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| Photographed from an airplane in San Diego harbor, California, March 28, 1916. (U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command) |
It’s one of the mysteries of U.S. naval history. What sunk the armored cruiser San Diego, just 10 miles off the New York coastline during World War I?
A surprise explosion rocked the ship that July morning, 99 years ago. Within 30 minutes, the 500-foot warship capsized in about 100 feet of water, taking six sailors to a watery grave.
Was it a German torpedo, undetected by the ship’s 17 lookouts? Or did the San Diego blunder into an underwater mine? Or, less likely, was it the work of a German saboteur?
This summer, the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command is using today’s technology to finally solve that longtime question. An underwater drone and sophisticated sonar are being employed for the first time to assemble a 3-D image of the wreck.
It’s the same science the Navy uses to survey modern underwater ship damage, so the results may even inform how the United States views collisions today.
“We are definitely drawn to this site because of the mystery of how it sunk and our desire to set the record straight,” said Alexis Catsambis, an underwater archaeologist with the Navy history command. “We believe we have a unique opportunity here, combining scientific data and archival research to answering this question.”
The effort comes on the heels of the discovery last month of the World War II cruiser Indianapolis, which was lost at sea in the Pacific in 1945.
A high-tech civilian team led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen used a 2016 finding by the Naval History Command to search a new quadrant, locating the ship in 18,000 feet of water.
The results of the San Diego survey will be released around the 100th anniversary of the sinking next summer.
Why solve a 100-year-old mystery?
To lovers of the history of the sea, the answer matters. The cruiser was only major U.S. warship lost during World War I.
“It’s just a question of getting the story right,” said Kevin Sheehan, a curator at the Maritime Museum of San Diego.
The downtown museum has a 12-foot model of the World War I cruiser named for the city.
Over the years, thousands upon thousands of visitors have viewed its red-and-white hull and four stout smokestacks through the clear case. It is part of the museum’s Navy history program.
“We do tell the story of the San Diego here,” Sheehan said.
Prior to the war, the San Diego had served as flagship for the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Operating off the West Coast for several years, it visited San Diego, its namesake city, for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park.
Commissioned in 1907 and originally called California, the ship was renamed San Diego in 1914, to follow the policy of reserving state names for battleships.
Currently, the name San Diego is held by a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship stationed at San Diego Naval Base.
Here’s what’s known about that day
On July 19, 1918, the cruiser San Diego’s job was to escort U.S. ship convoys through the submarine-infested waters of the North Atlantic toward Europe.
The United States had entered the war just over a year earlier. That morning, the warship was alone and heading toward the port of New York to meet a fresh convoy.
The crew was excited about the coming time ashore. Some had already changed into liberty uniforms.
The U.S. Navy knew that German U-boats were lurking off U.S. shores, so Capt. Harley Hannibal Christy had ordered his crew to be on guard.
The ship had 17 men on lookout. It was zig-zagging through the water and its watertight doors were shut. At one point in the morning, someone reported a possible periscope above the surface.
The explosion hit the port, or left, side of the vessel just back of midship. The great majority of the 1,180-man crew escaped alive. Four sailors died almost immediately and two more died while the vessel sunk.
The captain was the last man to depart, after delaying the call to abandon ship until the bitter end to make sure a German U-boat didn’t surface to capture the American warship.
The six dead were never recovered, making the ship a war grave in the eyes of the Navy.
The ship is a popular dive site, leading recreational divers to bring artifacts ashore as souvenirs until the 2004 Sunken Military Craft Act forbade it.
In his final ship’s log, Christy gave the opinion that a German torpedo had hit the San Diego. But the official reason listed on the Navy’s books is a mine, laid by German U-boat 156, after American forces found and destroyed five to six German mines in the area.
U-156 did not return to Germany from this war patrol, so there are no concrete facts available about its role in the sinking.
There’s another theory: sabotage
There’s a third, outlier, theory involving an infamous German saboteur named Karl Jahnke.
In 1999, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill declared that one of its professors had found the historical smoking gun in formerly classified Russian documents. Professor Russell Van Wyk issued the opinion that Jahnke planted a bomb in the San Diego’s boiler room.
The Navy doesn’t give a lot of weight to that theory. The court of inquiry that followed the sinking determined that the initial explosion was an external one.
Two subsequent explosions are believed to have been caused by rupturing of a boiler and ignition of one the ship’s ammunition magazines.
So the current research focuses instead on the torpedo and mine scenarios — but Catsambis said they are open to all options.
If they do discount sabotage, it would remove any cloud from the record of the officer responsible for keeping watch against intrusions during refueling of the ship.
Modern tech is what may deliver the answer
Off Long Island this week, an autonomous underwater drone has scanned the site as it made methodical passes above and on both sides.
Using multi-beam and side-scan sonar readings, and video, the Navy’s maritime archaeologists expect to get a fuller picture of the holes in the hull.
The University of Delaware is lending support and equipment, including its research boat Joanne Daiber.
The look of the holes matter, because they may hold the key to finally closing the mystery of what sunk the San Diego.
The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, will examine the results. In Maryland, the scientists and engineers there are considered the Navy’s experts in maritime technology. The Office of Naval Intelligence is also consulting on the project.
“They are very qualified to look at hull damage and to assess and visualize that damage, in order to then correlate what we have underwater with what we know of German mines and torpedoes of the time,” Catsambis, the Navy underwater archaeologist, said.
“If there are different charges, we’re hoping that will give a different signature on the site,” he added. “If it was a mine or torpedo, that might alter how high on the hull the impact occurred.”
The effort is costing the Navy about $21,000 for the contract with the University of Delaware plus employee travel.
U.S. is commemorating World War I
The events of nearly 100 years ago still have relevance today, Navy officials say.
The history division is putting its resources toward commemorating many of the centennial anniversaries of World War I milestones.
“Clarifying whether a mine or torpedo sunk the vessel might impact our understanding of naval warfare in World War I and anti-submarine techniques,” Catsambis said.
World War I was a transitional period for the U.S. Navy, and the lessons learned in that conflict helped lead to the modern warships of today.
“It might also help us use current technology to better understand current damage that’s inflicted on our vessels,” Catsambis added. “Because we’re using a lot of the same methods.”
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