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| -Land of the Free |
| Mystery of Civil War sub's sinking may be solved |
| 2018-03-30 |
| The wreck of the Hunley was discovered in 1995, approximately 300 meters (984 ft) from the remains of the Housatonic, and was subsequently raised in 2000. The 40-ft (12-m) submarine was almost entirely intact, and the skeletons of all eight crew members were still located along a hand crank that was used to propel it. The men hadn't operated the bilge pumps or opened the topside air hatches, which doesn't seem to be in keeping with the theory that they died from drowning or suffocation. Instead, Lance thinks that they were killed by the shockwave from the explosion that sank the Housatonic. The Hunley didn't shoot out self-propelled torpedoes like a modern sub, but instead carried a copper keg of gunpowder on a 16-ft (4.9-m) pole out in front of itself. The idea was that it would ram ships with that keg, hitting them below the waterline. Unfortunately for the sub's crew, this placed them perilously close to the blast zone. |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #4 Thank you both, Mike and Roth. Not an enviable end, however it happened |
| Posted by: Frank G 2018-03-30 16:42 |
| #3 Roth, Thanks for your comments if I may, let me address them. *One reason it took so long to find Hunley is that everybody kept looking for her close to the Housatonic. That in turn was because salvage divers just after the Civil War said they saw her next to the cruiser and looked inside - patently untrue. Had that been the case, she would have been found during the salvage work that was done to clear Housatonic's wreck. Instead it appears her skipper let her drift with the ebb tide so as to get away from the USN ships converging on the 'flaming datum'. The official Hunley website (www.hunley.org) states that the wreck was discovered about four miles off the coast of Sullivan's Island, and as Housatonic was just three nautical miles offshore, that is consistent with a drift of approximately 1 kt/hr. *A lamp was located in the wreck, and although it does not have a blue lens, some pyrotechnic mixtures from that time burn with a distinct blue glow. Although it must be regarded as possible that the lamp seen was from another vessel, it should be pointed out that the USN records of that night do not account for any vessels further out, and nor do CSA records. *The Hunley's hull is extremely cramped - less than four feet across, and the crew would have been seated along each side, facing one another. Escape under the best possible conditions was problematic (see accounts of her first sinking at FT Johnson across from FT Sumter) and submerged at night would have been flatly impossible. Water pressure would have kept the hatches closed no matter how hard the crew tried to push them open. In addition, when the Hunley impacted the bottom, she was likely under power and skidded/rolled onto her side in the position she was found. Since her ballast tank bulkheads didn't extend to the top of the hull, this means water would have immediately started to pour in from the bow and stern, submerging the port side crew at once, and the starboard side crew - at this point hanging down over the crank - would have had little time or chance to go anywhere. *Massive internal hemorrhage is absolutely a side effect of a shockwave caused by a nearby explosion. I had the honor to serve for twenty years as a USAF Munitions Maintenance Supervisor and am familiar with the type of damage shockwave can cause. However, the kind of shockwave that would have killed the Hunley's crew would also have probably sank her on the spot - but we know it did not. Without question, her crew would have been at best badly rattled and at worst seriously injured. I believe, and detail in my book The Long Patrol, that Hunley instead was essentally snapped like a whip, opening the seams on the ballast tanks fore and aft. This would not have sunk them outright, but instead would have doomed the boat to a death of a thousand cuts. They submerged her to get away from the attack site, drifted approximately a mile, then partially surfaced to show the signal light. Submerging again, this time they compromised her already damaged buoyancy beyond help, and were sinking as they headed back towards Sullivan's Island. The crew was desperately tired, malnourished, anoxic, hypothermic, and likely suffering from respiratory problems, and all of that combined to put them into a corner they couldn't escape. *The boat did have a snorkel, but it was not used often and in fact may not have worked well at all. With Hunley on her side, the bilge pumps would have been effectively useless, as the ballast tanks would no longer be upright, and no matter how hard they worked them, it would have made no difference. I don't claim to have the final, absolute, no-kidding answer. And I definitely don't claim to be an expert, as it has been my experience that calling one's self an expert is generally the fastest way available to find out just how much you don't know about a subject. I am an enthusiastic amateur who did what I believe to be solid research and came up with an answer that I believe is the most technically possible and which fits all the facts as we know them.' Respectfully, Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2018-03-30 15:09 |
| #2 Sorry, Mike. She was 300 feet from the wreck of the Housatonic not a mile away and there was no evidence of efforts to escape or movement of the crew from their posts. The blue lamp is not conclusive either that could have been from any ship at sea. The concussion could have killed the crew and they would have died instantly. Massive internal hemorrhaging. |
| Posted by: Roth LaDoad 2018-03-30 12:11 |
| #1 ...The problem with Dr Lance's theory is that - you'll pardon the expression - it doesn't hold water. The Hunley showed a blue signal light from more than a mile further out to sea almost an hour AFTER Housatonic went down - this is confirmed by both Federal and Confederate records. They would obviously have been unable to do so had they been killed when Housatonic's mag exploded. That explosion more likely opened up the seams in her ballast tanks and she went down from a combination of progressive flooding and errors by an anoxic, hypothermic crew. As far as why the crew was found at their stations, keep in mind Hunley was less than four feet wide and the crew was seated on either side of the crank - on their side and flooding, there was nowhere TO go. And finally, there was no indication of them.trying to open the hatch because at thirty feet down, it was physically impossible to do so. Dr Lance's work is important and crucial to understanding what happened to the Hunley - I simply feel she drew the wrong conclusions. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2018-03-30 06:00 |