An attempt to find the mystery ship, Cyclops, which
vanished in 1918 along with over 300 naval crewmen. May
1983.
Much has been written about how the U.S. Navy coal collier,
Cyclops, vanished without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle
during a voyage from Bahia, Brazil, to Baltimore, Maryland,
in February/March of 1918.
Vincent Gaddis and Charles Berlitz have made fortunes
touting barrel loads of bull shit from their books on
the mythical triangle while Larry Kusche, a library
researcher at the Arizona State, wrote an admirable,
in-depth work called "The Bermuda Triangle Mystery
- Solved" and barely made beer money.
Kusche has soundly demonstrated that the Cyclops most
likely went down between Cape Hatteras and Cape Charles
under a heavy gale that struck the east coast on the
9th and 10th of March. During the raging winds and high
seas, the ship's cargo of 10,000 tons of manganese probably
shifted and she rolled over and sank without warning
or time to send an SOS.
The Cyclops and her three sister coal colliers all
met untimely fates. They were the largest navy ships
of their time. The Jupiter was converted into our navy's
first aircraft carrier and renamed the Langley. She
was bombed under the sea by Japanese planes off Java
in 1942. Incredibly, the other two sister ships, the
Nereus and the Proteus, which were sold by the navy,
both disappeared with all hands in the Atlantic during
World War II and were presumed sunk by German U-boats.
The Cyclops still remains the largest navy ship ever
lost without leaving the slightest clue to her fate.
Interesting when you think about it. The only difference
between a great sea mystery and a perfectly explainable
ship sinking is one survivor.
No clue turned up until 1968 when master navy diver,
Dean Hawes, descended on a large hulk lying in 180 feet
of water about 40 nautical miles northeast of Cape Charles.
Hawes was stunned. He found himself standing on a vessel
unlike any he'd ever seen. The bridge sat on steel stilts
above the deck and huge arms stretched upward along
the main deck into the liquid gloom.
Hawes finally surfaced with the intention of going
down again with his dive team, but bad weather forced
the navy salvage ship to abandon the wreck and sail
back to Norfolk. The dive exercise was rumored to be
a searching for the then missing nuclear submarine,
Scorpion that was later found on the bottom west of
the Azores, and the navy felt no need to spend unnecessary
time investigating the wreck further.
Years later, Hawes happened to read an article on the
mystery of the Cyclops. Included was a picture of the
ship, exactly what Hawes had explored.
Hawes managed to convince the navy to return and check
out the site again, but a different wreck was located
and nothing resembling the Cyclops was found.
Dean was about to give up when NUMA and I entered the
picture and offered to fund an attempt to relocate the
vessel he'd discovered. I flew to Norfolk and stayed
with Dean and his lovely wife. We went over the coordinates
from the log book of Hawes' former salvage ship, the
Killiwake, and I thought it odd that the Cyclops had
missed entering Chesapeake Bay and steamed past, sinking
almost 40 miles to the northeast. (see Hawes' coordinates
on chart).
He and Kusche both thought that the ship, only operating
on one engine and thrown about by the storm, was simply
driven off course and missed the entrance to the bay.
Dean Hawes' coordinates from the navy salvage ships
in the area at the time he found the wreck are listed
below.
Log book position of U.S.S. Killiwake, the ship Hawes
dove From in 1968:
37 26' 06"
74 42' 07"
Log book position of U.S.S. Sunbird, nearby salvage
ship on day of dive:
37 27' 05"
74 41' 08"
Wreck position Hawes dove during NUMA expedition of
1983.
37 27' 04"
74 42'
Wreck of the Ethel C.
37 26'
74 41'
Wreck of the Merida.
37 02'
74 47'
Where is the Cyclops? As an article on the Hawes and
the expedition suggests, it remains a sunken puzzle.
Dean Hawes died a few weeks after the search and I have
yet to make another attempt. Did Dean really step onto
the deck of the Cyclops, or did he find the missing
Nereus or Proteus instead.
Perhaps someday, when technology permits us to view
the bottom of the sea with the same clarity that we
can on land, the three ships will be discovered. Until
then we can only wish.
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