|
I come from the Scuba thread, but I think there will be a fair amount of overlap here. I work as a divemaster in the Cape Fear region of NC. This is where the HMS Bounty was fleeing from when it sank in Sandy, but there's plenty more out there. Let's have the story of the John D. Gill! The John D. Gill was an oil tanker en route from TX to PA (only her second voyage) when a U-boat acquired it as a target. That U-boat was U-158, which in itself was an infamous boat (17 ships sank and 2 more damaged, on only 2 patrols  ). The torpedo fired by the U-boat blew a hole in one of the oil tanks on the Gill on the night of March 13, 1942 approximately 25 miles off of Cape Fear. The Gill didn't initially catch on fire or start exploding, but the life-rings in use back then had self-igniting flares rigged to them. Throw it overboard, add salt water, and you've got a "please come loving find me!" beacon ready and lit. A crewman threw one of those in the water after the torpedo strike, and ignited an apocalyptic inferno. The fires spread into the oil tanks of the Gill causing numerous secondary explosions, which destroyed a number of lifeboats. Complicating things further, the ship's propellers hadn't lost power when the ship started to list. A lifeboat that had made it to the water was sucked into one of the screws, killing everyone on board that lifeboat. One account has the lifeboat spilling guys into the water and having them sucked into the screws, but the end result isn't any different; everyone on board that lifeboat died. A second lifeboat was commanded by Edwin F. Cheney, Jr, the first Merchant Mariner to earn a Distinguished Service Medal. Let's have a look at his citation (from http://www.usmm.org/heroes.html):quote:For heroism above and beyond the call of duty during enemy attack when he released and launched a life-raft from a sinking and burning ship and maneuvered it through a pool of burning oil to clear water by swimming under water, coming up only to breathe. Although he had incurred severe burns about the face and arms in this action, he then guided four of his shipmates to the raft, and swam to and rescued two others who were injured and unable to help themselves. His extraordinary courage and disregard of his own safety in thus rescuing his shipmates will be an enduring inspiration to seamen of the United States Merchant Marine everywhere. The Gill is a divable wreck, being only ~25 miles offshore and in ~110 ft of water. Only 26/52 crew survived the sinking, and 11 of those people that survived did so because of Mr. Cheney's efforts. I haven't dove on it yet, and I'm not entirely sure if I will based on the story. I've got video from the Alexander Ramsey, the Hyde, and the Markham, but those are all artificial reefs. The Alexander Ramsey was a WWII Liberty Ship (most produced ship frame in history, with over 2700 Liberty ships built over the course of WWII), and both the Hyde and Markham are former US Army Corps of Engineer dredges. Icon Of Sin fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Jan 20, 2017 |
#
¿
Jan 20, 2017 00:16
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 00:47 |
|
|
I'll post some pics and videos when I get back home, then 
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2017 01:54
|
|
|
As promised, pics and video of 3 wrecks off of Wilmington, NC. All videos taken with a GoPro Hero3, with a magenta filter. A link I should've included in my previous post, for the John D. Gill: http://www.wilmingtondiving.com/jdgill.shtml And now, the videos. The Hyde: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-YBMgg_DAg quote:The Hyde is a 215 ft ocean going hopper dredge. It was built in 1945 in Wilmington Delaware and saw service in Atlantic, Pacific and Honolulu. It's primary function was to keep waterways open for Naval ship traffic. Because the Hyde was constructed during WWII it was one of a few dredges outfitted with guns, armor, and a gun crew. Today the Hyde sits upright in 85ft of water 18 miles from Masonboro inlet. It was sunk by NC Division of Marine Fisheries in 1988. From http://www.wilmingtondiving.com/hyde.shtml. Also at that link: a scan of a pamphlet used on tours of the Hyde back when she was first commissioned. While doing dredge work in South Vietnam (during the Vietnam War), the Hyde found a few magnetic mines the hard way; quick thinking by the captain and crew ensured that no lives were lost (only 3 people were even injured), and the vessel remained seaworthy. Upon striking the mines, the captain ordered all dredge holds immediately emptied and had the crew beach the Hyde until she could get back on the ocean. Now she sits in ~84 ft of water, and her decks are covered in corals. In the summer, the Hyde crawls with sandtiger sharks; in the winter, spadefish take over. The visibility on this day was less than normal (this was a common theme for all of last summer, across most of our wrecks); normal visibility on the Hyde is around 60 ft, but on this day we probably only had 20ft. The Hyde started her new life as an artificial reef in 1988. The Markham: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nQtcFZ7nk4 quote:The Markham is 340 ft long ocean going hopper dredge. It spent most of it's time working in the Great Lakes. It was the Cadillac of hopper dredges back in the 1960's with many new innovations which included bow thrusters and an advanced pumpout system. Now the Markham sits 18 miles out of Masonboro Inlet in 85 ft of water. It was sunk by the NC Division of Marine Fisheries in 1994. Two days before the sinking it was realized the Markham was too large to be sunk upright as originally planned. It was decided that the Markham would have to be sunk on its side to allow enough clearance for ship traffic. Now it rests on its port side slowly sinking into the bedrock. The Markham was another US Army Corps of Engineers dredge, though not nearly as exciting a story as the Hyde; she worked the Great Lakes. She lies rotated about 100 degrees on her port side, and has several areas where wreck penetration is possible. I went into one of them on the video; it looks like I'm heading into a dark abyss, but in reality I had spotted my turnaround point as soon as I dropped into that hole. The camera couldn't pick up much of anything in the low light, so it looks like I'm just charging off into a dark abyss. The Alexander Ramsey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtJmwbnGs24 quote:The Alexander Ramsey is a liberty ship that was sunk as part of the artificial reef program in 1984. It is about 2.5 miles from Masonboro inlet in 45 ft of water. There are very few divers around Wilmington that are not familiar with the Lib Ship. Due to it's close proximity to shore it is visited frequently by divers. It is a popular place to conduct open water checkout dives. This has been the first dive for thousands of divers over the past 20 years. It has at least 4 other small wrecks in it's proximity which helps attract a lot of marine life. Recently there has been at least two resident sand tiger sharks that make it their year round home. http://www.wilmingtondiving.com/libship.shtml It bothers me a little bit that local divers here refer to the Alexander Ramsey as just 'the lib ship'. Liberty-class cargo ships are the most-produced ship frame in all of human history, with over 2700 ships in that class. If you go look through the Merchant Marines' list of people who received their Distinguished Service Medal, you'll see the ship SS Stephen Hopkins appear more than any other. All Liberty ships carried naval guns and crew on board, in case they happened across a surfaced U-boat randomly; these came in handy for another Liberty ship (the Stephen Hopkins) when it happened across a German raider in the fog. The Stephen Hopkins got wrecked, but not before landing a few lucky shots with its 4" gun on the German raider and sinking it. The Alexander Ramsey had a similar loadout, but never got into a fight as far as I'm aware. Reports vary on when exactly the Alexander Ramsey was reefed, placing that in either 1974 or 1984. There are several other smaller boats and tugs surrounding her now, as a full artificial reef. I've seen a sandtiger shark hanging out here before, right at dusk one night. She's 440 ft of shipwreck, but I think the lower decks were cut off so the ship itself could actually fit in the ~50ft of water she now sits in. Being close to shore, the vis can vary from almost nothing to 40 ft, depending on who knows how many factors. More wrecks and info can be found here, but this list is not exhaustive by any means. I've worked with a scuba instructor whose day job is working for the Underwater Archaeology Branch of the NC State Government, and he tells me that there are 30 Civil War blockade runners between Wilmington and Southport, and that's only from the 4 years the blockade was actually in place. Wilmington sits in a place that sailors of old named Cape Fear, which is found in the Graveyard of the Atlantic; that's a name that was earned somehow. Last year a dive boat caught on fire and went diving to put itself out ~10 miles from Frying Pan Tower, and a Harrier jet crashed just offshore from Wrightsville Beach, so it isn't like the Graveyard is done adding to the Ghost Fleet.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2017 06:04
|
|
|
If you're looking for random shipwrecks, follow Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum on Facebook. You'll get things like the Carroll A. Deering, which washed up on Diamond Shoals (near Cape Hatteras) on 31 Jan 1921. The crew went missing, the tables were set as if someone were sitting down to have a meal, the last contact anyone had with the ship was unusual, at best:quote:The ship was next sighted by the Cape Lookout Lightship in North Carolina on January 28, 1921, when the vessel hailed it. The lightship's keeper, Captain Jacobson, reported that a thin man with reddish hair and a foreign accent told him the vessel had lost its anchors in a storm off Cape Fear. Jacobson took note of this, but his radio was out, so he was unable to report it. He noticed that the crew seemed to be "milling around" on the fore deck of the ship, an area where they were usually not allowed. That person that Captain Jacobson talked to does not match the description of the last known captain (Captain W. B. Wormell, brought on when the original captain fell sick and had to be offloaded in Delaware). The behavior of the crew was also thought to be strange, which led the various investigators to suspect mutiny on the ship prior to it being driven aground. Lifeboats were gone, a cat was still on board, and 5 different federal agencies (Commerce, Treasury, Justice, Navy, and State) looked into the disappearance of the crew, finding nothing. The ship's log, navigation equipment, and personal effects of the crew were also gone. The agencies managed to track down other ships in the area over the courses of their investigations, and none of them reported taking on or even seeing lifeboats/people in the water. The Coast Guard attempted salvage after the weather cleared 4 days later, but finding that impossible resorted to the fun way: dynamite. The wreck was dynamited until they deemed it no longer a threat to other shipping, and various pieces washed up on shore. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_A._Deering https://www.facebook.com/GraveyardoftheAtlanticMuseum/ They typically post "[ship name] was lost today at [place on the NC coast] for [reason]; there were [x] survivors." We're coming into the time of year when the waters off of Cape Hatteras became known as Torpedo Alley during WWII, for the lurking U-boats wreaking havoc on ships that were as close in as 5 miles offshore. One of the anniversaries coming up is for the John D. Gill, which I posted about earlier. http://graveyardoftheatlantic.com/ is the museum's website, mostly good for upcoming events at their museum.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2017 19:56
|
|
|
Today was the anniversary of the sinking of the Dixie Arrow, in torpedo alley off of Cape Hatteras. Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum posted:Courage. Defender. Protector. HERO. On this day in history, March 26, 1942 – Dixie Arrow was hit with three torpedoes within one minute, off of Cape Hatteras by U-71. Eleven lives were lost. Able-bodied seaman, Oscar G. Chappell, was severely injured but still alive and at his station in the wheelhouse of the torpedoed Dixie Arrow. Chappell was able to turn the ship and hold the tanker into the wind, thus driving the flames away and allowing men to jump clear of the sea of burning oil. The flames however came directly back on Chappell. His heroic actions and sacrifice saved his shipmates. A liberty ship was later named in his honor. 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2017 14:39
|
|
|
Sticky Date posted:How do they know that he did this? Radio? There were 6 other people on the bridge with him after the first torpedo exploded (6 alive, at any rate). He ordered them off before steering the ship to have the winds calm the inferno, if only for a moment. I managed to track that info down here: http://tinyurl.com/k8fyeot Search for Dixie Arrow, since there aren't any page numbers to go off of. Poor dude saw the torpedoes incoming and called them out, but it wasn't in time to maneuver and make them miss. It was initially only 2 torpedoes, which succeeded in blasting the ship wide open and setting her on fire. The U-boat captain decided that overkill was the best kind of kill, and sent a 3rd torpedo into the flaming carnage. This is the one that killed the ship's captain.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2017 01:01
|
|
|
Mercury Ballistic posted:I wonder how he was able to manuever a crippled ship. Generally when the prop stops, the helm stops responding soon after. The Stephen Hopkins is my favorite Liberty ship. We've got 3 near where I live, all serving as artificial reefs. Alexander Ramsey, Theodore Parker and the Vermilion are offshore from Wilmington, Morehead City, and Myrtle Beach/Murrells Inlet and sit within recreational diving limits. The Theodore Parker and the Alexander Ramsey are both sitting in about 50 ft of water, and the Vermilion is a bit deeper. I think the ocean floor is at ~130ft for her, which is the limit for non-technical/non-decompression diving. e: Vermilion isn't actually a Liberty ship. She's a Tolland-class attack/cargo ship built for WWII, so the designs are likely related somehow. These were designed/built for the US Navy, instead of the Merchant Marine like the Liberty ships were. Icon Of Sin fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Mar 27, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2017 02:10
|
|
|
CommieGIR posted:This was such a good read I bought the e-book. The area that Torpedo Alley sits in had long since earned the name "Graveyard of the Atlantic", and that was before Nazis contributed significantly to the Ghost Fleet of the Outer Banks (as we refer to it now) 
Icon Of Sin fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Mar 28, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2017 03:56
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 00:47 |
|
|
Vincent Van Goatse posted:Most tankers of that era had their machinery in the stern instead of amidships like freighters and passenger liners. Presumably the torpedo hit forward of the engineering spaces and the engines were undamaged and still running, which meant the ship could still answer the helm. The John D Gill had a similar setup. She took a torpedo at the midship, but her engines didn't shut down and one of the lifeboats got pulled into the screws as she capsized.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2017 15:56
|
|