Posted by: Dr. E. Lee Spence
Shipwreck Anniversaries: All of the ships listed here have at least one thing in common. Athough lost in different years, all were wrecked on March 31. The ingots of tin on the SS Java, sunk in 1942, would be worth well over $8,000,000 today, and, because they are often mined together, when tin was shipped, large quantities of lead and silver bullion were frequently shipped too.
Today’s Shipwrecks™
for March 31
compiled ...
Posted by: Dr. E. Lee Spence
We all understand that shipwrecks can be permanently damaged by sport divers, commercial salvors and, yes, even underwater archaeologists who should know what they are doing and certainly mean well.
In one sense, divers (speaking ...
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The other day I was poking fun at Clive Cussler. I must admit, it was only half in jest. Except for the hundreds of thousands of individual artifacts my team salvaged (and easy dissemination of that evidence on the internet), fiction writer Cussler could probably have gotten away with claiming credit for the Georgiana. And, I have no doubt that it really would have made the wreck far better known than I have been able to do.
GPS didn’t exist back ...
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Finding shipwrecks from the air. Can it be done? Absolutely! The first wreck I found from the air, was the Georgiana.
A book on the Confederate Navy published in the late 1800s described the armed steamer Georgiana as the most powerful Confederate cruiser. I also knew she had carried a million dollar cargo. Fascinated by her history, I had been dreaming of discovering her for years.
On March 19, 1965, the one hundred and second anniversary of her sinking, I booked still ...
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Designed for raiding enemy merchant ships in the open ocean, the CSS Georgiana was poorly suited as a blockade runner. Most contemporary and post war accounts describe the Georgiana as more powerful than the better known steamers Alabama, Shenandoah and Florida. She was owned by George Alfred Trenholm, who Dr. Spence has shown was the historical basis for Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind. She was sunk off the present day Isle of Palms in ...
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Internationally known shipwreck expert, Dr. E. Lee Spence, of Charleston, South Carolina, believes he has discovered the true identity of Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind.
In his book, Treasures of the Confederate Coast: The Real Rhett Butler and Other Revelations, Spence reveals what the editor’s of Life magazine called overwhelming evidence that shipping and banking magnate George Trenholm was the historical basis for Margaret Mitchell’s romantic sea captain in her Pulitzer prize winning ...
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