The Shipwreck Legacy of Clive Cussler (1931–2020)
The passing of novelist, adventurer, and shipwreck hunter Clive Cussler on 24 February was a feature story around the world. Cussler’s many books, selling into the hundreds of millions, had an active and enthusiastic global readership. As tributes continue, obituaries usually also reference that Cussler had channeled his royalties and his energy into a decades-long series of true adventures in which he sought, and often found, famous shipwrecks.
Some obituaries mention specific wrecks, notably the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, while also citing the Titanic, which he actually never sought, but famously brought to the surface a decade before the wreck actually was discovered, in his first bestselling novel, Raise the Titanic.
The shipwreck legacy of Clive Cussler is far more than “raising” the Titanic or funding and spearheading the successful search for the Hunley. In all, Cussler’s attention and funding led to discoveries of lost ships, many of them naval. The list of found shipwrecks is a long one.
One of his favorite lines, included in his website dedicated to the National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA), the organization he founded (the real-life counterpart to the fictional agency in his novels), was, “I have never made claim to being an archaeologist. I’m purely a dilettante who loves the challenge of solving a mystery; and there is no greater mystery than a lost shipwreck.”
ALAMY
Clive Cussler loved mysteries, and he loved solving them. He also loved sharing the stories. I first met Clive in the early 1980s at an archaeology conference, and he was warm, welcoming, and interested in what was happening in the world of shipwreck exploration and archaeology. That interest played out not only in his novels, but also in his funding and participating in field work. As a result, a number of important wrecks were found. The true legacy of a shipwreck hunter, however, is the number of people engaged, excited, and drawn to a subject, be it shipwrecks, naval history, or the individual stories of ships and their crews. Clive Cussler and NUMA ensured that through both fact and fiction.
I had the good fortune to work closely with Clive when I was selected, at his recommendation, to be the archaeologist and host of National Geographic Television’s The Sea Hunters, which was based on the premise of his NUMA work and the nonfiction book he had just written on “true adventures with famous shipwrecks.” Among the real-life stories that we filmed and shared with a global audience of millions were the discovery of the Carpathia, the ship that rescued the Titanic’s survivors; return dives to sites such as the World War I German submarine U-21; and the final resting place of the Mary Celeste, the notorious “ghost ship” found adrift in 1872 without a soul on board.
One of Cussler’s interests was the ultimate fate and resting place of a ship that had vanished from the headlines after her moment of fame. For the Mary Celeste, that end came with an insurance fraud and the wreck of the brigantine on a Haitian reef. The Sea Hunters team found the wreck where it was reported lost. A detailed forensic and archaeological analysis verified her identity.
Our best moments were sharing stories and getting excited about yet another lost ship. I closed a Facebook post I wrote after his loss with the observation that he’s up there now, arguing with Mark Twain and others about what makes a good story. I’m also content that, for Clive Cussler, all shipwreck mysteries have at last been solved. Fair winds and following seas, Clive.
—James P. Delgado, archaeologist, author, and senior vice president, SEARCH Inc.
Cold War, Historic Battles Discussed at Western Naval History Symposium
p. 60), discusses Japan’s naval blockade of China in World War II.
Western Naval History Association
The Western Naval History Association’s second annual symposium, held 29 February–1 March in San Diego, drew 55 attendees from across the country and the United Kingdom. The event, hosted by the USS Midway Museum, took a penetrating look at the Cold War and historic naval battles fought during the world wars, among other subjects.
Speakers included historians Richard B. Frank, Vincent P. O’Hara, Evan Mawdsley, Stephen McLaughlin, Robert Stern, and Karl Zingheim; National War College Dean of Faculty and Academic Programs Dr. Cynthia Watson; retired Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt; and General Quarters war game creator Lonnie Gill.
Also on hand were Naval Institute authors Bernard Cole and Sam Tangredi; retired submarine Captain Charles R. MacVean; Mark E. Fiorey, deputy director of the Hattendorf Center for Maritime Historical Research; and Richard Russell and Jack Russell of the U.S. Naval Institute.
Naval Institute Authors of the Year Announced
The U.S. Naval Institute is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2019 Author of the Year awards.
The Naval History Author of the Year is acclaimed naval aviation historian Barrett Tillman, whose contributions to the magazine in 2019 included: “The Tale of Eleven” and “Verg’s War” (August); and “The Navy’s Aerial Arsenal” and “The Gambier Bay’s Final Hours” (October).
The Proceedings Author of the Year honors go to Lieutenant Commander Graham Scarbro, U.S. Navy. Lieutenant Commander Scarbro’s prolific contributions in 2019 to both the magazine and the Institute’s blog included feature articles, commentary, and book reviews. Highlights include: “‘Go Straight at ’Em!’: Training and Operating with Mission Command” (May 2019, also the second prize winner in the 2018 General Prize Essay Contest); “Junior Officers: TOPGUN’s Foundation” (September, coauthor); and “My Journey Back to Mental Resilience” (December).
The corecipients of the Naval Institute Press Author of the Year award for 2019 are Peter Mattis and Matthew Brazil, coauthors of Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer. Their book has earned accolades from The Economist, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and The Wall Street Journal, which hailed the work as “the most comprehensive attempt yet to outline the range of China’s spying and the complicated web of agencies that carry it out.”
The winners of the Naval Institute’s 2019 General Prize Essay Contest (sponsored by Andrew and Barbara Taylor) are: First Prize—Lieutenant Commander Jeff Vandenengel, U.S. Navy, for “100,000 Tons of Inertia”; Second Prize—Hunter Stires, for “Great Power Competitions Are Best Won Without Fighting”; and Third Prize—Lieutenant Commander Joshua M. Portzer, U.S. Navy, for “Kanyon’s Reach: The U.S. Navy’s New Nuclear Kraken.”
For more information, visit www.usni.org.
Wreck of the Adriatic, Confederate Raider’s Prize Ship, Discovered
In the final summer of the Confederacy, the CSS Tallahassee made the last voyage by a Rebel commerce raider into northern waters. Now, 156 years later, a group of divers has discovered the wreck of the biggest prize from that cruise off Long Island.
In August 1864, the notorious Confederate raider Captain John Taylor Wood captured 33 Union vessels in a daring 19-day voyage in the Tallahassee. And now, the remains of the 181-foot packet ship Adriatic—the most valuable of the Tallahassee’s captures—have been located 30 miles south of Montauk Point, where her regularly scheduled trip from London to New York ended prematurely.
“Finding the wreck of the Adriatic is an amazing discovery,” said Harrison Hunt, coauthor of Long Island and the Civil War (History Press, 2015). “It’s especially significant for Long Islanders as it highlights how close the Civil War came to home in the form of Confederate raiders.”
The Tallahassee encountered the Adriatic on 12 August 1864. After removing the passengers and crew, the Tallahassee’s crew set the Adriatic ablaze; she sank in 220 feet of water. Over the years, commercial fishermen discovered the site when their nets hung up on the wreckage, and they recorded the location.
John Noonan learned of the location from one of those commercial captains almost two decades ago but did not pursue it initially. In 2016, after learning to scuba dive, he gathered his instructor and four other friends and began a series of five dives over two years from his private dive boat Storm Petrel to explore what was sitting on the bottom. The divers, all Coast Guard–licensed captains who have worked as mates on commercial dive boats, were Ben Roberts, John Bricker, Jim DiSciullo, Andrew Favata, and Patrick Rooney.
“Murky water from the silty ocean floor in that area, total darkness due to the depth, entanglement hazards from derelict nets, lengthy decompressions, and curious sharks made for challenging diving conditions,” said Noonan. “But it was worth the effort once we saw the mid-19th-century cargo and realized the site had historical value.”
They found stoneware ink bottles, rolls of zinc, iron rails, and lead ingots. About a dozen artifacts—mostly ink bottles of different sizes but also a lead ingot and a piece of a broken Oriental china bowl—were brought up to aid in identification of the ship.
The group suspected they had found the Adriatic based on the size and features of the wreck, proximity to the recorded sinking location, age of the artifacts, and evidence of fire damage. Roberts made visits to the National Archives to try to identify the wreck through historical records. Earlier this year he found insurance and damage claim records from 1872 detailing the Adriatic’s cargo—and the items matched what the divers had seen on the wreck.
“While we do not currently plan to actively seek the participation of archaeologists in the Adriatic project,” said Roberts, “we are happy to discuss the site, our work to date, and the possibility of partnering with any interested and qualified parties that contact us.”
—Bill Bleyer