MAYDAY: 99 Disasters and Tragedies on the High Seas

INTRODUCTION

Even before the Divine Winds destroyed Kublai Khan’s mighty invasion fleet in the year 1274—and right up to the present—the relentless sea has claimed the lives of many thousands of human beings and the ships on which they sailed.

Powerful storms have ravaged passenger liners, oil tankers, cargo vessels, and other craft of every description. Human error has led to collisions that resulted in disaster. Warfare on the high seas has sent hundreds of ships to the bottom of the ocean. Shipboard fires and explosions have taken their toll as well.

This book presents ninety-nine brief descriptions of disasters that occurred at sea from early times up to the year 2013. Some of the descriptions describe the fates of such well-known ships as Titanic, Lusitania, or Costa Concordia. Other descriptions tell of lesser-known vessels like Birkenhead, Guardian, or Toya Maru.

These descriptions are not meant to be definitive. Rather, they are simply brief summaries of events that hopefully will encourage readers to find out more about the events that interest them the most. To this end, a selected bibliography is included at the conclusion to the work. Readers may also wish to mine the wealth of information provided on the Internet.

One final thought. In some cases, different sources cite contradictory information about the same event. When that happened, the author selected the statistics that in his opinion seemed most likely to be accurate.

Listing of Events

Powerful Storms Destroy Invasion Fleet (1274)

Lighted Candle Guides Ships Home (Before 1699)

British Warship Capsizes During Battle (1545)

Twenty-Six Seamen Enslaved by Natives (1553)

Sunken Ship Raised After 333 Years (1628)

Error in Navigation Responsible for Loss of Four Warships (1707)

Hurricane Ravages Spanish Treasure Fleet (1715)

First American Submarine Attacks British Warship (1776)

Twenty American Sailors Defeat 100 British Attackers (1776)

Lifesavers Rescue Shipwrecked Survivors from Cavern (1786)

British Warship Refuses To Sink (1789)

Thirteen-Year-Old Rescues Stranded Sailors (1797)

Hurricane Ravages Warships on Christmas Eve (1811)

Spectators Watch Battle from Shore (1813)

Shipwrecked Sailors Endure Ordeal in Sahara Desert (1815)

Survivors Resort to Cannibalism on the High Seas (1816)

Hostile Arabs Capture Shipwrecked Survivors (1818)

Sperm Whale Sinks Whaling Vessel (1820)

Natives Enslave Whalers in South Seas (1832)

Circus Ship Sinks in Flames (1836)

Rescuers Brave Cold and Ice To Rescue Nine Survivors (1837)

Ship’s Mascot Helps Rescue Crew (1837)

Father and Daughter Save Stranded Sailors (1838)

British Soldiers Remain in Ranks as Ship Sinks (1852)

Ship’s Captain Perishes with His Craft (1858)

Steamboat Explosion Claims 1,800 Lives (1865)

Divers Recover Lost Fortune After Almost 140 Years (1865)

Five Shipwrecked Mariners Sail 1,800 Miles in Small Boat (1870)

British Ship Capsizes in Snowstorm (1878)

Hurricane Claims Nineteen Ships (1889)

Sailor Rescued from Ship’s Rigging After Eighty Hours (1889)

Shipboard Explosion Helps To Trigger War (1898)

American Ship Rescues All Aboard Dutch Passenger Liner (1898)

Villagers Transport Lifeboat Over Land to Scene of Wreck (1899)

Passenger Ferry Disaster Claims 1,021 Lives (1904)

Six Sailors Survive Twenty-Eight Hours of Terror (1905)

Luxury Liner Sinks on Maiden Voyage (1912)

Superstitious Sailors Tell of Mysterious Cat (1914)

German Submarine Sinks British Passenger Liner (1915)

Eastland Capsizes and Sinks in Chicago River (1915)

Explosion in Harbor Devastates Halifax (1917)

U. S. Coast Guard Lifeboat Rescues British Sailors (1918)

Only a Dog Survived (1918)

Intrepid Italian Frogmen Sink Austrian Warship (1918)

Passenger Ship Breaks Apart on Rocks (1921)

Oil Tanker Runs Aground Off North Carolina Coast (1927)

Passengers Panic As Principessa Mafalda Sinks (1927)

Phantom Ship Disappears in Ice Pack (1931)

Five Intrepid Fishermen Cheat Death (1931)

Submariners Rescued from Sunken Submarine (1939)

More Than 5,000 Die As Troopship Sinks (1941)

Pride of German Fleet Sinks in North Atlantic (1941)

British Destroyer Rescues 180 Seamen from Burning Ship (1941)

Japanese Attack Sinks U.S.S Arizona (1941)

Luxury Liner Sinks at New York City Pier (1942)

Heroic Sailor Perishes with His Ship (1942)

U. S. Coast Guard Sinks First WW II German Submarine (1942)

Oil Tanker Becomes First Victim of Coastal Submarine Attack (1942)

Three Sailors Rescued After Eighty-Three Days on Raft (1942)

PT Boat Captain Sends Message on a Coconut (1943)

Harbor Explosion Sinks Thirteen Ships (1944)

Thousands Die on Prisoner of War Ship (1944)

Single Bomb Sinks Aircraft Carrier (1944)

Typhoon Decimates United States Task Force 58 (1944)

Norwegian Freedom Fighters Sink German Transport Ship (1945)

Submarine Claims Lives of More Than 5,000 Soldiers and Civilians (1945)

Suicide Planes Sink Aircraft Carrier (1945)

U.S.S Laffey Survives Unrelenting Attacks by Air (1945)

Japanese Submarine Sinks U. S. Navy Cruiser (1945)

Midget Sub Sinks Japanese Cruiser (1945)

Overloaded Vessel Strikes Mine and Sinks (1948)

More Than 100 Passengers Die When Ferry Sinks (1953)

Typhoon in Sea of Japan Claims Commercial Ferry (1954)

Mysterious Explosion Sinks Russian Battleship 1955)

Sailor Survives Harrowing Ordeal (1956)

Passenger Liners Collide Off Nantucket Island (1956)

Pirates Capture U. S. Navy Aircraft Carrier (1957)

Sunken Ship Inspires Mournful Ballad (1975)

Fire Causes Indonesia’s Worst Maritime Disaster (1981)

Lone Sailor Rescued After Seventy-Six Days (1982)

Russian Trawler Rescues Two Survivors in Dinghy (1982)

Terrorists Hijack Italian Cruise Ship (1985)

Cruise Ship Sinks in Seven Minutes (1986)

Supertanker Runs Aground in Alaskan Waters (1986)

Thousands Die When Ferry Collides with Tanker (1987)

Fire Claims Lives of 159 Passengers (1988

Only One Person Survives Shipboard Fire (1991)

Explosion Sinks Supertanker (1991)

Salvage Crew Prevents Ecological Disaster (1993)

Collision at Sea Causes $1.635 Million in Damages (1993)

Undersea Explorers Recover 131-Year-Old Mustard Bottles (1993)

Oil Tanker Rescues Vacationing Family (1994)

Eight Hundred Fifty-Two Die in Cruise Ferry Disaster (1994)

Passenger Ferry Disaster Claims Almost 2,000 Lives (2002)

Submarine Collides with Undersea Mountain (2005)

Ship’s Captain Flees as Passenger Ferry Sinks (2006)

Typhoon Capsizes Passenger Ferry (2008)

Cruise Ship Carrying 4,252 People Runs Aground (2012)

Re-Creation of HMS Bounty Sinks During Storm (2012)

Sailor Cheats Death in Underwater Air Bubble (2013)

Powerful Storms Destroy Invasion Fleet (1274)

When violent storms attacked Kublai Khan’s invasion fleet as it set out to invade Japan in 1274, an estimated 20,000 of his troops perished in the sea. Seven years later, in 1281, the Mongol emperor once again sent a large fleet of some 4400 ships carrying an estimated 100,000 of his troops on a second attempt to defeat the Japanese.

When ships of the Japanese navy attacked and sank some of the invaders’ ships, a second typhoon off the coast of Japan ravaged the Mongol fleet, sent most of the ships to a watery grave, and killed almost all of Kublai Khan’s soldiers.

Historians have dubbed these two events the greatest disasters at sea in history.

In 1981 scientists discovered artifacts from some of the ships in the Imari Gulf, and in October 2001 they found the entire remains of one of the ships that had participated in the doomed invasion.

Delighted by the two powerful forces of nature that had helped to defeat their enemy, the Japanese named the two powerful storms kamikazi, or divine wind. During World War II, Japanese pilots who volunteered to crash their airplanes into American warships were called kamikazi pilots. Although they didn’t succeed in defeating their enemy, the kamikazi pilots did inflict significant damage on many of their targets.

Lighted Candle Guides Ships Home (Before 1699)

Before the year 1699 no lighthouses stood to guide ships safely into the harbors of Great Britain. Trusting only to their skills and whatever luck they had, mariners had to pilot their ships to safety in all kinds of weather without guidance from the shore.

One fine afternoon in December during that time a young woman climbed the summit of a bluff to watch a boat far out to sea make its way homeward. Piloted by the woman’s fiancé, the boat knifed through calm water as it made its way toward the shore. If everything went well, the couple would be reunited before nightfall.

But even as the bride-to-be watched the scene far below her, the weather changed. No longer calm, the sea became a cauldron of huge waves driven by gale force winds that threatened to swamp the boat. Soon, the woman was unable to see anything but the raging sea below her. Hoping for the best, she continued to search for her future husband and his vessel until nightfall.

Joined by her friends, the distraught woman descended from the bluff and walked the shore. If she and her friends could spot the lost boat, she thought, they could guide it to safety with their lanterns. But when morning arrived, the craft had disappeared. Only its topmasts were