Along with a full day of cruising the racetrack, your trip includes a stop under the new, and old, Bay Bridge, a guided tour of the historic vessel with a special stop in the steam engine room (where they filmed scenes from the blockbuster movie “Titanic” ), live music, breakfast, lunch and drinks on deck.

The SS Jeremiah O’Brien is a Liberty Ship launched during WWII. The vessel is one of two Liberty Ships still in operation, and a survivor of the armada that stormed Normandy on D-Day.

Interested in getting Zozi’s deal?  Click HERE to purchase.  You better hurry, the offer expires in just 2 days!

Photo of the tanker Ormidale, later renamed Bluefields, which was torpedoed and sunk in 1942 by German submarine U-576. (Credit: Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, Bowling Green State University)

NOAA will lead a summer research expedition to locate and study World War II shipwrecks sunk in 1942 off North Carolina during the Battle of the Atlantic, specifically the Battle of Convoy KS-520. The shipwrecks are located in an area known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” which includes sunken vessels from U.S. and British naval fleets, merchant ships and German U-boats.

“This summer will be the most ambitious of our Battle of the Atlantic research expeditions, and potentially the most exciting,” said David W. Alberg, superintendent, USS Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. “This expedition is all about partnerships, collaboration and using cutting edge technology to search for and document historically significant shipwrecks tragically lost during World War II.”

On July 14, 1942, a merchant convoy of 19 ships and five military escorts left Hampton Roads, Va., sailing south to Key West, Fla., to deliver cargo to aid the war effort. The next day, off Cape Hatteras, N.C., Convoy KS-520 was attacked by German submarine U-576. The convoy fought back with an American warship ramming the U-boat while U.S. Navy aircraft dropped depth charges that sunk the submarine.

Alberg said NOAA’s expedition, taking place in several phases beginning on June 1, will build on work conducted by NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) during the past three summers to document and preserve an important part of North Carolina’s history. The 2011 Battle of the Atlantic expedition survey will be conducted in four phases aboard the ONMS Research Vessel 8501.

• Phase one of the expedition will include a wide area survey in water depths of 100 to 1,500 feet. Advanced remote sensing technologies, including an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and multiple sonar systems, will be used to attempt to locate undiscovered wreck sites, including the U-576 and the Bluefields, a Nicaraguan tanker the U-576 sunk in a torpedo strike.
• A more targeted survey will be conducted during the second phase, relying on an AUV and multibeam sonar systems to produce 3-D images of wreck sites.  Scientists also will be investigating potential fuel leaks at the sites.
• During phase three, scientists will return to selected targets identified in the wide area survey and use a 3-D scanner to create highly detailed models of the wrecks.
• In the final phase, a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) system and high definition 3-D video cameras will be used to create photomosaics of shipwreck sites for research, education and outreach purposes.

Many of the World War II wrecks off North Carolina, some lying as shallow as 100 feet, serve as popular recreational dive sites and are visited by thousands of divers each year. Unfortunately, some of these wrecks have been severely damaged over the years by human activity. Both NOAA and the recreational diving community promote open access to the shipwrecks and encourage responsible dive behavior and preservation of underwater resources for future generations to enjoy.

ONMS is leading the 2011 Battle of the Atlantic expedition survey with support and technical expertise from its Maritime Heritage Program, NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement, and the National Park Service. Additional partners include East Carolina University, the University of North Carolina Coastal Studies Institute, the state of North Carolina, the Renaissance Computing Institute, the Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration, Research, and Technology, the North Carolina Department of Transportation Ferry Division, and Dare County GovEd TV.

Via NOAA

Richard Kelleher, a fireman-watertender, was just 19 years old when he died while serving onboard the tanker SS PATRICK J. HURLEY. The vessel was torpedoed on Sept. 12, 1942 by a German U-boat. Kelleher was one of 13 crew members lost along with the captain and four Navy men.

“With gratitude for their courage in times of great danger, we honor Richard Kelleher and all mariners who serve their country in war and peace,” said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.

Administrator Matsuda presented Kelleher with the Merchant Marine Emblem, Atlantic War Zone Medal, Mariner’s Medal, Victory Medal, Honorable Service Button and Combat Bar with star.

“Richard’s desire to serve at a time when our country needed him most is an inspiration to us all,” said Administrator Matsuda. “His story is an example of the courage and commitment to serve that still exists in the men and women who go to sea today.”

National Maritime Day is May 22 and honors the contributions of the American Merchant Marine, civilian men and women who have defended the freedom of the United States since 1775, and who collectively carried out the largest sealift the world has ever known during World War II. The day also acknowledges maritime industry’s contributions to the nation’s economic and national security.

By all available records, the U.S. Merchant Marine suffered the highest rate of casualties of any service in World War II with 1,554 ships sunk due to war conditions. Hundreds of other ships were damaged by torpedoes, shelling, bombs, kamikaze attacks and mines.

Via Maritime Administration

Photo: SS Patrick J Hurley courtesy dvrbs.com

A ship that fueled global anger amongst mariners during World War II was recently found off Australia’s Queensland coast. The BBC tells us:

An Australian World War II hospital ship, the Centaur, has been seen for the first time since it sank more than 60 years ago with a loss of 268 lives.
Images of the wreck, more than 2km (1.3 miles) below the sea, were captured by a remote-controlled underwater camera.

The ship’s location was discovered last month following a hi-tech search.
Australia says the ship, which went down in May 1943, was torpedoed by the Japanese. Japan says the circumstances surrounding its sinking are unclear.

The search team found the ship on 20 December off the Queensland coast, about 30 miles due east of the southern tip of Moreton Island.

Favorable conditions allowed the crew to send down a camera on a remotely-operated submersible vehicle over the weekend. Further dives are planned.

Search director David Mearns told AFP news agency he hoped the images would “hopefully end a 66-year quest for unanswered questions and bring comfort to many families across Australia and beyond”.

Continue reading the full article HERE or visit the Courier’s ongoing coverage of the wreck HERE.

Earlier today the ship USNS Hoyt S. Vandenberg, was sunk about 7 miles off the coast of Key West making it the world’s second-largest intentionally sunk artificial reef. The vessel was originally built during WWII for troop transport but wikipedia sheds light on her subsequent, more interesting, mission:

On 1 July 1964, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg was acquired by the Navy and designated T-AGM-10, as a Missile Range Instrumentation Ship, one of ten such ships transferred from the Commander, Air Force Eastern Test Range, to MSTS. “Equipped with extremely accurate and discriminating radar and telemetry equipment,” she tracked and analyzed “re-entry bodies in the terminal phase of ballistic missile test flights,” carrying out those missile and spacecraft tracking duties in both Atlantic and Pacific waters until her retirement in 1983.[2] She was ultimately stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 29 April 1993.

In 1998, some scenes of the horror/sci-fi film Virus were filmed aboard the ex-General Hoyt S. Vandenberg. The ship substituted for a Russian vessel known as the Akademik Vladislav Volkov, and some of the Cyrillic lettering applied for the film is still visible on the hull today.

Today’s sinking of this historic cold war relic was caught on film by the team at SinkTheVandenberg.com. Here is a preview of the event:

The vessel now sits in 140 feet of clear water and will serve to attract fish, divers and relieve recreational pressure on nearby natural reefs.  Officials expect it to generate up to $8 million in tourism-related revenue for Key West and the state of Florida. The following image will give you an impression of the vessels size:

The following vessel drawing sheds light on the various missile tracking systems found aboard the ship. Click on the photo for the full size image.

More photos of the ship can be found HERE and HERE but we have also attached additional video below.

USNS Vandenberg Video

:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

MS Wilhelm Gustloff, 9,000 lives lost in 1945

With a death toll six times greater than the Titanic, new light has been shed on MS Wilhelm Gustloff, as a result a TV series that aired on Germany’s ZDF Channel last night.

The Independent is reporting:

“There was this sea of adult heads floating all around me, but alongside them there were hundreds of children’s legs half sticking up in the air. Their heads were under water,” Mr Schön, now 82, said. “They all drowned. Nobody realized that a child’s head is heavier than its legs.”

The Independent post is here.

An estimated 9,000 passengers and crew, fleeing East Prussia, perished (5,000 children) as a result of the the sinking of MS Wilhelm Gustloff back in January, 1945. Gustloff was carrying 10,000 refugees packed into every corner of the ship. Struck by three Soviet torpedoes, she took only 70 minutes to sink.

During her life, MS Wilhelm Gustloff saw many incarnations: Cruise ship, Hospital ship, Navy ship, and Rescue ship.

The sinking (from the Wilhelm Gustloff website) Sometime before 8PM , the first officer on the S-13 spots lights in the distance. Marinesko promptly makes his way to the conning tower. When the snow clears for a moment he spots in his words “the silhouette of an [enormous] ocean liner, even [with its] lights showing”. Over the next two hours, Marinesko shadows the Wilhelm Gustloff, fine tuning his plan of attack. His crew on board begin to sense that their luck is about to change.

MS Wilhelm Gustloff in better days

Her history is well chronicled here.

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This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd

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