Hello Shipmates,
First, I would like to thank you for visiting our
website. We're a small base, but I think we're gradually getting
recognized as a pretty Feisty small base - and I have to agree with
that assessment.
Second, as some of you know, I'm pretty
interested in submarines and submarine history - and I tend to do
quite a bit of reading whenever I get a chance.
Lately, I've been doing some reading about a
submarine that I'd guess most of us have never heard about - the USS
Alligator.
Yep, there really was a USS Alligator - and you
may be surprised to know that she is considered the "first" United
States Submarine.
Now, just to set the record straight, I'm sure
all of us have heard about the Hunley and it's fame as the first
submarine to be successfully used as a weapon of war. But, the
problem is that the Hunley was a confederate submarine and
therefore, it is not considered a submarine of the U.S. Navy.
In addition, and to make matters worse, the poor
Alligator never had a chance to fire a shot. It was being towed to
Charleston in 1863 - and on April 10, her tow line parted in a
violent storm, and the Alligator was reported lost off Cape Hatteras.
Today, there's a group of explorers trying to
find her and bring her up. Obviously, this will be difficult because
like the Hunley, Alligator was only about 45 feet long and made out
of cast iron.
Why was she called Alligator? Well, there are a
number of reasons. First, she was not built here (she was bought
from a Frenchman named DeVilleroi), so there was no American name to
give her. Second, and you may not believe this, she was OAR-DRIVEN.
So, if you can envision a metal tube with oars
sticking out the sides - and capable of diving - you can easily see
why see was called Alligator. The seal between the hull and the oars
was oiled leather. Therefore, as you can probably guess, her depth
was limited to only about 20 feet.
Later, she was modified to operate with a screw -
and some of the neat things that came from Alligator included an
operational snorkel (actually a fold-down breathing tube that could
be operated from the inside) and a chemical oxygen generator.
Now, in an interesting coincidence, most of us
remember the loss of the USS Thresher (SSN 593). The coincidence is
that she was reported lost on April 10, 1963. So, it is interesting
to note that our first boat lost, Alligator and our first nuke boat
lost, Thresher, went down on the same day exactly 100 years apart.
But fortunately, my name is not Ripley, so I
won't get into any strange or lurid stories here. But now, we can
add one more boat when we "Toll the Boats" in April. Fortunately, no
lives were lost when Alligator went down. But still, she was the
first U.S. boat lost at sea.
Interesting, huh?
Again, thank you for visiting our Base. Please
continue "surfing" our site and hopefully enjoy what we put
together.
Note: For Base members,
there is a copy of the Science Channel program, "Hunt for the USS
Alligator" that aired on April 20, 2006
