HL Hunley
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The HL Hunley (also known as the CSS Hunley ) was one of several micro-submarines built by the Southern Navy during the American Civil War . It was the first underwater vehicle in the history of war that succeeded in sinking an enemy ship.
On February 17, 1864 HL Hunley attacked the USS Housatonic , which was to seal off Fort Sumter and the port city of Charleston in South Carolina as part of a blockade fleet of the Northern States Navy. The warship was sunk, but the HL Hunley did not return to her base either. It could only be lifted 136 years after it disappeared in 2000. The boat sank due to the fatal injuries of the crew caused by the explosion of its own torpedo.
construction
The twelve-meter-long boat offered space for nine men - a helmsman and eight crew members. The latter turned a wing propeller in the stern using a hand crank . The axis of the crank was connected to the drive propeller via a gearbox and a flywheel. The handles of the crank were offset. Each of the men exerted force on the shaft at a different time, which - together with the flywheel - caused the propeller to rotate evenly. The drive with muscle power also guaranteed a noiseless ride of the boat. The interior was painted white (to provide more light) and measured four feet in diameter. The cabin was illuminated by small portholes in the outer shell when traveling above the water , or with candlelight when traveling underwater or at night. The crew members turning the crankshaft sat side by side on a wooden bench on the port side. You had to take a slightly stooped posture to keep the boat stable while driving. The commanding officer controlled the boat from the bow with two levers that were connected to the rudder blades by rods. The Hunley already had the technical facilities for driving operations that are still standard in today's submarines: the control was carried out by means of two depth rudders and one rudder. The two ballast tanks in the bow and stern could be flooded and emptied again with hand pumps. With these pumps, water penetrating into the crew cabin could also be drained . In an emergency, you could still open the retaining screws of the iron keel from the inside in order to throw it off and so to be able to emerge more quickly. The air supply was supposed to take place via a pipe system, but this did not work as intended in practice. The boat therefore had to be supplied with fresh air via the two hatches, which had to be opened about every 20 minutes. However, since the boat did not protrude very far above the waterline and started rolling easily when fully occupied, this was always a high risk. The steel plates of the outer skin of the boat were riveted to the frame. The rivet heads had been ground flush with the outer skin by the shipyard workers in order to reduce the flow resistance.
Armament
A spar torpedo may have been used to sink the USS Housatonic . This consisted of a black powder charge , which was attached to a 5 m long lance in a copper container. The lance was mounted on the bow of the submarine. During combat operations, it was rammed into the hull of the ship at full speed. As the boat moved backwards, a lanyard was activated, which caused the cargo to explode.
commitment
The development of the HL Hunley was financed by Horace Lawson Hunley from private funds. The boat was laid down in the Park and Lyons Shipyard, Mobile , Alabama , in 1863 . After the first test drive was successful, it was baptized in the name of its designer. Some of their crew members died during the first test drives. H. L. Hunley was finally ordered to Charleston himself to break the sea blockade of the Union Navy with his invention. When he insisted on further tests, the boat was confiscated by the Confederate Navy. On August 29, 1863, the HL Hunley sank before her first attack attempt on the Northern States fleet. That day the Hunley was moored at Fort Johnson. Part of the crew was already on board and was just preparing for their first mission when the boat suddenly began to list heavily. Why this happened is unclear. Perhaps the wake of a passing ship seeped into the Hunley's open hatches enough to destabilize and sink it. According to another theory, another ship's anchor lines caught the submarine and heeled it on its side until its hatches were underwater. When the Hunley began to sink, John Payne was still on the submarine. He jumped into the water and escaped to the bank. William Robinson was just able to escape through the rear hatch of the tower. Another of the crew members, Charles Hasker, initially got stuck in the hatch - he sank under the water with the boat - but was released in time to make it back to the surface. However, five of the nine crew members died. The boat was recovered shortly afterwards.
On October 15, Horace Hunley planned to test drive his boat in Charleston Harbor. Why he too went on board is unclear; he held no military rank and was not an experienced seaman. The boat was supposed to pass under the CSS Indian Chief's keel and then come back to the surface immediately. When it disappeared under the ship, it never reappeared. The bad weather initially delayed the search, and it was not until November 7th that divers managed to penetrate to HL Hunley. Her bow was deep in the mud, and due to an air bubble, the stern floated freely over the bottom. The boat was moored with chains and ropes and hoisted onto the bank. When the hatches were opened, the rescue team was faced with a harrowing sight, of which there is an eyewitness report by CSA General Beauregard , the city commander of Charleston:
“The spectacle that presented itself to us was incomprehensibly cruel. The unfortunate men writhed in the strangest poses. Some of them were clutching candles, obviously trying in vain to open the hatches. Others lay on the ground, tightly interlocked. The blackened faces disfigured by despair and agony. "
Thomas Park was found headfirst in the rear hatch of the tower. Hunley, still holding a candle, was in the front tower. The corpses first had to be sawed up so that they could be pulled through the narrow hatches. The bodies were so swollen from the water that extra large coffins had to be requested. During the subsequent investigation it was found that the forward ballast tank valve was open so that the submarine could quickly fill with water. The key with which its lock was operated was on the bottom of the submarine. Either Hunley had forgotten to close the valve again or lost the key in the chaos as it went down. The keel weights were only partially loosened, which suggests that the crew had recognized the danger, but could not save themselves in time. The water pressure made it impossible for them to open the hatches.
Among those who recovered the bodies are said to have been those men who soon afterwards set out to attack the Housatonic . Like the members of his team, Hunley was then buried with military honors.
On the night of February 17, 1864, the HL Hunley ran out with a new crew consisting exclusively of volunteers in order to start a second attempt to attack the blockade fleet. The command on board was now CSA Lieutenant George E. Dixon, a committed supporter of the submarine weapon. The Housatonic was selected as the destination - a steam-powered 1,240-ton sailor of the Northern States Navy. The Hunley managed to place the explosive charge on the starboard side of the Housatonic's hull and detonate it. Although the deck guard noticed the approaching boat at the last moment and opened fire, the sinking of the ship could no longer be prevented. Five crew members of the Housatonic were killed in the explosion, the others managed to get to safety in time. The HL Hunley allegedly signaled, as agreed, by burning a blue magnesium torch that the mission had been carried out successfully, but did not return to the port of Charleston.
The sacrifice of the Hunley and her crew could no longer significantly influence the further course of the Civil War. In 1865 the city, which had already been almost completely destroyed, fell into the hands of the Union troops. The successful sinking of the Housatonic , however, marked a decisive turning point in the history of maritime warfare: For the first time, a submarine sank an enemy ship in a war effort; Until then, this had only been simulated during test drives.
Salvage
For a long time it was not possible to locate the wreck. At the beginning of the 20th century, a reward of $ 100,000 was offered for its discovery. The American bestselling author Clive Cussler spent 15 years looking for HL Hunley at great expense . On May 4, 1995, his search team managed to locate HL Hunley using a magnetometer at a depth of about ten meters off Sullivan's Island , 300 meters from the remains of the Housatonic . The almost completely intact boat was recovered in 2000, dismantled and the individual parts preserved. When the Hunley was examined, considerable damage was found: the rudder had broken off and there was a large leak in the stern ballast tank. After removing 10 tons of sediment deposits, the archaeologists found the skeletons of the crew, remains of human tissue and dozens of well-preserved everyday objects inside the wreck. Among them, the identification tag of a soldier of the Northern States Army, Ezra Chamberlain (probably a battlefield souvenir) and also the gold coin deformed by a bullet, which George Dixon carried as a good luck charm, long dismissed as a legend. She had saved him from a serious gunshot wound in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862 . With the help of the skulls, forensics specialists were able to reconstruct the faces of all crew members.
Team I of the Hunley was originally buried in a small seaman's cemetery, which however fell victim to a new sports stadium in 1948 due to ignorance. In 1999 the tombs were rediscovered and in 2000, with great public sympathy, they were reburied in the Magnolia cemetery. The remains of the third crew were solemnly buried there on April 17, 2004, right next to the other Hunley dead . Tens of thousands of people took part in the funeral procession; the event was, almost 150 years after the end of the Civil War , as the "last Confederate funeral". The HL Hunley , which has been completely restored , has been part of a permanent exhibition since 2012 and can be viewed at the Charleston Museum .
forensic science
The causes that led to the loss of the submarine on the night of February 17 could not be determined beyond doubt until 2017. Some researchers suspected that the team suffocated and not - as long assumed - drowned. It was assumed that Dixon had waited for the tide to set in after the dive in order to get back to the bank more quickly with its help. In the two hours until then, the men would probably have lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen and died from it a short time later. After the cabin was opened by a team of archaeologists led by Maria Jacobsen and Rachel Lance (Duke University of North Carolina), surprisingly all crew members were still at their battle stations. In addition, no visible injuries were found on the bones. Judging from the location of the skeletons, nobody tried to leave his place. The crew hadn't used the bilge pumps in the cabin either. If the crew had tried to disembark because of a leak , they would have had to operate the pumps beforehand. The death from suffocation would have been preceded by hypercapnia , which would have caused shortness of breath, severe convulsions and panic attacks in the men. The position of the corpses proved that this was almost certainly not the case. According to the forensic experts, the death must have occurred quickly and unexpectedly for the team. This supports the assumption that the HL Hunley was badly damaged after the attack on the Housatonic and that the shock wave from the explosion had also killed its crew. Perhaps the lanyard did not unwind completely and the explosive charge detonated too early, making the submarine a victim of its own weapon. There was actually a major leak in one of the ballast tanks, which could have been caused by the detonation. The fact that it was rammed by another ship or marine animal and thereby rendered impossible to maneuver can be ruled out with a fair degree of certainty, since the archaeologists could not find any other damage to the hull.
A report by Rachel Lance published in July 2017 finally confirmed that the cause of death was the strong pressure wave of the torpedo explosion, triggered by 60 kg of black powder at a distance of five meters under water. Such pressure waves also have a considerably greater effect under water than on land. This clearly led to the sudden death of the crew, which explains the position of the bodies. This thesis was supported experimentally by re-enacting the explosion conditions. The researchers had a model of the submarine made on a scale of 1: 6 for their experiments. This was then exposed to underwater explosive charges - also to scale - and the pressure load occurring inside was measured at the same time. From the researchers' point of view, the strength of the explosion would have been sufficient to cause severe internal soft tissue injuries , especially to the lungs and brain.
Team members
Abbreviations: CSN = Confederate States Navy ; CSA = Confederate States Army ; C = civilian
Team I.
- Michael Cane, CSN
- Nicholas Davis, CSN
- Frank Doyle, CSN
- Charles Hasker, CSN
- John Kelly, CSN
- John A. Payne, CSN
- Absolum Williams
- William Robinson, C.
Team II
- Horacy L. Hunley, C.
- Thomas W. Park, C.
- Robert Brockbank, CSN
- Joseph Patterson, CSN
- Charles McHugh, CSN
- John Marshall, CSN
- Henry Baird, CSN
- Charles L. Sprague, C.
Team III
- Ltn. George E. Dixon, CSA
- Corp. CF Carlson, CSA
- James A. Wicks, CSN
- Arnold Becker, CSN
- Frank Collins, CSN
- Joseph F. Ridgaway, CSN
- C. Lumpkin, CSN
- Augustus Miller, C.
Cinematic processing
- The Hunley was her destiny (original title The Hunley ), episode 1 of the American television series The great adventure . Broadcast date September 27, 1963. The series was dubbed German around 1964/1965. The episode was broadcast on ARD , according to the Oldenburger Nordwest-Zeitung , on November 6, 1965 on Sunday, November 7, 1965. Lieutenant Dixon was portrayed by Jackie Cooper , Lieutenant Alexander by James MacArthur ; Van Heflin provided the narration in the original version .
- The story of the submarine was covered in the American television film The Hunley (1999).
- Attack from Below , Mission X Series , Season 2, Episode 1 (2004)
Web links
- The Confederate States Submarine Hunley
- Friends of the Hunley
- Report on the first submarines , Die Welt online, June 9, 2005
- Construction and technical details (english)
- The Charleston Museum
- Confederate Sailors on HL Hunley Killed by Their Own Weapon (explosion tests on the model of the Hunley) on YouTube
Remarks
- ^ A b c R. M. Lance, L. Stalcup, B. Wojtylak, CR Bass: Air blast injuries killed the crew of the submarine HL Hunley . In: PLoS ONE 12 (8) . e0182244, 2017, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0182244 .
- ^ Griffith, Keith: How eight crew members on board the Confederate HL Hunley submarine were killed by their OWN torpedo after they sank a Union warship in 1864. In: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ . February 19, 2020, accessed on February 20, 2020 .
- ^ Frank Thadeusz: Attack from the depths of the sea, in: Der Spiegel , 12/16, pp. 119–120.
- ↑ Der Spiegel, 12/16, p. 119.
- ↑ From: Skull in the submarine. In: Der Spiegel , (Prisma Wissenschaft-Technik), No. 5, year 2012, p. 98.
- ↑ Der Spiegel, 12/2016, p. 119
- ^ "Weekly magazine DER SPIEGEL 2012" and 2016, p. 119.
- ^ Scientists have new clue to mystery of sunken sub . In: Associated Press , October 18, 2008. ( Page no longer available , search web archives )
- ↑ Suffocated on a combat station. In: Der Spiegel, No. 45, year 2008, Prisma Wissenschaft-Technik, p. 145; Der Spiegel, 2016, p. 120.
- ↑ a b The HL Hunley's Sinkings. In: hunley.org. Retrieved February 7, 2020 .
- ↑ History is made. In: hunley.org. Retrieved February 7, 2020 .
Coordinates: 32 ° 51 '24.03 " N , 79 ° 57' 32.58" W.