Disasters at Sea

by Liz Mechem

  With her position known and her steering and propulsion crippled, the Bismarck steamed toward her fate. A flotilla of English battleships, including the HMS Norfolk, the Dorsetshire, the King George V, and the Rodney all converged on the Bismarck, barraging her with guns, bombs, and torpedoes. The German ship’s armor was robust; several English ships used up their complement of torpedoes and shells and returned to port. The Bismarck’s superstructure had taken heavy damage, but her hull appeared relatively intact. Nevertheless, after nearly two hours of fighting, the Bismarck sank. Allied ships rescued a couple of hundred men but scattered when a German U-boat approached. Of the 2,200 men aboard, 1,995 perished in the sinking. Some reports claim that the Bismarck’s captain went down saluting, with the German colors still flying.

  The British desperately wanted to believe that they had avenged the sinking of the HMS Hood, and the navy denied reports that the Bismarck had been scuttled. Decades later, underwater investigation revealed that the German crew had indeed scuttled their ship—her hatches had been opened from within. The Bismarck’s crew chose destruction at their own hands over defeat by the enemy.

  Two views of the Bismarck. The mighty warship was named after the famous nineteenth-century statesman Otto von Bismarck, known as the “Iron Chancellor,” who was largely responsible for forging a unified German nation.

  HMS HOOD

  THE BRITISH FLAGSHIP HMS HOOD reigned as the largest warship in the world until the Bismarck dethroned her. Despite her massive hull, she had a weakness. The Bismarck gunners lobbed a fused shell so high that it came down almost vertically, piercing the relatively thin decks directly above the ship’s ammunition stores. The shot penetrated the decks, entering and then detonating inside the ammunition magazine, sinking the steel behemoth within three minutes. Of the 1,418 crewmen aboard the HMS Hood, only 3 survived.

  HMS Hood, as she appeared in the mid-1920s

  USS Arizona

  FIRESTORM IN PARADISE

  Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, dawned as a typically gorgeous day in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The sun rose over the USS Arizona, docked with the tender Vestal at Ford Island. Just as the sun was clearing the horizon, at 7:55 AM, air raid sirens, shortly followed by a call to General Quarters, pierced the Pacific calm. Moments later, planes from six Japanese aircraft carriers began their bombing runs.

  The Japanese raid would soon precipitate the United States’ entry into the Pacific Theater of World War II, but that morning in Pearl Harbor, American servicemen were more concerned with immediate survival. Japanese planes pummeled the Arizona with eight direct hits, the most devastating at 8:06. The bomb glanced off the second gun turret and detonated on armor that should have protected the ship. But an open hatch allowed the explosion to start a chain reaction that penetrated the black-powder magazine and then detonated the far more powerful smokeless powder supply. The resultant blast effectively destroyed the Arizona, pelted adjacent Ford Island with burning shrapnel, and launched a fireball high in the air. The fire burned for two days, sinking the great ship in her berth. Despite heroic firefighting and rescue efforts, 1,177 men lost their lives on the Arizona that beautiful Sunday morning in paradise.

  The USS Arizona, crippled by fire and sinking as she burned, after the Japanese bombing attack on the ships in the harbor

  A Japanese photograph taken during the attack shows smoke already rising in what would become one of the most infamous days of American history.

  A DATE THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY

  The Arizona was built in the Brooklyn Navy Yards and commissioned in 1916. The massive super-dreadnought battleship began service just as the United States entered World War I. The scarcity of fuel oil in Europe kept the Arizona stateside during the war, but, over the next two decades, she patrolled Central and South America, transiting the newly constructed Panama Canal several times to cruise the Pacific. She became the flagship of Admiral Chester Nimitz (later to command the entire Pacific Fleet) and underwent several major overhauls during this period, acquiring modernized guns, communications, and fire control gear.

  The Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor sank five battleships, two destroyers, and several support ships; many more were damaged. Scores of aircraft and vehicles burned or exploded, and more than 2,000 people perished.

  LIFEBLOOD

  AS THE REMAINING HULL OF THE ARIZONA sits on the harbor bottom, supporting only the chapel and memorial in lieu of a superstructure, both the ship and her surviving crew live on. Almost 70 years after her sinking, the great ship still emits oil—about 1 quart (1 liter) a year. Legend holds that this will continue as long as any of her crew still live. According to popular belief, the Arizona is showing her bond of solidarity with those who served her by oozing just a little bit of the ship’s blood into the sea. To the chagrin of some, the U.S. Park Service, which oversees the wreck, is currently planning abatement measures to accommodate modern environmental sensibilities.

  The USS Arizona burns. Reaction to the loss of ships and lives during the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor catapulted the United States into World War II.

  After the USS Arizona sank onto the shallow, flat bottom of Pearl Harbor, her guns were transferred to shore emplacements. The sunken hulk was sheared off at the waterline, leaving only a single turret above water. The underwater hull sits in place as a memorial, visible through the clear water. A gleaming white chapel now straddles the sunken hull, giving visitors a place to remember and celebrate the sacrifice of so many sailors, airmen, and soldiers. Their names are engraved in marble above their grave, a rusting hull in the sparkling azure waters of Pearl Harbor.

  The USS Arizona, visible in the clear Hawaiian waters, now supports her own memorial, which tourists can only visit by boat.

  MV Wilhelm Gustloff

  THE WORLD’S DEADLIEST MARITIME DISASTER

  The Wilhelm Gustloff, serving as a hospital ship in 1939. In the confusion surrounding the end of World War II, the ship’s demise went largely overlooked.

  Refugee families huddled in the MV Wilhelm Gustloff as she pitched through the turbulent, icy Baltic in January 1945. Though the passage was sickening, the alternative was worse—mayhem or death at the hands of World War II Soviet troops, which had now overtaken all of East Prussia (present-day Poland and Lithuania). The sea promised the only hope of escape, so the refugees were grateful even for this poorly maintained, overcrowded hulk. Besides, the trip would be short, and the ethnic German families would soon be back in their homeland, war-torn though it was.

  Tragically, most of the passengers and crew would never see dry land again, instead perishing in the worst maritime disaster in history—and one that remains largely unknown. The fog of war has obscured the fate of the approximately 9,500 men, women, and children who died in the wreck of the Wilhelm Gustloff. For in addition to the thousands of civilian refugees, the Gustloff was also carrying Nazi troops and wounded soldiers. She flew the colors of Hitler’s Third Reich, and her military status made her fair game for the enemy—in this event the Soviet submarine S-13. Civilian families paid heavily for this association in what became history’s deadliest shipwreck.

  WHO’S IN CHARGE?

  At 684 feet (209 m), the Wilhelm Gustloff was originally designed as a pleasure cruiser for only 1,500 passengers. But in wartime, and with such a pressing need for evacuation, the ship carried 10,582 passengers and crew when she departed Gotenhafen (present-day Gdynia, Poland) on January 30, 1945. Only one torpedo boat, the Löwe, escorted the Gustloff, after two other convoy boats encountered technical problems.

  SWAN SONG FROM THE FüHRER

  WITH GERMANY’S POSITION on both Eastern and Western Fronts clearly crumbling, and Allied victory in Europe only months away, Adolf Hitler gave a radio address to his loyalists on the evening of January 30, 1945—the 12th anniversary of the Nazi Party’s ascent to power. Aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, the sound system broadcast the Führer’s hour-long speech, which ended at 9:00 PM. Minutes later, the first Soviet torpedo stru
ck the Wilhelm Gustloff.

  Adolf Hitler led the Nazi party to power and, subsequently, the world to war. He ruled Germany as a dictator from 1933 to 1945.

  Onboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, the chain of command was unclear. Four captains were aboard—three civilian, one military. The passage along the southern coast of the Baltic was heavily mined, and Soviet subs were a prime threat. One shipping lane was supposed to be mine-free, and military Commander Wilhelm Zahn guided the ship into this lane. But Captain Friedrich Peterson feared a collision with minesweeper ships and gave a fatal command: he ordered the Wilhelm Gustloff’s running lights illuminated.

  Captain Alexander Marinesko of the Soviet submarine S-13 had been tracking the Wilhelm Gustloff for hours; now he had his target in sight. Marinesko fired three successive torpedoes, striking the Wilhelm Gustloff on the portside fore, amidships, and aft—the final shot obliterating the engine room and the ship’s power along with it. The overcrowded ship listed to starboard. Panic ensued as water rushed in; many passengers and crew were trapped belowdecks. Those above fared no better—the deck was iced over in the frigid weather, and passengers plunged to their deaths. Rescue boats arrived but were only able to save about 1,000 people—a large number by any measure, but only a fraction of the thousands of souls who perished in the Baltic Sea.

  USS Indianapolis

  SECRET MISSION, SILENT DEMISE

  T he heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35) served her country like a prizefighter during World War II. She assisted at some of the most important battles and strategic operations in the Pacific, from the Battle of Iwo Jima to the capture of Okinawa. On March 31, 1945, during the assault on Okinawa, a Japanese fighter plane bombed the Indianapolis. The damage killed nine, but the cruiser pulled through, hobbling across the Pacific to San Francisco for repairs. The Indianapolis still had work to do, and she reported back for duty on what was to be her final mission: a top-secret delivery of uranium-235 and other parts for the atomic bomb “Little Boy,” which would soon decimate Hiroshima.

  Because of the secrecy of her mission, the Indianapolis traveled at top speed and without escort from Pearl Harbor to the island of Tinian, the site from which both atomic bombs would be carried and dropped on Japan. After delivering her cargo, the ship continued to Guam, and from there sailed for Leyte, in the Philippines. She was never to reach her destination. Just after midnight on July 30, 1945, two torpedoes from a Japanese submarine struck the USS Indianapolis. In just 12 minutes, she sank into the Pacific.

  LEFT TO DIE

  Three hundred men died in the initial blast onboard the Indianapolis, while some 900 were plunged into the dark Pacific Ocean. The men had no lifeboats, but many of them wore life jackets, and some had managed to cut loose rafts before their ship went down. Help, they expected, would soon be on the way—operators on the cruiser had sent out three separate SOS calls from their sinking ship.

  Help did not arrive, but sharks did. By daybreak the waters were teeming with them, and they attacked both the living and the dead. Still, the men expected rescue imminently. After four and a half days, a U.S. patrol plane chanced to fly over the wreck site, and seeing the desperate men in the water, radioed a report. Finally, rescue boats and planes arrived, one plane even strapping survivors to its wings in a desperate rescue attempt. Of the 1,196 aboard the Indianapolis, only 316 survived. The rest were taken by sharks, starvation, or dehydration, or they died of their wounds as they waited in vain for their navy’s response.

  FLOTSAM & JETSAM

  On the morning of July 16, 1945—the same day the Indianapolis departed on her secret mission—scientists detonated the world’s first atomic bomb outside Alamogordo, New Mexico.

  Survivors, in Guam, are transported on stretchers to waiting ambulances.

  THE INDY’S FINAL VICTIM

  ON THE NIGHT THE INDIANAPOLIS SANK, American officials intercepted a Japanese report of an enemy ship sunk along the route of the cruiser. No action was taken. The SOS calls were reportedly received but ignored; one officer was drunk, one was indisposed, and the third wrote off the call as a prank. The officer tracking the Indianapolis in Leyte noted that the ship had failed to arrive, but he took no action. The navy initially claimed that a rescue mission would have compromised the ship’s secret task, but later declassified documents revealed that the real failure was simply deadly neglect.

  Instead, the blame fell on the ship’s captain, Charles Butler McVay, who was court-martialed for “failing to zigzag”—a tactic used to elude submarines. Congress posthumously exonerated McVay in 2000; sadly, the weight of guilt had led him to commit suicide in 1968.

  The USS Indianapolis at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a photograph taken around 1937

  ARA General Belgrano

  CONFLICT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD

  T he stormy waters of the Southern Atlantic tossed the ARA General Belgrano around on May 2, 1982—routine conditions for the Argentine navy cruiser. But this was wartime, when any routine patrol could end in violence. Earlier that year, on April 2, Argentina had invaded the remote Falkland Islands, considered British territory. Although neither Britain nor Argentina ever officially declared war, the Falklands Conflict was very serious business indeed for those involved.

  A month into the conflict, the British submarine HMS Conqueror prowled the same stormy waters, in the stillness of the deep. Her captain, Chris Wreford-Brown, had been shadowing the General Belgrano for more than a day and had relayed his quarry’s moves all the way up the command chain. On May 2, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher herself ordered the Conqueror to fire upon Belgrano. Shunning the latest electronic torpedoes onboard for their reliability problems, Wreford-Brown fired three nearly antique mechanical Mk8 Mod4 torpedoes at the Argentinian cruiser. Two of them hit and detonated—one sheared off the bow of the General Belgrano, while the other pierced her hull and exploded in the engine room. This second blast was strong enough to blow a hole upward, clear through two mess halls filled with sailors and out the multiple decks above the engine room. A total of 275 men are thought to have died from the impact; eventually 323 would give their lives. With the ship filling with smoke and beginning to sink, Captain Hector Bonzo gave the command every sailor loathes: “Abandon ship!” The men began an orderly retreat to bright orange inflatable life rafts, which fanned out over the gray sea as the General Belgrano listed and sank beneath the stormy waters of the South Atlantic.

  TIT FOR TAT

  TWO DAYS AFTER the loss of General Belgrano, it was Argentina’s turn to prevail. England lost the HMS Sheffield destroyer to an aerial attack. Though the Argentine Air Force only had five air-launched Exocet homing missiles, they used one to destroy the Sheffield. Twenty crew members were killed in the attack, though accompanying ships were able to rescue the bulk of the crew safely. As rescuers towed her to safety, the Sheffield burned and sank.

  The General Belgrano sinks in the South Atlantic Ocean surrounded by orange life rafts holding survivors.

  A LASTING IMPACT

  The sinking of the General Belgrano had a number of effects on the Falklands Conflict. More than half of Argentina’s eventual casualties occurred that day, and Argentina’s navy lost its taste for the fight. Within a week, virtually the entire fleet put into harbor and stayed there for the remainder of the conflict, leaving the British navy to dominate the arena and operate without threat. The attack also had political ramifications because Argentina claimed that the General Belgrano had been retreating from the conflict area when attacked. The British chain of command insisted that the Belgrano was a legitimate target no matter what direction it was traveling. Nevertheless, the Argentinian government and public expressed outrage at the sinking, sparking a bout of nationalist fervor that continued for decades. Argentina’s forces were compelled to retreat, and though hostilities ended and the British reasserted actual control of the islands, Argentina continues to claim the Falklands as its own.

  As the first woman to serve as prime minister, Margaret Thatcher
guided Great Britain through the Falklands Conflict.

  6 ·MYSTERY!

  Dutch Boats in a Storm by J. M. W. Turner, 1801

  The Santa Maria

  LOST SHIPS OF COLUMBUS

  A colored engraving depicts Columbus’s 1492 departure for the New World. The explorer stands with one foot in a boat as he bids farewell to his benefactors, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain. Beside them, a priest bequeaths his blessing to the endeavor.

  Every American schoolchild knows the year Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Each of them also know the names of the three ships that sailed in 1492—the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Less well known, however, is that Santa Maria de la Immaculada Concepción, as she was formally known, was shipwrecked off the coast of present-day Haiti. Though centuries of the best technology and the most dedicated scholars and explorers have attempted to locate her remains, no one has ever identified the wreck site. The resting place of this most iconic of ships remains a mystery of the deep.

  Of the three ships in Columbus’s 1492 expedition (three more expeditions would follow), the Santa Maria was the largest, at approximately 70 feet (21 m) long, and carried square-rigged fore-and mainmasts and a lateen-rigged mizzenmast. A nao with a rounded hull, she was cumbersome and slow compared with the sprightlier carracks in her fleet of three. As the trio’s flagship, the Santa Maria carried 40 of the 90 men in Columbus’s first expedition.

  Sailing south from Palos, Spain, and then west from the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, Columbus was convinced he would eventually reach the east coast of Asia. Most educated people of the day believed that the world was round; they simply underestimated the size of the planet and overestimated the size of Eurasia. So Columbus promised his patrons, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, a speedy return, with his ships loaded with spices, silks, and gold.

  THE NEW WORLD

  After 33 days of sailing, Columbus’s ships reached the Bahamas, then the north coast of Cuba, and proceeded to the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic). There, according to Columbus’s own journals, the crew engaged in several days of friendly interaction with the native Taíno people. On a calm Christmas Eve, the captain left a boy in charge of the tiller and turned in for the night. As the crew slept, the gentle swells drove the Santa Maria onto a reef, somewhere between present-day Cap-Haïtien and Caracol.