Preface The saga of the Confederate submarine H.L.Hunley is one of the true highlights of naval warfare and is unsurpassed for its dramatic impact. The three crews of the Hunley were heroes all and they have been so honored in the annals of the Confederacy. More, since the story has become known people from all across the world have traveled to Charleston to view the tiny submarine and hear its tale.
At the moment of this writing there remain several mysteries about the Hunley and one unnecessary controversy. Three of the mysteries are: why did: the submarine sink ? and why did the crew die? and why was the boat built with water tanks open to the crew compartment?
The answers to the first two questions may lie in the third. Given the engineers knowledge of their subject, it would seem to have been sensible to enclose the water tanks thus preventing accidental flooding of the submarine . The Hunley s own experience dictated such a course, the first sinking in Charleston Harbor and the loss of five men of the crew drowned occurred when the boat flooded after hatches were left open on diving. The deficiency could then have been corrected, but was not.
The unnecessary controversy concerns the discovery of the Hunley s resting place in Charleston s outer harbor more than a century after the sinking.
Explorer Edward Lee Spence, Underwater Archaeologist Mark Newell, and Author Clive Cussler have all at one time claimed to have discovered the Hunley. Cussler s claim rests on the activities of his NUMA diving team.
Newell s claim rests on his study of the Hunley over many years and his intuitive finding that it lay in Maffitt s Channel because that was the logical place for it to be. Spence s claim rests on good luck, he says he found the Hunley one day in 1970 quite by accident when on a fishing trip the party s nets were hung up on an underwater obstacle and when Spence dived down he saw the submarine.
At the moment Cussler s claim is paramount, accepted officially by the Hunley Commission, but there is an unpleasant aura about it, stemming from the author s employment of money muscle in pursuit of the claim There does not seem to be any doubt that Spence first found the submarine, even though he could not produce the physical proofs that Cussler so easily obtained.
The matter has now gotten into Federal litigation. It should never have gone so far. Newell has abandoned his claim. Cussler should rectify his, to cover only the "rediscovery" of the submarine, and the technical proofs that led to its identification as the Hunley. There exists plenty of glory for all of them, without this unseemly squabble.
