If so, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) wants to hear from you.
On 6 March at the Navy Memorial in Washington, NOAA unveiled the clay-cast reconstructed faces of two skulls that had been recovered from the iconic turret of the famed Civil War ironclad USS Monitor after it was raised and transported to the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, during the summer of 2002. The hope is that someone will emerge who may be a descendant and willing to compare their DNA with that collected from the remains of the two Monitor crewmen who perished with 14 shipmates when the ironclad sank in December 1862 off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. This would help ascertain their identities, after which the remains will be buried with full military honors, possibly at Arlington National Cemetery. The following photo essay captures this momentous event, which included an unveiling ceremony and a lecture detailing the engineering feats that brought the largest of the Monitor ’s artifacts from the ocean floor to the surface.
