Ghost Fleet of the Potomac 포토맥의 군함들의 무덤
Ghost Fleet of the Potomac
포토맥의 군함들의 무덤
세계 1차 대전의 비참한 전쟁 역사의 현장 포토맥강
200척이 넘는 군함들이 물에 잠겨 있다.
카약들은 그 어두운 역사를 뒤로한 채 유유히 노를 저어간다.
메릴랜드 난제모이 인근의 멜로우 베이의 모습
Ghost Fleet of the Potomac 포토맥강의 유령함대
Imagine kayaking the tranquil waters of a secluded cove on the lower Potomac, binoculars in hand, in search of bald eagles, great blue herons, and osprey. As you float along, you spot weathered wood and rusted iron jutting out from the water—they look almost like ribs.
You’re looking at some of the approximately 200 shipwrecks of the Ghost Fleet of the Potomac. Located in Mallows Bay near the Maryland town of Nanjemoy, the Ghost Fleet is the largest and most varied collection of historic shipwrecks in the Western Hemisphere, spanning over three centuries of American shipbuilding.
Mallows Bay is vying for designation as the Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. The shipwrecks have developed into a unique ecosystem that supports a variety of wildlife, including an abundance of waterfowl and marine species in the Chesapeake Bay. But while the environmental value of the shipwrecks is undeniable, the cultural and historical value of the Ghost Fleet—three centuries of maritime heritage—makes Mallows Bay worth protecting.
Race to Greatness in World War I 세계 1차대전에서의 위대한 레이스
Most of the ships in the Ghost Fleet date back to World War I, when the Wilson administration undertook a rapid shipbuilding program to prepare the United States for war. While World War I began in 1914, the United States did not enter the conflict until April 6, 1917. By that time, German U-Boats were destroying the world’s merchant vessels at the unprecedented rate of more than 200 per month.
Once the United States entered the war, the Wilson administration shifted swiftly into action. On April 16, 1917, the United States Shipping Board created the Emergency Fleet Corporation to ramp up ship production to meet this urgent need.
The Emergency Fleet Corporation created an ambitious plan to hastily construct steel, concrete, and wooden ships to support the war effort. These ships were built in 40 shipyards across 17 states. Wooden steamships were specifically designed to serve as a merchant fleet that could be constructed quickly using the United States’ large timber reserves. But delays and shortages kept the best timber from arriving at shipyards, and many of the shipyards that received contracts were understaffed, underbuilt, and underpaid.
By the end of the war, only 98 of the 734 ships that had been ordered were delivered. Of the 98, only 76 could carry cargo, all were troubled by mechanical failures and construction problems, and none had sailed into a European port. After the war, the Shipping Board appointed a special committee to sell the inactive and incomplete ships. What had cost the U.S. government $300 million to build was sold for scrap for only $750,000.
Western Marine & Salvage Company in Alexandria, Virginia, purchased the majority of the ships for salvage and brought them to the Potomac. The company had determined that they could gain approximately $10,000 worth of scrap from each ship—but deciding what to do with the ships’ wooden hulls posed a problem. Eventually, the hulls were moved to Mallows Bay to be burned and beached. On November 7, 1925, 31 of the ships were burned. It was the greatest destruction of ships at one time in US history.
By 1931, the Western Marine & Salvage Company had transported 169 hulls into Mallows Bay, but the Great Depression and a resulting decline in scrap values lead the company to abandon the project. The remaining hulls were left to local scavengers to attempt to salvage whatever materials could be found.
When World War II began, attention returned to the Ghost Fleet. In 1942, the Salvage Section of the Metals Reserve Company, a company organized by the federal government, issued a contract to the Bethlehem Steel Corporation to recover any remaining metal from the fleet. Bethlehem Steel worked at the site until 1945 and transported salvaged material to a facility near Baltimore to support the war effort.
After 1945, the Ghost Fleet was largely forgotten until a company named Idamont, Inc., purchased the land and lobbied to remove the remaining hulls in the 1960s. Scandal erupted when it was revealed that Idamont was a straw company for the Potomac Electric Power Company (Pepco) and that they planned to build a power generating station nearby at Sandy Point.
Nanjemoy, MD locator map/ePodunk
edited by kcontents
The House Committee on Government Operations, considering for the first time the ecosystem that had developed, declared that the removal of the ships was unnecessary, and the Ghost Fleet has been providing a habitat for plants and animals in Mallows Bay ever since.
https://savingplaces.org/places/ghost-fleet#.WrIHssNuaDJ
kcontents.
