Posted inMaritime & Naval History

Sailors Needed

To Man the New Battleships Being Completed

USS Castine
USS Castine (PG-6)

Washington, D. C, April 9.—The difficulty in securing a sufficient number of sailors to man the new battleships and other naval craft which are being turned out by our ship-builders has led to the renewal in some quarters of the suggestion that some of the larger vessels of Admiral Watson’s squadron be withdrawn from the Philippines to make up the complements of the new ships at home. It is stated at the Navy Department, however, that no action in that direction has been determined upon, and in view of the expected arrival on the Asiatic station within a fortnight of Admirals Romey and Kempff, and the ensuing division of the naval force on the station into two squadrons, it is not contemplated that any change will be made.

Posted inMaritime & Naval History Mysteries & Unexplained Ship Histories

The Mystery of the Cyclops

The Unexplained Disappearance of the United States Naval Collier Causes a Marine Expert to Discuss the Fantastic Possibilities of Encounters Between Ships and Gigantic Octopuses

old illustration of a giant octopus wrapping around a 3-masted sailing ship.

The disappearance of the great United States naval collier Cyclops during the year 1918 has now been ranked among the famous unexplained mysteries of the sea, like the fate of the crew of the brig Marie Celeste and many another ocean tragedy.

The Cyclops, a ship of 19,000 tons, sailed from Barbados in the West Indies on March 4 last on war duty and has never been reported since. This great steel ship, with all her crew and arms and equipment, her wireless and her boats has vanished from the seas just as feeble sailing ships did in ancient times when the ocean was an uncharted wilderness.

By order of the Navy Department all available naval craft In Southern waters have been making a dragnet for the ship, but steadily the conviction grows among officials that the great modern mystery of the sea will remain unsolved.

Posted inMaritime & Naval History Mysteries & Unexplained Ship Histories

Mystery of Lost Cyclops Probably Cleared at Last

Former Navigating Officer of U. S. Collier, Who Went Over Her Course Later, Convinced She Broke in Two Under Strain of Badly Stowed Cargo, Passed Buoy He Believed Hers.

New York—In an Interview given to The World, Lieut. James M. Hays who was navigating officer of the navy collier Cyclops until a few days before she put to sea on a voyage from which she never returned, said that when he went on the collier Orion over the Cyclops‘s course he learned enough from floating objects and Inquiries made in Brazilian ports to satisfy himself as to the fate of the missing collier and her crew.

From the bridge of the Orion, on which h also was navigating officer, he saw a buoy and what appeared to be a life-raft such as the Cyclops carried. The buoy was in latitude 15.31 north and longitude 58.27 west, or about 150 miles northeast of Bermuda.

Posted inMaritime & Naval History Mysteries & Unexplained Ship Histories

Germany’s Spies Believed to Know Fate of the Cyclops

Mass for Passenger on Missing Ship Mysteriously Advertised in Brazil

AN ATLANTIC PORT, May 5.— German agents in South America are believed to have knowledge of the fate of the United States Navy collier Cyclops, missing almost two months, according to passengers on a British liner arriving here to-day from Rio de Janeiro.

Reports that the Cyclops was either captured or sunk by a U-boat or German raider, were thought to be greatly strengthened by an occurrence which stirred the Brazilian capital a fortnight after the collier disappeared. This was three weeks before the Navy Department announced officially that the vessel was overdue.

There appeared in a Brazilian paper about March 27 an obscure announcement in Portuguese. It was to the effect that a mass would be said for Alfred L. Moreau Gottschalk, United States Consul-General at Rio de Janeiro, and a passenger on the Cyclops. A large Catholic church and the time were designated.