HUNLEY
At 40ft long this small and physically unimposing vessel is perhaps one of the most significant in the history of America’s Silent Service. H.L Hunley, often referred to as just Hunley, CSS H. L. Hunley or as CSS Hunley, played a small part in the American Civil War, but crucially sparked the idea of underwater warfare and became the first combat submarine to sink a surface vessel (USS Housatonic). Tragically Hunley also claimed the lives of 21 crewmen in three separate sinkings such was the primitive nature of submersible technology at the time.
Named for her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley and came under the control of the Confederate States Army at Charleston, South Carolina. She was built and launched in July 1863 at Mobile in Alabama and then shipped via rail on 12 August the same year to Charleston. On 17 February 1864, she attacked and sank the United States Navy screw sloop Housatonic which had been blockading Charleston’s outer harbour. While the attack was a success it came at a devastating price Hunley was lost for the third and final time.
She was rediscovered in 1995 and raised in 2000 going on display at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center on the Cooper River in North Charleston.
1250 Supply St, North Charleston, SC 29405
USS SILVERSIDES
Silversides, is one of the most successful American submarines of World War Two with 23 confirmed sinkings totalling 90,000 tons of shipping earning the submarine 12 battle stars. She was laid down at Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo in California on 4 November 1940 and commissioned on 15 December 1941.
Silversides made for Hawaii at the start of her first war patrol in April 1942. On 10 May while on the surface Silversides attacked the Japanese guard boat Ebisu Maru No 5 with her 3in deck gun. On 17 May, Silversides attacked and sank a 4,000 ton cargo ship before turning to attack a second vessel as Japanese surface vessels closed on the American submarine’s position. Silversides escaped but not before attacking another freighter and a tanker. Silversides ended her patrol and returned to Pearl Harbor arriving on 21 June.
On her second war patrol she sank a 4,000 ton transport on 28 July off Kii Suido and on 8 August she sent the passenger/cargo ship Nikkei Maru to the bottom and six days later damaged a large tanker. At the end of the August, two enemy trawlers were sunk. For her third war patrol she was despatched to the Caroline Islands, where she failed to sink any enemy vessels but did inflict severe damage to a large cargo ship, a destroyer and light minelayer.
In January 1943, she sank the 10,022ton oil tanker Toei Maru and two days later added three cargo ships Surabaya Maru, Somedono Maru and Meiu Maru in convoy sunk in one audacious and daring torpedo attack. In the summer she added to her total when she sank the cargo ship Hide Maru on 10/11 June but was subjected to severe depth charging. In the autumn she despatched the cargo ship Tairin Maru and followed this success up with the sinkings of the cargo ships Tennan Maru and Kazan Maru and the passenger/cargo ship Johore Maru. At the start of her eighth war patrol, she caused havoc to Japanese shipping by successfully sinking the Tenposan Maru, Shichisei Maru and Ryuto Maru. Her ninth patrol saw her adding to her tally with the destruction of the cargo ship Kofuku Maru on 16 March 1944.
At the end of April, she made for the Marianas Islands where she would sink another six enemy vessels with a total tonnage of over 14,000 tons namely, ,
