Grave Site News

In November 2020 I wrote a column in MREN that discussed the right of people to engage in crazy marine ventures. The example I used in that column was an attempt to row from South America to Antarctica. In it I also made note of the inherent unseaworthiness of single-handed ocean racing and noted that such foolishness often resulted in the public spending lots of money providing rescue services.The Ocean Gate Expedition Titan venture has now managed to set an entirely new standard…

The case against two film makers charged with disturbing the wreck of the ferry Estonia, which sank in 1994 with the loss of 852 lives, was dismissed on Monday by a Swedish court as their vessel was not covered by the law protecting the grave site.The men were part of a Discovery Network documentary team which sent a remote-operated vehicle to film the wreck in the Baltic Sea in 2019, discovering previously unknown damage to the hull and reviving speculation about the cause of…

A new examination of the wreck of the ferry Estonia, which sank in the Baltic in 1994 with the loss of 852 lives, will be possible from the summer when a change to Swedish law comes into force, news agency TT reported on Thursday.The official investigation concluded in 1997 that the roll-on, roll-off ferry’s bow shield had failed, damaging the bow ramp and flooding the car deck.But a recent television documentary renewed speculation about the cause of the disaster and prompted…

Marine salvors on Wednesday outlined plans to recover the Marconi wireless telegraph from inside the RMS Titanic after being cleared by a U.S. judge in May to retrieve a piece of history from the world's most famous shipwreck.Originally scheduled to embark on the mission to recover the system this summer, the private company with exclusive rights to salvage artifacts from the ship announced it has shifted its expedition to spring/early summer of 2021 to abide by ongoing travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic."The safety of our crew…

U.S. Navy underwater archeologists, in conjunction with Indonesian Navy divers, have assessed in an interim report that the wrecked vessel surveyed in the Java Sea in June is "consistent with the identification" of the World War II wreck of the cruiser USS Houston (CA 30), and that divers documented conclusive evidence of a pattern of unauthorized disturbance of the gravesite. "We're grateful for the support of our Indonesian partners in determining the condition of the USS Houston," said Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. "Surveying the site, of course, was only the first step in partnering to respect those Sailors who made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure the freedoms and security that we richly enjoy today," he added. U.S.

More than 153 years after it was lost in a violent collision at sea, government and university maritime archaeologists have identified the wreck of the ship Robert J. Walker, a steamer that served in the U.S. Coast Survey, a predecessor agency of NOAA. The Walker, while now largely forgotten, served a vital role as a survey ship, charting the Gulf Coast ‒ including Mobile Bay and the Florida Keys ‒ in the decade before the Civil War. It also conducted early work plotting the movement of the Gulf Stream along the Atlantic Coast.

1950-A dedication of the monument erected in Arlington National Cemetery on the gravesite of those who lost their lives on the night of 29 January 1945, when USS Serpens was destroyed off Lunga Beach, Guadalcanal. This was the largest single disaster suffered by the Coast Guard in World War II. 1992: The CGC Storis became the cutter with the longest service in the Bering Sea, eclipsing the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear which had held that distinction since 1929. The Bear was decommissioned in 1929 after serving in the Bering Sea for 44 years and two months. (Source: USCG Historian’s Office)

1950-A dedication of the monument erected in Arlington National Cemetery on the gravesite of those who lost their lives on the night of 29 January 1945, when USS Serpens was destroyed off Lunga Beach, Guadalcanal. This was the largest single disaster suffered by the Coast Guard in World War II. 1992: The CGC Storis became the cutter with the longest service in the Bering Sea, eclipsing the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear which had held that distinction since 1929. The Bear was decommissioned in 1929 after serving in the Bering Sea for 44 years and two months. (Source: USCG Historian’s Office)

1950-A dedication of the monument erected in Arlington National Cemetery on the gravesite of those who lost their lives on the night of 29 January 1945, when USS Serpens was destroyed off Lunga Beach, Guadalcanal. This was the largest single disaster suffered by the Coast Guard in World War II. 1992: The CGC Storis became the cutter with the longest service in the Bering Sea, eclipsing the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear which had held that distinction since 1929. The Bear was decommissioned in 1929 after serving in the Bering Sea for 44 years and two months. (Source: Navy News Service)

Divers from Mobile Underwater Diving Salvage Unit (MUDSU) 1 based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, will soon descend into a Pacific lagoon to stop a recent oil leak and assess the material condition of a World War II Navy oil tanker that sank in 1944. USS Mississinewa (AO 59), a 553-foot auxiliary oiler, was commissioned May 18, 1944, and supported the ships of the 3rd Fleet in the Central and South Pacific. The huge lagoon at Ulithi Atoll was an anchorage for hundreds of Pacific Fleet ships and major staging area for campaigns at Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Mississinewa was anchored in Ulithi's lagoon when it was struck by a Japanese-manned suicide torpedo, or "kaiten," on the morning of Nov. 20, 1944. The ship burst into flames and sank, killing 63 American Sailors.

Blackhawk Fleet, Inc. operates towboats and barges along the Mississippi River out of Davenport Iowa. The city, on the Mississippi River 300-miles up river from St. Louis, has long been a maritime center. When 84-year old Capt. David Tipton died at the wheel of his snag-pulling steamboat in 1904 he was buried here. To honor the Mark Twain contemporary, his crew hauled an anchor from the river to mark his grave site. His vessel, the Col. A. Mackenzie was renamed the David Tipton. Tipton's death was declared the end of an era, but it hardly marked the end of riverboat work around Davenport. Today,Blackhawk's eight boats and 35 barges have a variety of capabilities including crane, deck and sand barges.