Free Republic

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., lashed out Sunday against a group that campaigned against him during his last run at the White House. Kerry said he is concerned that Swift Vote Veterans for Truth is again resorting to "the politics of fear and smear." The group, financed by Texas conservatives, ran commercials questioning his Vietnam record - the centerpiece of his presidential campaign in 2004. Those same conservatives have formed another group this year - Economic Freedom Fund - to campaign against Democrats across the country. "We're not going to give them an ounce of daylight," said Kerry, who is considering...

From Naval Sea Systems Command Public Affairs PENSACOLA, Fla. (NNS) -- The ex-Oriskany, a decommissioned aircraft carrier, became the largest ship intentionally sunk as an artificial reef May 17 when it was sunk approximately 24 miles off the coast of Pensacola, Fla. After 25 years of service to the Navy in operations in Korea, Vietnam and the Mediterranean, ex-Oriskany will now benefit marine life, sport fishing and recreation diving off the coast of the Florida panhandle. The 888-foot ship took about 37 minutes to sink below the surface after strategically placed explosives were detonated at 10:25 a.m. CDT. The Navy...

MANITOWOC, Wis. (NNS) -- Families of crew members who served aboard the World War II submarine USS Lagarto (SS 371) gathered here May 6 to honor the men whose submarine went missing six decades ago and was only recently located by divers. Lagarto was last seen May 3, 1945, in the southern Gulf of Thailand while preparing to strike an enemy convoy. Japanese records later indicated that the minelayer Hatsutaka reported sinking a U.S. submarine on that date. Last May, nearly 60 years to the day after Lagarto was lost, British diver Jamie MacLeod reported finding Lagarto sitting upright in...

THE North Korean freighter used to smuggle 150kg of heroin into Australia three years ago now rests on the ocean's bottom, after being destroyed by a pair of laser-guided bombs. Four F-111 strike bombers flying from RAAF Amberley in Queensland proved dead on target as the 3500-tonne freighter drifted 140km off Jervis Bay this morning. Two 800kg precision guided bombs struck the Pong Su's hull with massive blasts, showering debris over a wide area. The vessel sank quickly into deep water. The Pong Su was seized off the New South Wales coast in April 2003 after a four-day chase involving...

New National Geographic/Zelitsky Expedition to Cuba "Underwater City" Site Planned-- Page 27 By Hernán Casares Camera Thanks to: Donald Raab The Russian-Canadian oceanographer Paulina Zelitsky reveals that likely, next autumn, between October and November, she will lead a new expedition, from the Port of Progress, to finish the work that could not be concluded last year at the suspected site of a lost underwater city near Cuba; to map the area and to make a hi-resolution film of the location. National Geographic will finance most of the trip. For several months the team has been readying a specially equipped ship...

I-401 is Found! 20 March 2005.....I-401 was one of three huge Japanese submarines taken by the US Navy at the end of the war, studied and eventually scuttled in deep water. This boat and her sister I-400 had watertight aircraft hangars that housed small floatplanes which were to be used for scouting. These boats were surrendered to US Navy forces at the end of the war, taken back to Hawaii to be studied then because the Soviets were demanding access to these boats, they were taken out to sea on 31 May 1946 and used as torpedo targets of USS...

Quilt commemorates sailor/poet from the U.S.S. Northampton An Oro Valley veteran was honored last week for connecting an uncle and his nephew more than a half-century after World War II prevented them from meeting. Sherman Walgren, 86, served as a third-class radioman on the USS Northampton from 1940 to June 1942. It was his first ship but not his last. Over the years, he has maintained a growing collection of Navy memorabilia from his time at sea to pass along to his grandchildren. That history of life during the war was what Walgren shared with Texas resident Phillip Dean Bucklew,...

First section of Tricolor raised The stern, weighing 3,000 tons, is the first section to be raised The first section of a freight ship which sank in the English Channel last year has been raised to the surface.The 190 metre-long Tricolor has been a major obstacle to shipping in the Channel since it sank about 30 miles off Kent in December. The 20,000 ton ship was carrying a cargo of luxury cars when it sank after colliding with the container ship Kariba. Click here to see a graphic showing how the Tricolor will be raised It is being raised in...

French plan to aid Africa could be sunk by Bush Charlotte Denny and Larry Elliott Friday May 23, 2003 The Guardian President Bush is preparing to bury a radical French plan which would help some of the world's poorest farmers by ending the dumping of subsidised western food in Africa. A war of words over the plight of the world's poorest continent was brewing last night after European officials accused the US of blocking the ban on export subsidies. In a separate attack, Mr Bush blamed European opposition to GM foods for causing hunger in Africa. President Chirac had been...

Archaeologists Find 127-year Old Shipwreck in Deep Gulf MMS 2/11/2003URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=5609Archaeologists working under contract to the Minerals Management Service have discovered the 1876 wreck of a wooden-hulled sailing ship in 1,300 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. The 190-ft long wreck was first reported to MMS, the Federal agency that manages offshore oil and gas development, as a "possible shipwreck" in a remote-sensing survey conducted for Shell Oil in the early 1980s. Its identification and historical significance were unknown until last week, when scientists from Texas A&M University (TAMU) visited the site as...

January 28, 2003 Shipwreck in the Gulf Clings Tenaciously to its MysteriesBy KENNETH CHANG BOARD THE RYLAN T, off Louisiana — Those who believe in ghosts might conclude that those aboard a shipwreck at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico do not want to be disturbed. For nearly two centuries, the ship has lain under a half-mile of water, forgotten until ExxonMobil, by infinitesimal chance, bisected it with an oil pipeline two years ago. Marine archaeologists at Texas A&M University saw it as an opportunity to use undersea technology to uncover maritime history. With robotic submarines able to...

<p>HONG KONG, China -- A Russian sailor who survived after being trapped for six hours inside a sunken dredger said prayers and the thought of his family kept him alive.</p> <p>"As the water rose, I just prayed and thought of my wife and my daughter in Russia," Chief engineer Viktor Larin told reporters on Wednesday.</p>