Lifestyle
Shipwreck cemeteries under the sea
Get to know the history behind these 30 ships resting in peace at the bottom of the sea. Some of them remain unsolved mysteries.
Titanic. The most famous ship is resting in peace at a depth of about 12,500 feet in the North Atlantic Ocean.
An ocean liner Andrea Doria sank after the collision with the Swedish ocean liner Stockholm bound to New York.
A gigantic shipwreck cemetery in Scapa Flow, North Scotland. The Germans, fearing that all of the ships would be seized amongst the allied powers, scuttled the ships in Scapa Flow during the World War I.
On 21 June 1919, as many as 52 ships sank in Scapa Flow. Many of the wrecks were then salvaged over the next decades and were dragged away for scrapping.
Out of the 74 German ships in Scapa Flow, 5 of the 8 cruisers, 15 of the 16 capital ships, and 32 of the 50 destroyers were scuttled. Those that didn’t sink remained afloat or were towed to shallower waters and beached.
In 1924, Ernest Frank Cox, who had never had any business with ships, bought from the British Admiralty the rights to salvage some of the sunk German ships (twenty six destroyers and two battlecruisers) for 24,000 pounds.
On 13-14 October, 1939, the German U-47 under the command of Günther Prien entered the Kirk Sound that was blocked by two block ships.
The U-47 attacked the British Royal Oak and sank the battleship along with 833 people on board.
In 1956, the naval base in Scapa Flow was shut down. In 1962, the governments of Germany and the U.K. settled the rights on the ship wreckages.
Truk Lagoon: the cemetery of Japanese ships.
During the World War II, the Japanese turned this lagoon into a powerful fort.
Fearing nothing, the Japanese sent into the lagoon the battleships Yamato and Musashi, the largest ships back then.
But then one day all their dreams and hopes sank… Literally.
On February 17, 1944, the sky above the lagoon was crowded with warplanes. It was the beginning of the Hillston military operation.
American warplanes destroyed dozens of Japanese ships in the Truk Lagoon.
Sweepstakes, a Canadian schooner built in Burlington, Ontario in 1867.
The schooner, sank in 1885, is one of several ships that hasn’t suffered much damage since the day it sank.
The well-known Britannic. It was initially built under the name of Gigantic. Rescuing operations on Britannic had considered to be the most successful ones until it sank.
The frigate 356 in shallow water in Cayman Brac.
The unnamed yacht in the Red Sea.
The Endless Sea, a Brazilian yacht that sank in the waters of Antarctica.
The Prince Albert. Honduras, Roatan. It was intentionally sunk in around 1987.
MV Rozi – tugboat, built in 1958. The tugboat was originally called Rossmore, and was later renamed Rossgarth. It sank in Malta.
Maltese patrol boat P29 lies at a depth of around 35 meters in Malta.
The Goya, a Norwegian motor freighter, sank on 16 April, 1945. The death toll: over 7,000.
RMS Empress of Ireland – an ocean liner that sank after a collision with the Norwegian collier SS Storstad in 1914.
Several unknown ships that deserve to be mentioned as well. The unknown ship in Rogue wave.
The unknown tugboat in the British Virgin Islands.
The unknown ship in the Cayman Islands.
The unknown vessel in the Bahamas.