Bell Retrieved from Alaska's Second Deadliest Shipwreck

Archaeology Magazine ^ | June 11, 2025 | editors / unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

Anchorage Daily News reports that an underwater archaeological team identified and mapped a shipwreck involved in one of Alaska's most tragic maritime disasters. The Star of Bengal was traveling from Wrangell to San Francisco when it went down on September 20, 1908, near Coronation Island in southeastern Alaska's Alexander Archipelago. The 264-foot ship, which was built in the same shipyard as the Titanic, was carrying around 140 people when it sank. Of the 110 souls that perished, the vast majority were seasonal Asian workers hired to work in local Alaskan canneries. The wreck was found to be scattered across nearly 12 acres of the seafloor, but divers were able to retrieve the ship's bell. "It's one of those sites which kept people's imagination for a long time, but was not really studied or mapped and has not received archaeological attention, which it deserves," said archaeologist Evguenia "Jenya" Anichtchenko. The only other maritime event in Alaskan history that was more deadly was the sinking of the Princess Sophia in 1918, which killed 343 people. To read about efforts to document an undisturbed World War II battlefield in the Aleutian Islands, go to "Letter from Alaska: The Cold Winds of War."

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TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: alaska; godsgravesglyphs; wwii

[SunkenCiv]

The recovered bell from the Star of Bengal.

Photo by Stephen Prysunka

[SunkenCiv]

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

We just got back from northern Michigan. Visited the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point. They have the original bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald. Excellent place to visit if you are at all interested in that sort of thing.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks. When I was a teen my folks took me on a sort of business trip (because they didn't trust me at home alone I suppose). There was a small selection of 8-tracks with snappy numbers from their era, which meant the same few things over and over. We learned of the loss of the ship the morning of the 11th, from the newspaper being sold in the restaurant where we got breakfast. They'd taken me out of school, and when I got back to lit class, my lucky classmates had been assigned "Beowulf", which was really apropos, Grendel's mother was a threat from the deep.

[Revel]

“High winds caused the Star of Bengal to wreck and the ship was abandoned by the underpowered tugs. The workers were segregated from the ship’s crew, locked in the ship’s forward hold and unable to escape.”

[ConservativeMind]

Disgusting.

[RckyRaCoCo]

50th anniversary this year

[shaggy eel]

,,, I was in Detroit in 1992 when the anchor from the Edmund Fitzgerald was pulled up and placed on the grass on Belle Isle. That story made the front page of the Detroit Free Press. Total chance with the timing. I’d always loved Gordon Lightfoot’s song. After that I went to the Maritime Sailors’ Church near the tunnel to Windsor. I’ve never forgotten that part of my week there all those years ago.

[cyclotic]

Does the local radio station play The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald once an hour still?

Wile I really like the song, it must drive the locals absolutely bonkers.

And yes, it’s a great museum.

[Red Badger]

“The 264-foot ship, which was built in the same shipyard as the Titanic........

...Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.............

[MS.BEHAVIN]

I’m not a hysterical female, but for the love of God-
how could you live with yourself if you had done such a thing!
That is SO cruel!