Show marine tragedies and their secrets 5 01 FAMOUS VESSELS BLOWN I 1 va W K I 1 00 rate fate of the maine recalls other disasters of the deep deel M S equally horrible and equally 4 I 1 mysterious THE IN MODERN WARFARE vi lok no navy Is tree free from sad stories of explosions lit in its powder and ammunition magazines and since the beginning of our civil war the number of vessels destroyed by torpedoes in some form or by submarine mines makes a grew some list Is it generally known tor for example ample es that in the civil war seven monitors and eleven wooden vessels of war were totally destroyed by submarine mines had the confederates posse possessed sed the same knowledge at the beginning of the war the struggle would have been at the least much prolonged and the disaster to life and tonnage been greatly increased during our early struggles lea several vessels were blown up notably the It randolph andolph of 0 immortal memory but the most memorable case and surely one of the most pathetic was the destruction st ot of the intrepid commanded by the gallant somers she was fitted out as a floating mine and on tho the night ot of september 4 1804 started from off shore under sail for the liner inner harbor of tripoli anxious eyes watched her from the blockading fleet and at ten a thunderous report was heard a column of flame was seen Ti vibrating bratIng in the skies and then the roar of hundreds of guus guns mounted ashore no one came back to tell the story but it is believed that somers kept his word not to be taken alive by the enemy and blew up the tha ship to escape capture it was learned that the intrepid had grounded on the north ledge of the harbor and that she rho had been attacked by three gunboats gun boats it was surmised but never known that to prevent the valuable supply of ammunition falling into the hands of the enemy somers bomers fired her destroying his own people and the Tripoli tans swarming out of their boats into lato the hapless american tender in june 1829 the wooden ship fulton then stationed as tho the receiving ship off brooklyn blew up from causes never revealed seventy five persons were g wu ai 7 Z 14 lid 4 A THE JUNIOR OFFICERS OP OF THE MAINE 1 engineer proctor 2 engineer french 3 gherardo 1 4 a s dr richards 6 ward 7 engineer mansfield 8 ramsey 10 butler 11 watson leases the compressed air carried in a flask and sets in motion the machinery three things must be done by it it must go through the water at a high speed preserving its linear direction it must float at a constant depth and on striking it must explode the ingenuity and simplicity 0 of the mechanism which effects these three things are ara really marvelous the howell torpedo is based upon the well known principle of the gyroscope its speed and surety of diree 9 I 1 I 1 M I 1 9 F 41 aa y fl dv V M J 1 f 7 Y 71 7 r IM I 1 11 11 if 41 A r 1 1 ji IM cizl I 1 I 1 I 1 adi vill me af I 1 11 g g A 17 F 1 Z HOW THE MAINE LOOKS FROM A photograph TAKEN THE DAY AFTER THE DISASTER killed and about thirty were wounded tradition has woven many it a romantic many an impossible story about this disaster one yarn told how a gunners mate had been punished as he thought unjustly and in revenge destroyed the ship in so doing he lost his own life but tailed failed in killing the object of his hatred an aa officer who had left the ship quietly a short time before the commission of the crime the real story etory seems to be that a fuddled cuddled gunners mate by some error made his way into the magazine with an exposed lighted candle stumbled into the powder barrel of the period and thus blew the ship skyward the destruction in the english service there have been a number of notable caties cases of explosion but mainly in action one well known in time of peace was the destruction of the frigate amphion Am phlon capt israel commanding off plymouth england here too a gunners mate appears as the god in the machine for apocryphal or not it Is believed to this day that the seaman in question went with a lighted lamp into tho the magazine to steal powder which then had a ready market several hundred people nere ere destroyed among them prominent officials and citizens of the town who were lining dining on board among other crimes laid so BO unjustly to irish sympathizers by the english press and people was tile the destruction of the british gunboat dotterel Ot terel in tho the straits of magellan she arrived oft off punta arenas about nine a in oil an april 26 the captain went neilt ashore soon after to pay his official call and about ten a in two terrible explosions were heard and an immense cloud of smoke was seen hovering over the ship in the perfect calm of the morning projectiles of all kinds masses of human beings of ship equipage and of general wreckage were discovered flying through the air and the water for a quarter of a mile around the ship was littered with debris boats put off from tho the shore and out of the whole ships company of over souls only eight were saved fenian plots were held to be the cause of the disaster and south america and australia were the scenes of police inquiry tor for months it I 1 la s now believed that the explosion was due to the spontaneous ignition of a paint then used in the british navy this under deterioration or when exposed to heat was found to give ott off a highly inflammable gas and as the first explosion occurred in the neighborhood of the paint locker this plausible theory is now accepted during the last twenty years two other cases have occurred one when in ISSO a spanish gunboat was blown up in the harbor of santiago de cuba and the other in 1993 when a most damaging and distressing explosion occurred on board of the german armored ship baden then at anchor off kiel of the war inventions employed to destroy ships by submarine or aerial projectiles or by mines the number Is legion we were among tho tha earliest to employ these and our contributions to tho the history of torpe torpedo do warfare have been very many and very notable the famous dattle battle of 0 the tha kegs has been sung in mock heroic verse and the philadelphians lans ians of 1777 had many a merry jest over tho the valorous attack made by the british gren adders upon these innocuous barrels capt david bushnell of connecticut was one of the earliest earlies t experimenters with torpedoes the though ugh g robert fulton was the first to call a magazine of powder intended for use under water by this name this great inventor made many experiments and the partisans and opponents oi of the new system filled the journals of that day with acrimonious discussions the failure of torpedoes in the war of 1812 and the general feeling against this mode of warfare as inhuman and barbarous caused however its practical abandonment tor for many the confederate torpedoes submarine boats had bad been generally employed in all experiments up to the beginning ot of the civil war var and it was really not until 1863 that movable or fixed isolated torpedoes were brought into general use the confederate torpedoes were usually made of copper and filled with powder varying in weights according to circumstances of employment from fifty to one hundred and fifty pounds these were carried on spars attached to ships or boats were anchored on the bottom or were sent drifting singly or in pairs connected by long lines down tide streams the fuses were generally of the percussion typo type and fulminate of mercury entered largely into their composition the housatonic was destroyed by a submarine boat but the albemarle Albe marlo was blown up by cushing cashing with a torpedo carried on the end of a spar this torpedo was made of a stout cylindrical indr ical copper cage filled with powder and fitted with a hollow tube which carried at its bottom a fulminate cap A small sized grape shot secured with a pin was held at the top and by releasing this at the eventful moment dishing cushing destroyed the albemarle and his own boat at tho the same time and then made one of the most daring and romantic escapes in the annals of naval history many improved systems were employed and much ingenuity was displayed the most inventive of all experimenters be being ing a confederate officer who previous to the war var had been a well known dancing danel ug master alit t e r handling torpedoes Torpedo eq F for or a season towing torpedoes toi dedoes were in great favor these were handled from the ship and by certain dextrous shift n cs of the connecting lines were carried ote off each quarter at a sate safe angle and made to dive at the de moment they proved to bo be danger dangerous otts bo however weyer and all effort was wab thereafter aft r d directed 1 r e t to the a d dirigible i g 1 b i e 0 or r there oem ec corp eath ir tho automobile 0 b 1 1 t torpedo G generally e e r a 1 1 y d described e the dirigible torpedo la Is ono one that contains its own propelling and firing bring mechanisms and Is piloted from the shore by means ot of electric cables which function tho the machinery the automobile torpedo la Is a weapon that is shot from a tube generally called it a torpedo gun and takes up its line of 0 progress by machinery contained in its body there are many forms of these like the howell and the whitehead tor for example and some extraordinary tra results have been obtained with both tho the whitehead cad Is discharged from the tube by steam or powder and just as it leaves the muzzle a lock automatically opened re r tion are given by the functioning of an inner wheel which is rela relatively Y very heavy on the periphery and revolves with such velocity and in such a constant plane that high speed and great straightness of trajectory are secured there are many other forms but these two are employed in our service and the whitehead Is used by nearly all the navies of the world submarine mine lues the term submarine mine is applied to defensive mines or to those which would tie be used to obstruct the channels of a river or estuary or the approaches to a fortified or ed seaport col samuel cou colt of 0 the Amerl Amt tbt remonstrated demonstrated the 11 1 Tem ter clity ila lowing blowing up vessels by of t fired by electricity in inisi 1312 1842 up the old gunboat boxer Js h 11 v av ana I 1 la it n he be destroyed a brie bric in ill tile the river while the vessel was 11 andr sailing at the rate ol of ILY five hour W miles 11 many forms of 0 mines and abroad and they were kaoi ii tre were luccis abuce fully employed against us I 1 in 11 the war every system vm civil ot of c east coast detki date concerns itself with their distri distribute and use and every well wel I known ot of tho the wor world id is at this habit tu day so BO map out that the planting ot of these may be done on it a plan which aim promise the greatest utility some ot of afe are constant depth mines they that I 1 li such as will float always at a certa certani iii depth below the surface no matte what may bo be the state of 0 the my some are fitted to explode on contact and most are so arranged that thy they may be exploded at will by stationed at points of refuse refuge la in bomi bomb proof and lookout stations ashore Is the harbor ot of havana go EO guards guarded and so protected and could the mains have been anchored close to one of 0 these submerged submerges volcanoes operated operate so easily by the simple twist of 0 a 1 hostile hand ashore an unthinking mother in a dry goods store a little boy yet yd in dresses disturbed the peace 0 of hundreds of shoppers mainly though lecause there seemed to be nothing they could do for him his mother a well meaning woman ot of small judgment ml and experience was buying a hat suddenly the lad by her side began to shriek as it in severe pain or right fright the th woman tried tr led to soothe him but h be screamed more fiercely upon which she spanked him A crowd gathered and an attendant picked up the then thoroughly unnerved youngster and carried him kicking and yelling into in an anteroom there he struggled ml gasped until a woman put some plat jink candy in his hands for a moment it attracted him then he crumbled it fiercely and cried hysterically again A peppermint from a third woman impressed him slightly but he did not gain self control until his mother tilted asked him if he wanted to go out of doors like a stifling animal he be shrieked yes the woman told me that AS sh could not understand it at all he never had such an attack before not ot by way of explanation but incidentally she added that she and the boy hal bad just landed from the teutonic ue the before ile he had been sick in his berth tor for six days poor child P poorer mother not to see any connection between six lays days of sickness in a closed cabill and ud a nervous fit in a doss close store on 00 the seventh she never knew ebe said he ha had such a temper graca E F drew in new york press t 4 U 61 ia T A N THE SECTION OF THE MAINE A THE DAY AFTER THE DISASTER |