Famed scuba diver, Ralph Wilbanks to explore Shreveport for submarines January 31, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : WreckDiving , trackbackShreveport Times are running a story about the ‘Sea Hunters’ team who are due to visit the Red River and Cross Bayou in search for confederate submarines.
Wilbanks, who discovered the wreck of Confederate submarine Hunley in 1995 off Charleston Harbor in South Carolina, with the backing of best-selling adventure author Clive Cussler, plans a return visit to explore parts of the waterways he first visited in 1999 with fellow diver Steve Howard.
“We plan to get to y’all around the 20th of February but it could be slightly later,” Wilbanks said in an e-mail to The Times. “Now I have Harry Pecorelli working with me. He was with me when we found the Hunley.”
Wilbanks previously visited the are in 1999, using a 25ft research vessel, searching for traces of four confederate submarines,
Official Civil War records indicate five such boats were in Shreveport in 1864 and early 1865, with one apparently dismantled and sent overland to Houston. However, when Union naval officers accepted surrendered Confederate naval stores in the summer of 1865, no submarines were turned over, although a just-completed ironclad, the Missouri, was given.
“This is very important, historically and archaeologically,” said Gary Joiner, military historian, author and cartographer who worked with Wilbanks during the 1999 visit and will assist him again.
Finding the boats, Joiner said, “would prove what we know the records and the literature to be. Every indication is that those subs were here and that they never left. That Clive and Ralph are involved shows the importance of this because both are world-famous for their archaeological pursuits. I consider Ralph to be a maritime Indiana Jones.”
Comments»
Best Andy Caroll,
I read that you have make a dive to the Evertsen in the brittish cannel. My dad was the mechanic when he was sunk on the ships maden trip.
If you are interested i can tell you more about how he was sunk and i can send you a pictures of the Evertsen.
Please let me know,
Best regards,
Roel van der Mast
0031620616796