Thursday, March 09, 2006

Underwater research

The two sources I know of would be the Grand Manan Museum, Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, Canada. Mr. Eric Allaby compiled a map once I recall of the wrecks around the tides, rocks and ledges of the archipelago. I don't recall the specifics. He has had two submarines built in the St. John, N.B. shipyard, in the 1970's the one-man "subconscious" and more recently I heard (shhhh..) the "subconscious II". My grandfather, his brother a Master Mariner, captain of the "S.S. City of Atlanta" torpedoed by U-123 in January 1942 off Cape Hatteras, N.C., making the run for the Savannah Lines from NYC to Savannah, Georgia, my grandfather a longtime Merchant Mariner, were from Grand Manan. Another is the museum on the Great South Bay, Long Island, New York which has compiled a list of wrecks around Long Island, and a map, which was on exhibit when I last visited there. There was also an early Marconi radio shack nearby too I recall. Long Island Maritime Museum in West Sayville, New York. The U.S. National Archives will respond to individual wrecks, at least it did when I inquired about the S.S. Savannah and the S.S. City of Atlanta. The S.S. Savannah was renamed, a "Q boat" and captured 243 POW's from a German raider, they said as I recall. The Atlanta had 43 casualties and two survivors. It lies east of the barrier island (off Avon, N.C.) though the magnetic anomalies (a warning on NOAA charts) there lead to different listings, which I read the NOAA is attempting to correct for the East Coast in planned sections. The National Archives however published an article on the "White House Press Secretary" history, which it stated George B. Cortelyou of New York City, a former chairman of the Republican Party and held a number of Cabinet posts under President's McKinley and Roosevelt (he's shown in a photo standing next to McKinley at the Panamerican Exposition in Buffalo, NY where the President was shot, dying eight days, and Theodore Roosevelt technically had to be sworn in New York's Adirondacks) was the first to invite the Press into the White House, to inform them of the condition of the President and later the Spanish American War, a person overlooked by historians it's said a master of shorthand perhaps holding up research. The article seemed to be in denial, and made no mention at all of White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers who served for three years in that job, the first woman, so I suspect some of the information there might be politically expedited. Maybe just written in a previous administration.

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