Sunken Ships of the Second World War

September 8, 2024 1:27 PM

"Resurfacing the Past": "More than 20,000 ships sank during World War II. One man is on a mission to map them all - and is uncovering untold stories along the way." Day by day animation. Dashboard. Stories of the sunken ships. WWII shipwrecks in the news. On the Solarpunk Presents podcast: "Protecting the Environment With GIS: Mapping WWII's Sunken Ships with Paul Heersink." An article on the oil the ships may contain. Stories of sunken ships previously.
posted by Wobbuffet (8 comments total)

May I add a relevant previously: That Sweet, Sweet, Low Background Steel which featured an article on how entire WWII shipwrecks are being removed from their resting places. The goal is to salvage the steel these ships were fabricated out of, steel made before the advent of atmospheric nuclear testing. This so-called 'low background steel' has several high-value applications such as particle detectors like Geiger counters and medical imagers.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 3:22 PM on September 8 [8 favorites]

Can't get the brain around 20,000. Crazy.
posted by Glinn at 5:30 PM on September 8 [1 favorite]

> Can't get the brain around 20,000. Crazy.

The US built over 40,000 four-engine heavy bombers for WWII. Not counting the B-29s at the end, that made all of the 40,000 obsolete.

The amount of treasure that was destroyed or wasted in those years is truly awe-inspiring.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:30 PM on September 8 [5 favorites]

one ship every 1.4 days.
posted by clavdivs at 8:58 PM on September 8 [1 favorite]

Mapping WWII's Sunken Ships with Paul Heersink

Nominative determinism at its finest.
posted by flabdablet at 10:39 PM on September 8 [6 favorites]

Reading the Stories of the Sunken Ships, what's really wild is the variance.... you get 'all hands rescued', or 'torpedoed with two crew lost', and then you get the Lancastria, the Wilhelm Gustoff..... 1000, 7000, 25000 dead with a single wreck.


I suppose the worst of it are the tales of the Hell Ships of the Pacific.....that's true nightmare fuel, there.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 12:57 AM on September 9 [2 favorites]

The amount of treasure that was destroyed or wasted in those years is truly awe-inspiring.

I'm more inclined to go with heartbreakingly depressing.
posted by srboisvert at 6:43 AM on September 9 [1 favorite]

My father-in-law ran away to sea aged 14 . . . in 1939 and clocked A Lot of nautical miles. He was torpedoed on the Lochkatrine off shore from Halifax NS on 03 Aug 1942 but lived to sail other vessels until 1946.
posted by BobTheScientist at 7:11 AM on September 9 [2 favorites]