Replicating the black powder explosion, Lance said, was the trickiest part of the experiment. The blast can also change with how tightly the powder is packed and how fine the grains are, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command. It is virtually impossible to know how powerful the Hunley’s torpedo blast was, even with the amount of black powder used. Some speculated that it was the Hunley crew signaling that they’d accomplished their mission.īut Lance, who is working on a book about the Hunley, said that she has doubts about inconsistencies in these testimonies. Witness accounts from the night of the Hunley’s sinking claimed that there was a blue light coming from the ocean. It is possible to survive a blast wave from far enough, according to Chiffelle’s accounts. “The man or animal may be killed outright, without external signs of injury, but often with blood-tinged froth or frank blood appearing in the nose and mouth.” Thomas Chiffelle, a pathologist from Albuquerque, New Mexico, wrote in a 1966 report for the US Department of Defense. “It was … noted that men could be killed or disabled at considerable distance” from an explosive, Dr. The end result: The blood vessels in the lungs can rupture, known as a pulmonary hemorrhage. The wave slows as it hits the lung, Lance said, and “that energy has to transmit somewhere.” Shock waves, like sound waves, travel quickly in water and solids but not air. “The issue is when it’s passing through (the tissues) and it suddenly hits air,” she said. But the real damage, Lance said, probably occurred when the pressure wave reached their lungs. That wave then traveled through the cabin, hitting each of the eight crewmembers, traveling through their bodies. Who were they? Drawing a clearer picture of doomed Hunley crew The study authors say the torpedo is the key – but many have wondered how an explosion could’ve killed the entire crew without leaving a trace.įacial reconstructions of the crew of the Hunley. It sank the enemy ship with a 135-pound torpedo, which was filled with black powder and attached to a pole 16 feet from the ship’s hull. The Hunley became the first sub to sink an enemy ship in battle: the USS Housatonic. Maybe a bullet made through a porthole, killing the captain and leaving a beleaguered crew adrift at sea.īut in research published Wednesday in the journal Plos One, one group of scientists thinks they’ve finally cracked the case of what killed the crew so swiftly. Maybe a nearby ship collided with the sub, throwing it off balance into chaotic waters. More human remains, clues found in Civil War submarine's conservationĪ number of theories have tried to explain the mystery of the Hunley: Maybe the crew went too deep, misjudged their oxygen supply and got trapped by the current.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |