Contributions in US Navy Underwater Archaeology
Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2018
This session in US Navy Underwater Archaeology focuses on recent Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) missions on Navy ship and aircraft wrecks. Archaeological survey and recoveries include projects dating from the Revolutionary War, early 19th century, American Civil War, and World Wars I and II. The archaeological research on these varied sites encompasses the history of the United States from its inception during the Revolution through World War II. These wreck sites thus represent important historical events and personages. The papers incorporate the emerging new methodologies of documenting underwater sites and interpreting the data. Certain papers also look at the threats created by an evolving industrial world that requires ordnance clearance, dredging operations for increased deep draft ship traffic, and in the developing world the illegal salvage of entire wrecks for their scrap iron.
Other Keywords
Navy •
Management •
Conservation •
Underwater Archaeology •
Ironclad •
Survey •
Cultural Resource Management •
Cannon •
Confederate •
World War II
Temporal Keywords
20th Century •
Early 19th Century •
Civil War •
World War I •
American Revolution •
WWII, post-WWII
Geographic Keywords
North America •
Coahuila (State / Territory) •
New Mexico (State / Territory) •
Oklahoma (State / Territory) •
Arizona (State / Territory) •
Texas (State / Territory) •
Sonora (State / Territory) •
United States of America (Country) •
Chihuahua (State / Territory) •
Nuevo Leon (State / Territory)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-8 of 8)
- Documents (8)
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Data Recovery of the CSS Georgia (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District, in partnership with the Georgia Ports Authority, is proposing to expand the Savannah Harbor navigation channel on the Savannah River. As designed, the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (SHEP) will consist of deepening and widening various portions of the harbor. Previous surveys identified the remains of the CSS Georgia, a Civil War ironclad within the Area of Potential Effect, and as proposed, the SHEP would adversely affect this National...
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Here Comes Revenge: the Loss, Rediscovery, and Investigation of Oliver Hazzard Perry’s 14-gun Schooner (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
In January 1811, U.S. Navy schooner Revenge, under the command of then-Lt. Oliver Hazzard Perry, encountered thick fog and heavy swells off of Rhode Island and struck a reef. In an unsuccessful attempt to free the sinking ship, Perry jettisoned the masts, anchor, and eight of the vessel’s 14 guns. Two centuries later the wreck was believed to be rediscovered by local divers, and since 2012 Naval History and Heritage Command’s Underwater Archaeology Branch (UAB) has conducted sonar and...
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Lost in Action, Navy's Missing Training and Experimental Aircraft: A NAS Pax River Case Study (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
As part of NAS Pax Rivers heritage management responsibilities, Naval History and Heritage Command's Underwater Archaeology Branch (NHHC UAB) and partner entities have been conducting remote sensing surveys in the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding waters since 2015 in order to find its missing aircraft from the early 1940s and 1950s. Several were lost at the advent of WWII as part of experimental testing, which lead to advancements in aircraft capabilities and flight safety. This paper will...
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Rediscovering USS San Diego: 100 Years from the U-boat Attack (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
In the fall of 2017, the Naval History and Heritage Command, the University Delaware, Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock and partners conducted a cursory site assessment of the wreck of USS San Diego. Armored cruiser San Diego, launched in 1899, was the only major warship lost by the U.S. Navy during the Great War. Sunk by German U-boat in July 1918, the war grave came to rest just a few miles south of Long Island, where her story has continued to fascinate the public since that time. With...
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Routine Expedition: Using Intra-Agency Partnerships to Manage U.S. Navy Sunken Military Craft (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Long-term management of underwater sites entails recurrent condition assessments that can be costly on a limited budget. Monitoring the vast collection of Navy sunken military craft in U.S. waters is a challenging task that has recently been supported through partnerships within DON utilizing the broad range of Navy’s expertise and resources. In a cooperative project, Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2 has teamed up with Naval History and Heritage Command’s Underwater Archaeology Branch to fulfill...
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The Royal Treatment: Conservation of Archaeological Material from Revolutionary War Vessel Royal Savage (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
In 2015, the Naval History and Heritage Command Underwater Archaeology (UA) Branch received the remains of Royal Savage, a Revolutionary War vessel which sank in Lake Champlain in 1776 following service in the Battle of Valcour Island. These remains include more than 50 timbers and 1,300 associated artifacts, many in fragile condition following more than eight decades in uncontrolled environments and minimal preservation efforts. UA archaeologists and conservators are in the midst of a...
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Story Maps: Utilizing the NHHC Arsenal to Tell the Navy's Story (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
As the repository and institutional memory of the U.S. Navy, the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) preserves, analyzes, and disseminates historically and culturally relevant resources and products that reflect the Navy's enduring contributions throughout our nation's history. Unique to the Navy among the Department of Defense, the Navy's history program, library, archives, collections, and museums are combined into one Command. Initially, the Underwater Archaeology Branch (UAB) began...
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Telepresence-Enabled Archaeological Exploration of ex-USS Independence (CVL22) in the Gulf of the Farallones (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
In 2016, a joint NOAA/Ocean Exploration Trust mission in the E/V nautilus conducted a series of telepresence-enabled dives on the carrier Independence, a World War II veteran used as a target ship in the 1946 atomic weapons tests at Bikini Atoll. Subsequently used as a floating laboratory and a post-nuclear attack training platform by the US Navy, Independence rests in 822 meters of water where it was scuttled in 1951. The dives, the first to survey and document the wreck, were shared with a...