Housatonic (ship, 1861)
 USS Housatonic |
|
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Launch | November 20, 1861 |
| 1. Period of service |
.svg){kind=small}
|
| Commissioning | August 29, 1862 |
| Whereabouts | sunk on February 17th, 1864 by the CSS Hunley submarine |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
1240 ts |
| length |
62 m |
| width |
12 m |
| Draft |
2.6 m |
| crew |
160 |
| drive |
Steam drive and sails |
| speed |
9 knots |
| Armament |
|
The USS Housatonic was a steam powered sailing warship of the United States Navy of the Northern States during the American Civil War . The sloop-of-war was launched on November 20, 1861 and put into service on August 29, 1862 . Named after a river that flows through several states in New England , it was the first ship to be sunk by a submarine in action.
On February 17, 1864 , she duly assumed her guard position just outside a broad belt of blockades outside Charleston . The port of Charleston in South Carolina was then one of the most important trading centers in the breakaway southern states . Around 9:45 p.m., a large, dark object about 100 m away from the Housatonic was sighted by the officer on watch, Robert Francis Flemming Junior. At first it was thought to be a large piece of wood drifting in from the Charleston harbor entrance. But it did not drift with the evening tide, but seemed to have its own drive. It soon became clear to those involved that it had to be a newly developed weapon for the Confederate Navy , a submarine. The crews of the blockade fleet had therefore been warned shortly before this by their commander, Rear Admiral Dahlgren . Although the alarm was given, the anchor chain was released immediately and full speed was taken up, the Housatonic could no longer escape. Just two minutes after the first sighting rammed the HL Hunley starboard a spar torpedo slightly forward of the cross pole into the fuselage. The explosive charge, more than 60 kilograms of black powder, exploded a little later and immediately brought the Housatonic to sink over Bug. A total of two officers and three sailors were killed. The remaining 155 crew members were able to save themselves in the two lifeboats or on the masts of the ship, since the sea there was so flat that their tips still protruded from the water. Flemming also survived the sinking of his ship and was then transferred to the gunboat EB Hale . He did not die until 1919, at the age of almost 80.
According to the latest findings of the team of archaeologists around the biomechanic Rachel Lance (Duke University in Durham), the Hunley and its eight-man crew were lost due to the pressure wave of the explosion. It was only discovered in 1995 and was lifted in 2000.
Web links
- USS Housatonic in the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (English)
- Pictures of Housatonic (English)
- The wreck of the Housatonic (English)
- Report on the first submarines , Die Welt online, June 9, 2005
Individual evidence
- ^ Spiegel Online / Wissenschaft, U-Boot im US Civil War. The puzzle of the "CSS Hunley" , accessed on August 25, 2017.