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By Natalie Jovonovich - Upper Michigan Source
The year was 1912 and a ship set sail from Thompson Harbor in Manistique bound for Chicago with more than 3,000 Christmas trees on board.
The next day the ship went down in a Lake Michigan snowstorm, but the tradition of shipping Christmas trees from Upper Michigan continued for many years afterward.
The story lives on 80 plus years later through Carl Behrend, who grew up in Manistique.
He says he grew up hearing the stories about the doomed Christmas Ship.
"Over time I became more knowledgeable about the Christmas Ship and my in-laws had some old photos, and I collected some old photos and collected some old stories and it seems like the more you look into this story, the more you find," Behrend
It wasn't until later in his life that he developed a passion for the tale, and so he decided to write the novel 'The Legend of the Christmas Ship' in 2005.
Odyssey Marine loses ruling in Black Swan case
From Tampa Bay Business Journal
A U.S. District Judge has adopted the Magistrate’s Report and Recommendation in the “Black Swan” case in favor of Spain.
The Judge also stayed the order vacating the arrest warrant and the return of the recovered coins to Spain until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rules in the case, which serves to keep the coins in Odyssey’s possession pending the outcome of the case.
In a release, the company said the ruling Dec. 22 does not impact its operations.
“We have not been counting on any revenue from the “Black Swan” in any of our budgets since it was clear that this case would go to appeal no matter which way the judge ruled,” said Greg Stemm, Odyssey chief executive officer, in the prepared statement. “We are moving ahead with our other current projects,” he said, adding in its press release on the ruling allows the company to state that “that the vast majority of our shipwreck projects don’t have the same potential legal issues that have surfaced” in this case.
The company (NasdaqCM: OMEX) is engaged in the exploration of deep-ocean shipwrecks and uses technology to conduct search and archaeological recovery operations worldwide.
“Our focus for 2010 is on projects that are either under specific permits with governments or commercial vessels,” Stemm said in the release.
The company said it believes Merryday’s ruling serves to move the case to the appellate court faster, a venue where it believes the legal issues are in its favor.
Japan refuses to accept responsibility for sinking of Centaur
Rowan Callick and Andrew Fraser - The Australian
The Japanese government yesterday refused to take responsibility for the sinking of the Centaur, saying the circumstances surrounding the torpedoing of the Australian hospital ship on May 14, 1943, remained unclear.
The Japanese embassy in Canberra said Tokyo had conducted its own inquiry into the wartime sinking that claimed 268 lives, and would wait for the outcome of the latest Australian investigation following the discovery of the Centaur's wreck 2059m below the surface on Sunday.
"The circumstances were not clear given that it occurred during the Second World War. We will see how the ongoing investigation by Australia unfolds," the embassy told The Australian.
The embassy would not elaborate on the inquiry into the sinking of the Centaur by submarine I-117, of which only 64 people survived, including Ellen Savage, awarded the second highest award for an act of bravery, the George Medal, for her actions as the only surviving nurse in tending to the wounded during the 36 hours the survivors spent in the water.
Secrets of Centaur's sinking likely lost to the deep
By Andrew Fraser - The Australian
One of the greatest puzzles surrounding the torpedoing of the AHS Centaur in 1943 is likely to remain unsolved as the inside of the ship now 2km underwater is unlikely to be filmed.
One of the great suspicions about the torpedoing of the ship is that the Japanese had received intelligence that the Centaur, which flew the flag of a hospital ship, was actually carrying armaments to troops in Papua New Guinea.
Waterside workers loading the ship in Sydney before it left for PNG were surprised to find that ambulance drivers of the 2/12th regiment, who arrived at the dock, were carrying a supply of rifles and ammunition.
Veterans Affairs records show that under the Geneva conventions it was possible to carry some weapons for personal protection, and 52 rifles and 2000 rounds of ammunition were loaded onto the ship.
Only 64 of the 332 people on board the ship survived after it was torpedoed in 1943. After several false starts the ship was finally found on Sunday by shipwreck hunter David Mearns 48km due east of the southern tip of Moreton Island at a depth of 2059m.
Titanic artifacts exhibit an amazing adventure
By Amy Robinson - Sunday Gazette Mail
When I was in the third or fourth grade, I purchased Robert Ballard's "Exploring the Titanic: How the Greatest Ship Ever Lost Was Found" at a school book fair, thus beginning my interest in the Titanic. In fact, for several years, I wanted to be a marine archaeologist and go on expeditions like Ballard.
So when I found out that my family vacation this fall would include a day in Las Vegas, where the Luxor Hotel houses "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition," I was very excited.
This was the chance to see in real life what I'd only seen in pictures.
Your experience starts before you even enter the exhibit hall, when the ticket taker hands you a "boarding pass." On the back, there is a profile of a Titanic passenger.
At the end of the exhibit is a memorial that lists all the ship's passengers. You can see what your fate is.
I was first-class passenger Margaret Brown -- aka The Unsinkable Molly Brown, so I knew from the start that I survived. We learned at the end that, of my family, my sister survived but my parents perished.
Doubts about Centaur shipwreck
By Ben Dillaway - Gold coast
A Gold Coast doctor says he will only believe that searchers have found the sunken World War II hospital ship HMAS Centaur when he sees photographs of it lying on the ocean bed.
Monterey Keys GP Ross Evans says the historical facts do not support the vessel being as far offshore as where the searchers say they found it -- 66 years after it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine with the loss of 268 lives.
Premier Anna Bligh said shipwreck hunters found the vessel at 4.30am yesterday, 30 nautical miles due east from the southern tip of Moreton Island, 2059m below the surface.
None of the history supports it being that far offshore," said Dr Evans. "That means the survivors floated north against the current."
Dr Evans believes the Centaur sank within the trawling area to the northeast of Cape Moreton. The location was revealed to Dr Evans by a trawlerman who found an object 100m by 20m, about 90 fathoms (164.5m) below the surface many years ago. The Centaur was 96m with a 15m beam.
From ABC News
A search team has discovered the wreck of Australian wartime hospital ship Centaur. The WWII ship was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in 1943 and sank off the south-east Queensland coast.
Centaur search director David Mearns says the wreck location is about 30 nautical miles due east of the southern tip of Moreton Island at a depth of 2,059 metres.
Mr Mearns, who also led the searches for HMAS Sydney and Kormoran, says the discovery is quite an achievement.
"It's a great sense of relief and satisfaction," he said.
"Every time you find a shipwreck like this it's a little bit different and this was very, very hard compared to Sydney and Kormoran, whose finds were almost instantaneous.
Archaeologists preserve underwater heritage
By Christen McCluney - DVIDS
Archaeologists with the U.S. Navy History and Heritage Command are conducting underwater research to study wrecks, recover artifacts and preserve Navy history.
"A large percentage of the Navy's history resides in sunken shipwrecks and aircraft... literally scattered around the globe," Robert Neyland, head of the underwater archaeology branch at the command, explained during a Dec. 16 interview on the Pentagon Channel podcast "Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military."
He was joined by Alexis Catsambis and George Schwarz, who also are archaeologists at the branch.
The underwater archaeology branch is responsible for interpreting and applying science and archaeology on the Navy's sunken ship and aircraft wrecks.
The team is responsible for the management and study of more than 3,000 shipwrecks from the Continental Navy period to present time and more than 14,000 lost aircraft from the 1920s to the beginning of the Cold War, Neyland said.
The archaeologists also contribute to the understanding of the Navy's and the nation's underwater cultural heritage.
They travel all over the world to locate, assess and preserve wrecks that are property of the U.S. government, whether in U.S., international or foreign waters.