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Search begins for British explorer's lost ships
Wally and Andrew Porter in Gjoa Haven. Photo: Daniel Scott
By Lucy Hyslop and Daniel Scott - Telegraph
Not only has the Canadian government sent a Parks Canada icebreaker into a three-week expedition into the waters near Gjoa Haven, but local Inuit in the remote Arctic hamlet are also touting the possible excavation of some alleged lost journals.
Organisers today hope to unearth these ancient journals - believed to have been buried in an ancient cairn by Inuits some time over the past century - which may offer clues to the whereabouts of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, which set sail from England in 1845 under Franklin’s command.
Before becoming trapped in the ice, the state-of-the-art ships were part of a mission to discover the elusive Northwest Passage between Europe and Asia via the Arctic archipelago, now part of Nunavut in Canada.
The official dig for the alleged artifacts on King William Island is near to where the Franklin ships are believed to have been abandoned; it is hoped that the journals will shed light on the vessels’ location.
Although Franklin’s 129-man crew left two messages in the Arctic at a cairn for any rescue mission, according to naval protocol, the details of their last position was either never recorded or has yet to be found.
Inuit brothers Andrew and Wally Porter from Gjoa Haven - a hamlet with a population of just a few hundred people - claim that their grandfather, George Washington Porter, buried the papers 60 years ago for prosperity.
“He had been given them by a priest, who in turn had received them from a nomadic Inuit,” said Andrew, who runs a local café. “Following the discovery of the Investigator, and the renewed interest in Franklin and his lost ships,” added Wally, “we felt the time was right to reveal our family’s historical treasure.”
From Filey Mercury
The US and French navies are to join the latest expedition to search for the remains of one of America's first and most famous warships, sunk off Filey Bay in 1779.
The American-based Ocean Technology Foundation believe it could be their best chance yet to find the Bonhomme Richard as the two navies provide state-of-the-art sonar systems, an oceanographic survey ship, a mine hunter, underwater vehicles and divers.
"This year's survey is a fantastic international partnership on the high seas," said the expedition's project manager Melissa Ryan.
"The Bonhomme Richard is like the proverbial needle in a haystack. But the good news is that the haystack is considerably smaller than it was five years ago when our surveying began."
Previous expeditions have eliminated a 400-square-mile area where the ship was thought to be, while additional historic data and information about how it may have drifted before it sank have refined the search area.
Foundation president Captain Jack Ringelberg said: "This year's mission will be an outstanding effort by one of the most experienced, knowledgeable teams we've ever had."
Lost gold of the Whites found in Baikal
By Andy Potts - The Moscow News
Submarines in the depths of Baikal may have solved one of the great mysteries of the Civil War.
The long-lost gold of White commander Alexander Kolchak could be within reach of submersibles exploring the lake as part of a scientific mission.
Environmentalists working with the mission told journalists: “Deep-sea vehicles found rectangular blocks with a metallic gleam, like gold, 400 meters below the surface.”
Local residents say that sunken railway wagons found last year match those used on the Circum-Baikal Railway during the Civil War, fuelling rumours that the Admiral’s lost riches could be nearby.
And the latest find, on the bed of Cape Tolstoy, has reinforced that hope.
Doomed admiral
Kolchak was a hero of the Russian navy in World War I who went on to lead the White resistance to the 1917 revolutionaries.
For a time he was commander of much of eastern Russia, but he failed to persuade potential allies to support him, perhaps because of his overtly monarchistic politics.
Ultimately he was executed by the Bolsheviks in Feb. 1920 and his body was hidden under the ice of Irkutsk's Angara river. After that, legends grew up saying a vast horde of wealth had been lost during the chaos of the civil war.
Archaeologists attack BP’s drilling plans
By Emily Sharpe - The Art Newspaper
From Greek and Roman shipwrecks to 20th-century warships; from ancient streets with intact buildings and mosaics to amphorae and ingots, the Mediterranean is a sub-aqueous treasure trove.
So BP’s plans to drill exploratory oil wells off Libya has raised serious concerns among archaeologists, historians and heritage preservation organizations.
The global energy giant says that it will begin the $900m project to drill five exploratory wells in the Gulf of Sirte “before the end of this year” despite the fact that the cause of the blowout of its Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico has yet to be determined.
The Libyan wells will be 200 meters deeper than the Macondo.
“An oil spill off the coast of Libya would be a complete disaster,” said Claude Sintes, the director of the subaquatic team of the French archaeological mission to Libya and director of the Museum of Ancient Arles, France.
According to Sintes, there are two archaeologically rich areas along the Libyan coast—Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. Within Cyrenaica lies Apollonia, an ancient harbor submerged five meters under the water. “It’s a complete town under the sea with streets, walls and houses. Slow tectonic movement caused it to sink,” said Sintes.
Tripolitania, which extends from Tripoli to the Tunisian border, includes two important ancient sites on the shore: Leptis Magna, a once powerful Roman city and harbour, and Sabratha which has the remains of a theatre and a Roman bath with spectacular mosaics. Both are Unesco World Heritage sites.
“These sites are archaeologically significant because they allow us to understand the complete evolution of this part of the world from Greek colonization in the seventh century BC to the Arab invasion in the seventh century AD,” said Sines.
James Delgado, the president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University, stressed the archaeological importance of the Mediterranean as a highway for ideas, trade and settlement, noting that thousands of wrecks from various historical periods lie within in its depth.
“There is a complete record of thousands of years of history on the bottom of the Mediterranean,” said Delgado. Both Sines and Delgado said that although the area is still largely yet unexplored, given its significant history they expect significant finds in the future.
'I've found Kingsford-Smith's plane': Damien Lay
By Steve Creedy - The Australian
After weathering typhoons, carbon-dioxide poisoning and sceptics, filmmaker Damien Lay is convinced he has found the Lady Southern Cross. Lay is planning to take family members to the site in November for the 75th anniversary of the disappearance of famed Australian aviator Charles Kingsford-Smith.
Kingsford-Smith disappeared over the Andaman Sea with co-pilot John Thompson "Tommy" Pethybridge in November 1935, while flying from India to Singapore on his way home from England. The only trace of the plane ever found was a Lockheed Altair starboard undercarriage leg recovered with a still-inflated tyre in May 1937.
It was found by Burmese fishermen near Aye Island, south of Rangoon.
Lay last year claimed to have found the plane after taking sonar images of three equilateral triangles he believed were part of the plane's wing in thick mud under 20m of water.
The filmmaker has returned to the site five times and has located an object he believes is the plane's engine block.
Lay's claims have their critics. Aviator Dick Smith last year described the chances of the find being the Lady Southern Cross as 1000 to one and Kingsford-Smith's biographer, Ian Mackersey, described the claims as complete nonsense.
The filmmaker has been wrong before. In 2005 he claimed to have located near Broken Bay a third Japanese midget submarine involved in an attack on Sydney Harbour.
That vessel, however, was later found 5km off Sydney's northern beaches. Aircraft manufacturer Lockheed-Martin said Lay could be on the right track, although there was not enough information to be sure. The problem for Lay is that the remote site is in thick mud in water with zero visibility.
He admitted this week he still did not have definitive proof that the remains were the Lady Southern Cross but he hoped to change that by November. "I'm still 100 per cent convinced that I'm right," he said.
"The challenges that we face in proving that are enormous, and that's what we're working through at the moment."
Sunken ship may contain piece of Bladensburg history
By Daniel Leaderman - Gazette
A piece of Bladensburg history may rise again after lying at the bottom of the Patuxent River for two hundred years.
Over the next two years, archeologists will work near Upper Marlboro to excavate the wreck of a ship believed to be the USS Scorpion, part of an American flotilla that clashed with the British Navy just prior to the Battle of Bladensburg in the War of 1812, to coincide with the war's upcoming bicentennial.
"It represents a time capsule of what a War of 1812 ship would have looked like," said Richard Ervin, an archeologist with the State Highway Administration, which is conducting the excavation in partnership with the Navy and the Maryland Historical Trust.
The excavation of the Scorpion and its connection to the Battle of Bladensburg "will help mark Bladensburg as an important part of American history," said Bladensburg Town Clerk Pat McAuley, who serves on a task force planning the commemoration with other Port Towns residents and officials.
"We're working on making [it] a real draw for visitors."
Uncovering relics like the Scorpion are essential to generating interest in the area and its history, said Sadara Barrow, executive director of the Port Towns Community Development Corp.
The Scorpion was one of 18 ships in a flotilla commanded by Commodore Joshua Barney, which came face-to-face with the British Navy on June 1, 1814.
After the British ships trapped the flotilla in the Patuxent, Barney ordered his men to burn the ships to prevent their capture, Ervin said.
Divers steal from Holland 5 submarine off Sussex coast
From BBC News
Thieves have targeted a historically important submarine wreck lying in the English Channel, it has emerged.
English Heritage said divers stole the torpedo tube hatch of the Holland 5, which sank six miles off Eastbourne in East Sussex in 1912.
The theft was discovered during a licensed dive by the Nautical Archaeology Society (NAS) in June and confirmed during a dive last month.
The NAS described the wreck as a "remarkable piece of naval heritage".
Sussex Police and English Heritage have appealed for help to catch the perpetrators, who may have struck up to two years ago. Experts said a group of people would have been behind the theft but that the hatch carried very little monetary value.
Police said removing the hatch and accessing the site without a licence was illegal under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973.
The Holland class of submarines were the first submarines to enter service in the British Navy following extensive trials, English Heritage said.
The class of submarine became obsolete in the early 20th Century and in 1912 the Holland 5 was destined for scrap.
Search is heating up for Bonhomme Richard
By Joe Wojtas - The Day.com
The Ocean Technology Foundation will launch its fifth expedition later this summer to search for the wreck of John Paul Jones' Revolutionary War ship the Bonhomme Richard in the North Sea.
The two-week expedition may provide the best chance yet to find the famed ship off the northeast coast of England as the U.S. and French navies are providing state-of-the-art sonar systems, an oceanographic survey ship, a mine hunter, underwater vehicles and divers.
"This is the latest and greatest equipment," Jack Ringelberg, president of the foundation, said Monday.
Previous expeditions have eliminated a 400-square-mile area where the ship was thought to be while additional historic data and information about how it may have drifted before it sank have refined the search area.
And unlike past expeditions, which either surveyed possible wreck sites or explored targets, this venture will have the capacity to do both. The exact dates of the trip were not released.
Project Manager Melissa Ryan said Monday this is the best attempt to locate the wreck since 2008, when on its last voyage the Groton-based U.S. Navy nuclear research submarine NR-1 explored many of the wrecks that sonar had previously located. The NR-1 found that they were more modern vessels.
This has led researchers to conclude that the wreck will likely not be in one piece but possibly spread across the ocean bottom - and maybe underneath it. Special sonar equipment on the upcoming expedition can penetrate the ocean bottom.
"The Bonhomme Richard is like a proverbial needle in a haystack," Ryan said. "But the good news is that the haystack is considerably smaller than it was five years ago when our surveying began."
Ringelberg said the ship was thought to be carrying a large load of iron ballast that could help in locating and identifying the wreck. The foundation also knows the foundry markings of the ship's cannons.
Accompanying the searchers this time will be four midshipmen from the U.S. Naval Academy who took an online course Ryan taught about searching for historic shipwrecks using the Bonhomme Richard as an example.