SeaWaves Today in History February 10, 2008 ********************************************************************* February 10 ? 1573 - English explorer Francis Drake first sees the Pacific Ocean ? 1763 - France ceded Canada to England under the Treaty of Paris, which ended the French and Indian War ? 1862 - Union gunboats destroy Confederate ships at Elizabeth City, NC ? 1894 - USS Kearsarge, victor over the Confederate raider CSS Alabama, is run aground and wrecked on Roncador Reef off Central America ? 1900 - Appointment of first naval governor of Guam, Commodore Seaton Schroder ? 1906 - HMS Dreadnought was launched. A remarkable leap in the application of modern technology to battleship design, driven forward by the visionary First Sea Lord, Admiral Fisher, she mounted three times as many heavy guns as previous battleships, and was powered by newly developed turbine engines, which offered her an advantage in speed of some 16% over almost other battleships. All previous battleships were rendered obsolete at a stroke, and Dreadnought became the generic name for all capital ships built to her principles. Dreadnought boasted one last archaic touch - she was the last Royal Navy ship to be designed with a ram, as a backup weapon of last resort. And oddly enough, the one enemy vessel that she sank in her career was dispatched with said ram - the U-boat U-29, which she rammed and sank in the North Sea on 18 March 1915 ? 1913 - The bodies of Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Scott and his party were found 13 months after they disappeared on their South Pole mission ? 1934 - Destroyer USS Dale laid down ? 1934 - Heavy cruiser USS San Francisco commissioned ? 1935 - Destroyer USS L'Indomptable commissioned ? 1937 - Light cruiser FS Jeanne de Vienne commissioned ? 1937 - Submarine HMS Rorqual commissioned ? 1938 - Light cruiser USS Savannah commissioned ? 1938 - Secretary of State Hull stated categorically the proposed naval program was needed for defense of the United States ? 1939 - Japan occupies Hainan Island in the South China Sea ? 1940 - The neutral Silja left Gibraltar on 5 February and was reported missing thereafter. At 2059, U-37 fired one torpedo at a steamer, which was struck in the aft part and broke in two. The stern sank immediately and the foreship followed after a few minutes. This must have been the Silja ? 1940 - SS Burgerdijk was stopped by U-48 and the crew was ordered to abandon ship. At 1845, ship torpedoed and sunk ? 1940 - Minesweeper HMAS Bathurst laid down ? 1940 - Destroyer HMAS Warramunga laid down ? 1940 - Sloop HMAS Warrego launched ? 1940 - Destroyer HMS Havelock commissioned ? 1940 - The first magnetic mine is swept using a towed loop of cable, by HMS Salve and HMS Servitor, off a sunken lightship ? 1940 - The Dutch government announces the decision to build three battlecruisers, with technical assistance from Italy, for the defense of the Netherlands East Indies. The ships are never completed ? 1940 - US freighter SS West Chatala is detained for several hours by British authorities but is released to continue her voyage ? 1940 - Six German merchant ships leave Vigo to run the British blockade. Allied warships intercept four, one runs aground off northern Norway and one, the passenger liner SS Wangoni, reaches Kiel on 1 March ? 1940 - USCGC Bibb and Duane make first transmissions as weather stations ? 1941 - U-93 was attacked in the North Atlantic by an RAF Whitley aircraft with two bombs. The boat was damaged badly and had to return to base ? 1941 - U-147 was damaged by ice in the North Sea and sailed to Cuxhaven ? 1941 - 221 RAF aircraft set out to bomb Hanover and its U-boat component factories ? 1941 - At 0633, U-37 fired two torpedoes at a big tanker in convoy HG-53 west of Gibraltar but missed and heard later two detonations. Clausen thought that he had hit two other ships in the convoy. In fact, the Brandenburg was hit twice and sank immediately. The master and 22 crewmembers were lost ? 1941 - At 1435, the Canford Chine, a straggler from convoy OG-52 since 8 February, was torpedoed and sunk by U-52 SSW of Rockall. The master and 34 crewmembers were lost ? 1941 - U-443, U-444, U-601 laid down ? 1941 - U-202 launched ? 1941 - USAT Etolin docked at Manila with 24 personnel for the 17th and 20th Pursuit Squadrons ? 1941 - Destroyer HMS Blackmore laid down ? 1941 - Submarine USS Growler laid down ? 1941 - USS SC-508 laid down ? 1941 - Two RAF Whitley bombers dropped paratroopers near the aqueduct at Tragino in Italy, in the first-ever British parachute operation, code-named Colossus. The aim was to blow up the aqueduct, largely for propaganda purposes. 38 men, of what was then named the 11th Special Air Service Battalion - the Parachute Regiment had yet to be formed - were dropped at night. One man drowned when he landed in a lake. The others succeeded in blowing up the aqueduct, but then were captured whilst they tried to make their way to the coast to be picked up by a Royal Navy submarine ? 1942 - On Borneo, a Japanese landing force takes Banjarmasin and a nearby airfield on the south coast. The Japanese are only 280 miles from Java and their planes soon will dominate the Java Sea ? 1942 - USAAF 5th Air Force LB-30 Liberators bomb and damage the Japanese seaplane carrier HIJMS Chitose in Makassar Strait south of Celebes Island ? 1942 - Submarine USS Snapper ended her first war patrol at Surubaya, Java, Netherlands East Indies. Due to the dangerous situation at Surubaya due to Japanese air raids she departed shortly afterwards for Fremantle, Australia ? 1942 - Destroyer HMS Penn commissioned ? 1942 - A small US Army defense force arrives on Christmas Island. The force consists of 2,000 troops (one each infantry, coast artillery and antiaircraft artillery battalions) plus the USAAF 7th Air Force's 12th Pursuit Squadron (Interceptor) with P-39 Airacobras ? 1942 - The Japanese submarine HIJMS I-69 shells Midway but is immediately bombed and damaged by F2A Buffaloes of Marine Fighting Squadron Two Hundred Eleven (VMF-211) based on the island ? 1942 - Attorney General Francis Biddle is advised by agency lawyers that removal of people of Japanese descent from Pacific Coast areas would be a legal exercise of the President's war powers ? 1942 - Commander Alvord Sydney Rosenthal RAN of HMAS Nestor is awarded the first bar to his DSO, for skill and enterprise in sinking U-127 on 15 December, 1941 off Cape St. Vincent ? 1942 - U-953, U-954 laid down ? 1942 - SS Victolite (11,410 GRT) Canadian Imperial Oil tanker was torpedoed & subsequently sunk northwest of Bermuda in position 36.12N, 067.14W, by gunfire from U-564, ObLtzS Reinhard Suhren, Knight's Cross, Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. There were no survivors from her crew of 47. Victolite was sailing in ballast alone from Halifax to Uruguay to load diesel fuel. The ship exploded when hit, due to the explosive vapors in her empty tanks. U-564 was a Type VIIC U-boat built by Blohm and Voss, at Hamburg. Commissioned 03 Apr 41. U-564 conducted nine patrols & compiled a record of 19 ships sunk & five ships damaged. On 13 Jun 43, U-564 shot down a RAF Sunderland patrol a/c from 228 Sqn. U-546 was sunk the following day at 1730, on 14 Jun 43, north-west of Cape Ortegal, Spain, in position 44.17N, 010.25W, by depth charges from a British 'Whitley' patrol a/c from 10 OTU. There were 18 casualties from U-564's crew of 46 men. Reinhard Suhren was born in 1916, at Langenschwalbach, Taunus. He joined the navy in 1935 & transferred to the U-boat force in Mar 38. He spent a year as the First Weapons Officer on the very successful U-48, where he received the Knight's Cross. In April 1941 he took command of U-564, & in August 1941 he sank the Flower-class corvette HMS Zinnia. Suhren compiled a record of 19 ships sunk for a total of 96,444 tons & damaged five ships for a further 31,036 tons making him the fourth highest scoring U-boat 'ace' of the war. On 01 Sep 1942 he was awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, the second highest award of which 150 were given. Only 4 were awarded to U-boat men. In Oct 42 he left the boat and became an instructor in the 2nd U-boat Training Division. Later, he served in the 27th U-boat flotilla along with Korvettenkapitän Erich Topp. During the last year of the war Fregattenkapitän Suhren was the Commander in Chief of U-boats in Norwegian waters & from Sep 44 the Commander in Chief of the North Sea area. Reinhard Suhren survived the war & died on 25 Aug 84, in Hamburg ? 1942 - Corvette HMCS Timmins commissioned ? 1942 - In the frigid North Atlantic waters between Iceland and Ireland lies Convoy SC-67: 22 merchant ships bound for Liverpool at five to eight knots in good weather—and the weather on this trip is miserable. The merchantmen are organized in a rectangle of seven columns, three to four ships deep, and spread across almost a mile and a half of frontage. They are escorted by Task Force 4.1.15, six Canadian corvettes that zigzag along the fringes of the convoy listening and watching for submarines. So far there has been no sign of U-boat activity and this is the last night of escort duty for the corvettes; in the morning the convoy will reach the Mid-Ocean Meeting Point, where a British escort group takes over. The starboard side of the convoy is screened by the senior corvette, HMCS Spikenard (Lieutenant-Commander Herbert G. Shadforth), stationed well ahead of the starboard column of merchantmen, followed by HMCS Louisburg, keeping station 2,000 yards abeam of the lead merchantman, and HMCS Dauphin (Lieutenant R.A.S. MacNeill) nearly three miles behind Spikenard and astern of the last ship in the column to prevent straggling. Miles away on the port wing, set out in similar order, are HMC Ships Chilliwack, Lethbridge and Shediac. The weather is foggy and very cold, and there is no moon. At 2230 hours, Chilliwack picks up U-boat noise and goes to action stations to attack the contact. At the same instant, all hell breaks loose in the starboard column, where a torpedo strikes the Norwegian tanker Heina, which immediately bursts into flames. The lookout in Louisburg sees the torpedo whiz past her port side, missing by a few feet, while the ASDIC operator locates a contact. Louisburg turns on the torpedo track and starts hunting the U-boat. Meanwhile, peering through the fiery glow from Heina, Lt MacNeill spots what may be another explosion. His first priority is rescuing the crew of Heina, however, for the next two hours he and his crew struggle with scramble nets and Carley floats to pluck the merchant sailors from the oily water. When Shediac eventually arrives to help, Lt MacNeill sends her to search for the victim of that possible second explosion. He thinks it may be Spikenard. Throughout the night, with its alarms and dangers, not one ship in the convoy risks a wireless message—any radio signal would immediately attract a U-boat. The convoy cannot stop, and the escorts’ first duty is to protect the group, so their search for Spikenard continues only as long as it takes to return to their screening stations. They all try and fail to contact the missing corvette by radiotelephone, but the device is so crude that the most likely reason for her continued silence is equipment failure. Spikenard is still missing at dawn, but there is still hope; she could be looking for the British escort group. At 1100 hours, when they reach the rendezvous, HMS Gentian strikes out on the convoy’s track and, late in the afternoon, she encounters a Carley float with eight Spikenard matelots, all nearly dead from hypothermia. When they are finally able to talk, their story is terrifying. At 2230 hours, when Chilliwack picked up the first contact, Spikenard went to action stations and began to accelerate. When the torpedo that missed Louisburg struck Heina, a second torpedo hit Spikenard between the bridge and forecastle, blowing open her side and top deck. Flames from the initial explosion engulfed the bridge, the wireless office and one of the boats, and then became infinitely worse when it reached the mast, where several drums of gasoline were lashed. The impact set off the ship’s whistle, and its eerie shriek filled the air as Spikenard settled and sank, all in five minutes. The final blow was the explosion of a depth charge or perhaps the boiler, which smashed the remaining boat and one of the Carley floats. The eight men on the second Carley float had no flares, and their voices disappeared in the wind’s howl when they called to the two corvettes that passed them by during the night. Gentian found them purely by chance. ? 1943 - SS Duero struck a mine laid 01 Feb by U-118 and damaged ? 1943 - While on the outward journey to the Caribbean, U-108 was damaged by an RAF 202 Sqn Catalina and was forced to return, reaching Lorient on 24 Feb. She only managed to set out again on 1 April ? 1943 - The LI of U-183 transferred to U-105 during a meeting of those two boats ? 1943 - U-422, U-538, U-714 commissioned ? 1943 - USS YMS-298 & YMS-343 laid down ? 1943 - ASW trawler HMS Grenadier commissioned ? 1943 - Destroyer USS Thatcher commissioned ? 1943 - Submarine USS Gudgeon picked up 28 men from Timor, Netherlands East Indies and took them to Fremantle ? 1943 - Submarine USS Searaven ends her 6th war patrol at Pearl Harbor. She is ordered to the Mare Islands Navy Yard for an overhaul ? 1943 - Submarine USS Pickerel torpedoes and sinks Amari Maru off Sanriku in position 40.10N, 142.04E ? 1943 - Submarine USS Pollack ends her 5th war patrol at Pearl Harbor ? 1943 - At 0219, the Queen Anne in convoy CA-11 was torpedoed and sunk by U-509 eight miles SSW of Cape Agulhas, South Africa. Three crewmembers and two gunners were lost. The master and 17 survivors were picked up by HMS St. Zeno and landed at Capetown. 22 survivors made landfall at Bredasdorp near Cape Agulhas ? 1943 - At 2325, U-81 fired a spread of four torpedoes at the Saroena, which was escorted by an armed trawler and observed a hit in the stern that set the tanker on fire. Two Chinese crewmen and three gunners panicked and jumped overboard, two of them drowned. She was beached after four hours near Beirut and the crew reached the shore. After the fire was extinguished, the ship was refloated on 12 February and after temporary repairs towed to Port Said, where further repairs were made before the ship went to Calcutta for permanent repairs and then returned to service ? 1944 - U-545 scuttled west of the Hebrides, in position 58.17N, 13.22W, after crippling damage from 4 depth charges dropped by an RAF 612 Sqn. 1 dead and 56 survivors ? 1944 - U-666 reported missing in North Atlantic. Cause was never determined ? 1944 - Japanese naval forces abandon Truk ? 1944 - USS YMS-428 laid down ? 1944 - Minesweeper USS Pochard laid down ? 1944 - Minesweeper USS Caution commissioned ? 1944 - USS PC-1180 commissioned ? 1944 - U-872, U-1009, U-1203 commissioned ? 1944 - U-880, U-1303 launched ? 1944 - Submarine USS Spearfish torpedoes and damages the Japanese transport ship Tatsuwa Maru (6345 BRT) SW of Formosa in position 21.53N, 119.13E ? 1944 - Submarine USS Pogy torpedoes and sinks destroyer Minekaze and Malta Maru some 85 miles NNE of Formosa in position 23.12N, 121.30E ? 1944 - U-193 arrived in El Ferrol (Spain) for repairs ? 1944 - Frigate HMCS Antigonish launched Esquimalt BC ? 1945 - U-275 put in to Lorient due to Schnorchel problems ? 1945 - In a daring move, U-995 entered the Soviet-held harbor at Kirkenes and fired at the Norwegian freighter Idefjord, but missed ? 1945 - Germans open the Schwammenauel Dam to slow the US 1st Army. This makes it impossible to bridge the Roer River ? 1945 - Repair ship HMS Buchan Ness launched ? 1945 - Destroyer USS Hawkins commissioned ? 1945 - The British Pacific Fleet sails into Sydney ? 1945 - LCdr. A.H. Higgs relieves LCdr. T.S. Baskett as Commanding Officer of USS Tautog ? 1945 - Submarine USS Bluegill ends her 4th war patrol when she returns to Fremantle ? 1945 - Submarine USS Bream ends her 4th war patrol at Fremantle ? 1945 - U-3040 launched ? 1945 - Corvette HMCS Bittersweet completed refit at Halifax ? 1945 - Corvette HMCS Smiths Falls departed Halifax for workups at Bermuda ? 1951 - Submarine USS Grenadier commissioned ? 1954 - Destroyer HMCS Iroquois returned to Halifax from Korean War ? 1959 - HMCS Bonaventure suffered aircraft crash on deck. #1533 was in the last stages of carrier-landing practice when it picked up two arrestor wires (2&4) as (3) was not rigged. One wire parted and the other disengaged; the a/c swerved to starboard and proceed up the axial deck, at ~ 60 mph. With the brakes fully applied, the a/c slid into the bow chocks and up over the lip before the nose wheel collapsed. The CPO in the starboard sponson at the hydraulic controls for the bow chocks; with great presence of mind, activated them, raising the chocks to their 45 degree position, saving the crew an unwanted swim ? 1960 - USS Sargo surfaces at North Pole ? 1962 - U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers, shot down two years earlier, is exchanged for Russian spy Rudolph Abel in Berlin ? 1964 - Escort repair ship HMCS Cape Breton paid off due to manpower shortages after only five years in commission ? 1968 - USS Ranger port call Hong Kong ? 1969 - USS Hancock port call Subic Bay ? 1972 - The tiny north Atlantic 'island', Rockall, about 300 miles out in the Atlantic, was formally incorporated into Inverness-shire, irritating Iceland, Ireland and Denmark who all claimed the rock as theirs ? 1973 - USS Midway port call Cubi Point ? 1991 - Naval operations, including mine countermeasures and maritime interceptions, continue ? 1991 - A-6s attacked two unidentified patrol boats in the northern Arabian Gulf, destroying both. Also, restrikes were made on the Uum Qasr Naval Base. 42 additional enemy prisoners of war surrendered to US forces ? 1992 - Retired Coast Guard Chief Journalist Alex Haley, internationally noted author of "Roots" and the first person to ever hold that rate in the Coast Guard, dies of a heart attack ? 1994 - HMCS Preserver arrived off coast of Yugoslavia for UN blockade duties ? 2002 - HMCS Halifax returned to Halifax from STANAVFORLANT and as first ship in Operation Apollo ? 2005 - Defense Ministers of NATO held an informal meeting in Nice under the chairmanship of the NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. The Minister of Defense of France, Mrs Michele Alliot-Marie hosted the meeting. The “Palais des congrès Acropolis”, 1 Esplanade Kennedy is the venue for the ministerial sessions ? 2005 - An enormous Spanish naval ensign, which hung as a trophy of war in St Paul's Cathedral for Nelson's funeral months after it was captured during the Battle of Trafalgar, went on display for just one day. Although it is one of the most historically important ensigns in the collection at the National Maritime Museum in south-east London, its vast size - 10 x 14.5 meters (33 x 48ft), enough to cover the floor of an entire gallery - means it has rarely been displayed. When carefully unrolled in Greenwich, it may be the only opportunity to see it in a lifetime. It has been in the collection of the museum and its predecessor for almost a century, but has not been on view for decades. The ensign came from the 74-gun warship San Ildefonso, which was captured late in the battle after an hour-long exchange of fire with two ships in Nelson's fleet. It bears striking witness to the battle and its aftermath: the red and yellow wool has the marks of repairs before Trafalgar, shot damage during the battle, and small pieces snipped from the fabric as souvenirs, probably after the funeral. Its size meant that it got one of the most prominent positions at the funeral, hung between the columns below the great dome of St Paul's. Although Nelson and the anniversary of Trafalgar will be celebrated in events across the country this year, the primary purpose of this week's brief sortie is conservation. The ensign's condition will be checked and it will be digitally recorded for the first time ? 2005 - Prince Charles of the UK announced plans to marry Camilla Parker-Bowles ? 2005 - Excel Maritime Carriers Ltd announced that it has agreed to acquire a Panamax bulk vessel, MV Galateia, for a purchase price of $32 million, and has also secured a two-year time charter in line with the Company's fleet deployment strategy. MV Galateia (To be renamed "Birthday") is a Panamax bulk carrier of approximately 71,000 dwt, built in 1993 by Hitachi Maizuzu in Japan. The vessel is expected to be delivered in mid-April, and will be immediately deployed on a two-year time charter with a major charterer at $28,250 per day. MV Galateia is the sixth vessel that the Company has agreed to acquire since Christopher Georgakis joined Excel Maritime as CEO in late October 2004 and the third that has entered into period employment ? 2005 - International Shipping Enterprises Inc announced today that, following a competitive bidding process, it executed an agreement providing for an exclusive period to negotiate definitive documentation to acquire all of the shares of Navios Maritime Holdings Inc ? 2005 - After eight days of searching, a multi-agency boarding team located more than 2000 pounds of cocaine hidden onboard the coastal freighter Babouth Monday at Coast Guard Base San Juan. The search began Jan. 30 when a British Navy aircraft observed suspicious activity between Babouth and several smaller vessels 150 miles south of St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. Under the direction of Joint Interagency Task Force South the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel Wave Ruler with an embarked US Coast Guard law enforcement detachment intercepted and boarded the vessel. During the boarding the law enforcement team continued to make observations that raised their suspicions of illegal activity and expanded their search efforts. Meanwhile, Coast Guard Sector San Juan diverted the crew of the cutter Shamal, on its first Coast Guard patrol and fresh from an earlier drug bust in the region, to assist in the search at sea. Shamal also transported specially trained marine inspectors in order to safely access confined spaces onboard Babouth ? 2005 - Operations to off load the granular cement cargo from the Cape Flattery, which is aground 400 yards off Barbers Point Harbor, will continue today. The Unified Command continues to monitor the efforts to offload the cargo and remove the Cape Flattery from the reef safely. Overnight, efforts to refloat the vessel off the reef were attempted. Some of the ballast tanks were pumped free of water. The vessel moved slightly and its stern is now facing the ocean swells. This new position reduces wave action on the vessel making it safer to continue cargo off-loading operations. More cement will be removed during the day and another attempt to float the vessel off the reef will occur again tonight during high tide. There are currently 6 tugs on scene including two which arrived Thursday morning to stabilize the Cape Flattery and attempt to remove the vessel when the tide conditions are more favorable. More than 7,000 metric tons of cement has been removed since offloading began. Weather and safety issues permitting, offloading operations will continue throughout the day Thursday. The Hawaii Responder is on scene loaded with more than 2,500 feet of oil containment boom on board ready to deploy in the event that oil enters the water. There are still no reports of any pollution in the water. The Cape Flattery is partially ballasted to minimize bouncing or moving in the tide and sea swells. USCGC Walnut continues to enforce a 500-yard safety zone on scene ? 2005 - Pirates preying on shipping were more violent than ever in 2004 and murdered a total of 30 crewmembers, compared with 21 in 2003, the ICC International Maritime Bureau reported in its annual piracy report for 2004. The number of attacks reported worldwide through the IMB Piracy Reporting Center in Kuala Lumpur was 325, down from the 445 recorded in 2003. Indonesian waters continue to be the scene of the highest number of attacks, with 93 incidents reported in 2004. While this is down from 121 in 2003, it still accounts for more than one quarter of piratical attacks reported worldwide. The report said hijackings of tugs and barges and the kidnapping of crewmembers were on the rise, especially in Indonesian waters, in the Northern Malacca Straits, and off North Sumatra. While in the past these attacks had been thought to be the work of Aceh rebels, there were now increasing signs that crime syndicates are using fishing boats for such attacks. Attacks in Nigerian waters were down from 39 in 2003 to 28. However, the report said that offshore Nigeria still had the third highest number of incidents and was regarded as the most dangerous area in Africa for piracy and armed robbery at sea ? 2005 - USCGC Matagorda, on her first operational patrol after going through a major conversion program as part of the Deepwater Program, stopped a smuggling boat in the Florida Straits attempting to bring 25 Cuban migrants into the country illegally ? 2006 - HMAS Larrakia and Bathurst, the second and third Armidale-class Patrol Boats to commission into the Royal Australian Navy in a joint ceremony at Darwin ? 2006 - General Maritime Corporation announced that it has agreed to sell nine OBO Aframax tankers en bloc to Tanker Pacific for $247.5 million ? 2006 - General Maritime Corporation announced that it has agreed to sell nine OBO Aframax tankers en bloc to Tanker Pacific ? 2006 - Tam Le, crewmember of the Galveston, Texas-based commercial fishing vessel Thanh Tam, pleaded guilty in federal court to concealing red snapper which was illegally imported into the United States, the Justice Department announced today. Le and other crewmembers caught the fish in violation of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act). Both Le and the Thanh Tam's captain were indicted by a grand jury in Houston, Texas on Nov. 23, 2005 for offenses surrounding the illegal importation of red snapper in 2004 and 2005. The concealment charge carries a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000. On March 2, 2005, the Thanh Tam was boarded by special agents of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service Office for Law Enforcement as it was returning from a commercial fishing trip which began on Feb. 22, 2005, before the red snapper commercial fishing season had officially opened. A hidden compartment that contained 5,641 pounds of red snapper was discovered beneath the vessel's deck during a search of the vessel. More than 2,700 individual fish within the concealed compartment were less than the legal minimum size limit of 15 inches ? 2006 - Salvage experts recovered a massive bronze eagle emblem on Friday from the wreckage of a Nazi battleship scuttled off the coast of Uruguay at the outset of World War II. The ship -- the Graf Spee -- was a symbol of German military strength in the war. It sank nine vessels in the Atlantic Ocean before being badly damaged in December 1939 during the battle of the River Plate, one of the war's first naval clashes. After making port in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, the ship was sunk with explosives by its captain to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. Divers have been working on and off since 1998 to recover the ship piece by piece, part of a multimillion-dollar effort by Argentine and German investors to refloat remains of the Nazi fleet and open a museum ? 2006 - Disaster was averted at the Kerch Ship Repair Factory, when the Project 1171-class landing ship tank Rivne of the Ukrainian Navy began to sink. The ship had been docked at the repair factory for four years. Five people were on board when it began to sink. They tried to pump the water out and divers tried to weld the hole shut. Both attempts failed - the ship eventually came to rest on its side. The cause of the incident - the bottom of the navy ship's hull has started to rust away ? 2006 - The Indian Navy has inducted the first of the indigenously designed and built fast-attack craft, INS Bangaram, in Southern Naval Command ? 2006 - Bollinger Marine Fabricators, LLC, (BMF) Amelia, La., a Bollinger Shipyards, Inc. company, has signed a contract with Progressive Barge Line, Inc., New Orleans, La. for the construction of a leading edge double hull OPA '90 Lakes, Bays and Sounds tank barge ? 2006 - Frigate FGS Lübeck returned to Wilhelmshaven after six months with Operation Enduring Freedom ? 2006 - Thousands of tennis shoes, aluminum briefcases and children's toys washed onto the beach of a Dutch island, drawing crowds of treasure-hunting residents, coast guard officials said. The booty came from a load of containers that was swept from c.c. P&O Nedlloyd Mondriaan, which got caught in a storm on Thursday night about 14km off the coast of the island of Terschelling ? 2007 - USS Gridley, a newly built state-of-the-art $1 billion guided missile destroyer, will be joining America's naval fleet in a commissioning ceremony to be held at the Port of Miami. This is the first time that a Navy warship has been commissioned in Miami. The commissioning ceremony represents the ship's official birthday and her formal introduction into the fleet. It is a colorful and patriotic event, steeped in centuries of naval tradition, pomp and circumstance ? 2007 - The Coast Guard rescued four people at 0157, who had abandoned ship from FV Illusion near Dutch Harbor at 2322. The crew was picked up from a life raft in Makushin Bay by a Coast Guard helicopter that had been in Dutch Harbor with the Coast Guard Cutter Mellon. There were no reported injuries, and the crew was taken back to Unalaska ? 2007 - Rear Admiral Sarwar Jahan Nizam took over as Chief of Bangladesh Navy, replacing Rear Admiral M Hasan Ali Khan ? 2007 - Japan expressed outrage after anti-whaling protesters poured acid on the decks of a whaling ship, slightly injuring two crewmembers ? 2007 - Operations to scuttle decommissioned oil rig A Turtle, ex PXXI, were carried out ============================================================= Sources: Colton Shipping Report, NOAA, MARAD, Marine Digest, Leo Pettipas, Kommersant, Samuel Loring Morison, Frank Pierce Young, Navy Times, Naval Institute Proceedings, www.uboat.net, Andrew Etherington, John Nicholas, US Naval Historical Center, Ministry of Defense, US Coast Guard, Thomas N. Carlson, Jack Arrowsmith, Allan Snowie, Ken Hansen, Andy Barber, John Weiss, Jack McKillop, Bernard de Neumann, Sympatico Today in History, Washington History Link, Lloyds List, Fairplay, New York Times, I-Newswire and other news sources in the public domain. Additions, submissions and corrections are always welcomed. ============================================================= Today in History Archives at: http://www.seawaves.com/newsletters/today_in_history_archive.htm Copyright 2008 Shirlaw News Group ISSN 1710-6966 Photos courtesy of US Naval Historical Center, US Coast Guard Historical Center, Wikipedia Encyclopedia or Naval Museum of Manitoba unless otherwise noted. Images may be subject to copyright. Ask before you right-click.