pioneering vessel was sunk, probably by itself during the US Civil War. You can find these books on of course, as a matter of fact they are so closely related that Amazon offers one click to buy both.On August 8, 2000, the remains of Confederate submarine H.L. Raymer is an engaging story teller with a gift for words and an up close view of an event of major importance. ![]() Resurrection is a more academic book with a lot of details and pages of notes at the end. There is a lot of overlap and the details mesh very well. ![]() I read Raymer`s book immediately after finishing "Resurection: Salvaging the Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor" The books complement each other very well with Resurrection offering a big picture approach to Raymers first hand account. But he was back in Pearl Harbor for the raising of the Oklahoma and to give a guided tour of that ships remains to Eleanor Roosevelt. Raymer also briefly descibes a period of duty aboard the USS Seminole in the South Pacific and around Guadalcanal. But, because that section of the ship had been pinned to the side of the Tennessee, no one had heard their tapping or had been able to sound that section of the hull. He also describes the heart breaking discovery of sailors aboard the West Virginia who had survived inside the ship until at least the 23rd of December before suffocating in a compartment that had not flooded and had access to a fresh water tank. Hydrogen Sulfide gas not only kills in high concentrations but can explode as well when under pressure for example. Their safety record for the operation was remarkable but they did loose people to accidents that seem so mundane and predictable in retrospect but were entirely new at the time. They were making up the rules for safety in such an environment as they went along. He describes in detail and on a personal level, the challenges of salvaging extremely damaged ships. His descriptions of the bones rubbing along his helmet like oriental wind chimes is chilling to say the least. He accidently put his hand through what he thought was a bag only to find it was a corpse. Walking through the compartment created a vortex that pulled the bodies to him. ![]() The first chapter describes a dive through a compartment of the Arizona that had been a battle station for about 100 crewmen. He was doing hard hat salvage diving not SCUBA but the book is still fascinating. Only the Arizona and Utah remain on the bottom to this day.Įdward Raymer was a newly trained 2nd class Navy diver at the time of the attack and was immediately sent to Pearl Harbor to become a member of the salvage unit that was formed to assist the Base Force in the massive job of getting those ships back into the war and to clear the harbor of obstructions caused by the sunken vessels. They successfully raised 16 of the 18 ships sunk or badly damaged that day and all but the Oklahoma would be returned to action in one form or another. In the wake of the Raid on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, the Navy with help from civilian contractors such as Pacific Bridge went about the task of salvaging the Pacific fleet.
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