Posted on 08/24/2017 6:58:18 AM PDT by C19fan
Researchers say they’ve solved one of the most enduring mysteries of the American Civil War: what caused the puzzling demise of the H.L. Hunley, the first combat submarine in history to sink an enemy warship.
The Confederate craft famously disappeared with all its crew on 17 February 1864, just after destroying the USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbour. The Hunley’s wreck was not found until 1995. When it was raised from the seabed in 2000, the skeletons of its eight-man crew were still at their stations, with no evidence of escape attempts.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
I don’t understand how soldiers can go into a situation when they know there is a high probability they will die.
All soldiers go into battle knowing that there’s a very real probability of death. That’s the reality of direct combat.
Cause. They knew the war was lost, but continued to carry the fight to their end.
PING
Death before dishonor.
Where else would they be?
It was even worse than you would think. This was the Hunley’s third crew, assembled following the drowning of the two previous crews. After the second crew was lost and the Hunley was recovered, I read that it took 200 pounds of soap to clean out the remains.
Have been following the story for many years, since reading Dirk Pitt books in the 1990’s.
“History” hasn’t been especially kind to its original discoverer.
Would not have wanted to be one of the salvage divers.
Based on where it was found I recall it was concluded that they sank on their return trip when they lost bouyancy from water coming in the hatch while they were signaling. (?)
I went to see the Hunley in Charleston. It’s a little hard to find on this huge naval base, but it is well worth the effort. There is a cut away model of the Hunley, and the first thing you notice is how absolutely cramped it was, and how it would be impossible for anyone but the lookout to escape through the tiny hatch in an emergency. Just to leave the submarine in normal unhurried circumstance would require careful coordination of the crew and no small amount of gymnastics. The mystery is why there was no sign that the crew had ever moved from their places, or any evidence of an attempt to escape. Next, it was interesting to see that the “ballast tank” was simply an open pool of water uncontained on the top with a front and rear partition rising maybe three feet from the bilge.
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Ignorant, incompetent so-called "journalists"!!! :-(
No "copper ribbons"! The entire mounting sleeve and aft end of the torpedo were found -- still bolted to the 'business end' of the torpedo spar.
See the actual artifact photos I posted on DFG's earlier, well-illustrated thread.
In the second sinking, when H.L. Hunley, himself stuck the bow of the Hunley down into the mud of Charleston Harbor (and, forgot to close his forward ballast fill valve) the bodies of the panicked crew were found clustered around the (un-openable) aft access hatch.
The point was, the final crew showed no signs of panic or distress due to asphyxiation or drowning, etc.
You mean Lee Spence?
Considering natural proclivities and superstitions about death and the dead that were ubiquitous in the culture, one has to wonder what sort of "persuasion" it took to get that horrendous job done...
Talk about real "PTSD"!!
Death could have been instantaneous, and I hope it was. Or death could have been slow and agonizing, as the sailors waited to suffocate at their stations (the only place they could sit down).
The second sinking was different. Nose down with valve open, the stern would have an air bubble as the sub filled up. You would expect everyone crowded aft.
Maneuvering past that crank must have been quite an obstacle course. I've always assumed the center bench position was FILO...
For completeness: in the first sinking (partial crew, alongside [?Ft. Johnson?] dock, both hatches open, swamped by wake of passing vessel) bodies were clustered around both hatches. IIRC, one crewman [?Haskell?] escaped via the front conning tower, but the hatch trapped his leg and dragged him down quite a ways, before he finally freed himself...
Assuming those hatch covers are about 1.5 sq ft in area, that means that every foot of submersion adds about 100 lbs of force required to open one of them...
>>>Where else would they be?<<<
Maybe they thought they would discover them in the Hunley’s Employee Lounge watching the Super Bowl on the Flatscreen TV.
As you walk into the display area, there is a cabinet with eight or ten heads on two shelves,forensic reproduction made from skulls of the crew. Below each severed head is a little bio. It's interesting how most of the crew were ordinary people, and some of them recent immigrants, and not native born southerners.
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