Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 04/03/2026 12:17:01 PM PDT by Twotone
The submarine, launched by the Confederate Army in the last full year of the Civil War, made history when it became the first combat submarine to ever sink a warship. But on the same night when the H.L. Hunley’s torpedo sent the USS Housatonic, along with two of its officers and three of its enlisted crew, to a watery grave in the depths of Charleston Harbor in South Carolina, the Hunley itself—along with its eight-man crew—was also claimed by the waves.
snip
In a study published in PLOS One in 2017, a team of researchers affiliated with Duke University announced that they had solved the mystery of the H.L. Hunley’s crew. Indirectly, the men aboard the Hunley may have been felled by the very same weapon they deployed to take down the USS Housatonic. The torpedo they used to sink the ship was not “launched” the way we in the modern world envision submarine warfare. Instead, the 135-lb. black powder torpedo was attached to a pole 16 feet from the Hunley’s own bow.
By constructing a 1/6th scale model of the Hunley, graduate student Rachel M. Lance was able to measure “black powder and shock tube explosions underwater” as well as “propagation of blasts through a model ship hull.” The data she and the team gathered, in tandem with archival experimental data, allowed them to determine what exactly had killed the Hunley’s crew. When the torpedo that felled the Housatonic exploded, it sent a secondary blast wave through the Hunley, causing a “flexion of the ship hull” on the submarine. By the team’s calculations, that blast wave was of such a magnitude that the chances of survival were “less than 16% for each crew member.”
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
Human bodies don't produce carbon monoxide, just methane and carbon DIoxide.
Imagine how exhaustive it was to work the Hunley. Or for that matter the earlier one-man Turtle submarine of the American Revolution.
“””””The Hunley killed 5 of 8 crewmen on a test run; then all 8 crewmen on a dive test. That was all before they sortied to attack the Union blockade. So 3 crews, 21 men.”””””
Men will keep dying until they make it work, or until they penetrate the void, or until they kill what they are determined to kill, or until they conquer what they want to conquer, or even to go down in mass with dignity, in war, women don’t really show that determination and focus on mission.
There was a story handed down that Lt. Dixon was carrying a 20$ gold piece given to him by his fiancé a few years earlier, for good luck. During an engagement with Union soldiers he was struck by a bullet, or musket ball. That 20$ gold piece saved his life, it stopped the projectile from hitting him. When they opened up the Hunley one of the researchers stuck her hand into the muck inside the sub, pulled it out, and she was holding that gold Double Eagle in her hand. True story. It’s documented here: https://www.hunley.org/artifacts/
Its true. They were volunteers. Those men had balls of steel.
My response-“ ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” Seeing the Hunley museum would’ve been at the top of my list.
There was a documentary show back in the 60s that told the story of the Hunley. I was a kid at the time, and it was a mystery that fascinated me for years.
Save the History
Solve the Mystery
Raise the Hunley
I’ve still got the shirt somewhere.
Checked out that website, very interesting, thanks!
The Hurley is in Charleston S.c.. not Charlotte N.C.
there were other attempts at submarine warfare by the Confederates and each time the crew perished. Yet they always had replacements ready for the next try. Patriots all.
Thanks for correcting me.🙂
My first thought that they were burning lamps or something inside that dark vessel…
Of course… Human produced methane can be justice deadly… Even if it is silent!
PING
It is called the “silent service” ... 😁
And you’re only 16 feet away. Poor bastards holding the pole never knew what hit them. The rest of the crew was probably like Oh Shit!
Human bodies don't produce carbon monoxide, just methane and carbon DIoxide.
They had to use flames to see by which produced carbon monoxide.
They were all volunteers.
That joke is STILL funny!
Myself and 100+ other Freepers were on Seabrook Island when the news broke. We were at a Freeper Convention.
Some years later I was back in SC and managed to go see the Hunley display. Amazing. Such brave men.
I'm not sure where the Freepers from that convention are these days. Some names I've forgotten, a few I still remember.
There's ONE Freeper though, who I'll never forget: Chesty Puller. We met up in Illinois one evening when he was at a training event in a hotel not far from where I used to live.
Picked him up, went out to dinner in Oakbrook, IL. He liked the Jeep Cherokee (4.0L High Output w/Nitrous on it) I was driving until I punched the gas and pushed the NOS button. Scared the bejeezus out of him.
Don't think he ever forgave me for that, ROFL! I can't believe I've been here this many years, and have so little time left in my windshield, with so much time in the rear-view mirror.
Such is life.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.