Four Horrifying Shipwrecks You Probably Haven’t Heard Of

ladies and gentlemen I'm your friend Mike Brady from ocean liner designs shipwrecks can both grip the imagination and the world's headlines some pass into Legend and become the basis for movies and books for decades but other shipwrecks aren't so lucky they Fade Into Obscurity forgotten by all but enthusiasts and students of History their stories are often equally as tragic as their more famous counterparts and as you'll see from this list often I am also these are the stories of horrible shipwrecks you may not have heard of [Music] cataracti was the largest loss of life in Australian Waters but the disaster has been largely forgotten to history the tragedy is made all the more worse because there were only one day away from their intended destination kataraki was a sailing ship a bark built in England in 1840. she was absolutely typical of the hundreds if not thousands of ships of that kind that was sailing to and from Australia at the time seeing the mid-1800s Australia was still a relatively new British colony and the government was Keen to establish more of a foothold on the continent assisted immigrant schemes were put into place where families seeking to establish a new life away from the grime and Mark of England cities could try their luck in an entirely new continent and Society there are a few downsides though especially the trip out The Voyage to Australia was really tough and conditions were nothing short of awful the ships leaked and rolled violently in the high seas and passengers not yet used to traveling at Sea were sick the entire way the decks ran thick with vomit and passenger quarters were cramped and dimly lit many sailing immigrant ships simply disappeared in Storms Never to be seen again to sail to Australia was to risk your life Bucky was Tiny only 138 feet or 42 meters long and 802 tons but still in April 1845 into her decks were crowded 369 immigrants and 41 crew 120 of the hopeful immigrants were married with families and the ship carried 73 children in April she set out from Liverpool Bound for what is today Melbourne Australia for months the ship labored in Rolling seas and high winds slowly making its way under Africa and across the Indian Ocean conditions were far from perfect one crewman even fell overboard and was lost approaching Australia the crew were faced with a unique issue this was well before the days of GPS navigation radar or anything like that bearings and navigational readings were taken from the sun and stars and it took competent officers to translate the readings into a position on the ship's charts after months without seeing land knowing your exact position was extremely difficult it's made even harder when the weather is rough or blowing a gale the crew knew that they were approaching the South Coast of Australia and flooded roughly where they thought they might make landfall meanwhile down in the passenger quarters the two ships doctors both brothers named Carpenter had been hard at work on the voyage five children had been born and six others had died and such was life in the Golden Age of sail when voyages took so long to complete kataraki had left in April but only began to near the southern coast of Australia in August on the third the boisterous weather had grown into a full Gale and the ship was forced to heave two Riding the Storm Out not making any progress forward until it had passed the passengers inside must have been tossed around and frightened witless by the pounding seas and rolling ship but kataraki was designed to survive exactly this kind of treatment there was an issue conditions had been so bad that Captain C.W Finlay had not been able to take a navigational reading for four days the ship was being battered around like a cork in a storm and they had no idea where the shore was and to hit it would Spell absolute disaster with Seas running Mountain High and the wind blowing a gale the ship groped around in the darkness until about 4 am on the morning of August 4th when there was a terrible crash karaki had hit a reef off the shore of King Island on the approach to Port Phillip Bay the captain and crew of kataraki had navigated without citing land for weeks if not months for the exact point of making landfall and arriving successfully there were only one day out of their destination but instead of being able to sight land they now run afoul of jagged razor sharp rocks and the ship ground hard driven into the reef by the thunderous oceans the hull immediately began to flood and the passengers panicked and what unfolded next almost defies description and is best told by one of the few survivors the ship's Chief mate Guthrie the scene of confusion and misery that ensued at this awful period it is almost impossible to describe all the passengers attempted to rush on deck and many succeeded in doing so until the ladders were knocked Away by the workings of the vessel when the shrieks from men women and children from below were terrific calling on the watch on Deck to assist them the crew were actually mostly up on deck at the time of the collision and immediately got to work because the ladder is leading up and out of the passenger quarters onto the deck were knocked away the crew began to tie ropes and haul passengers out bodily one by one it was a mammoth effort but in the end they got a few hundred up on Deck but escaping the flooding Hull was one thing the upper decks offered no Shelter From the Raging Sea waves broke over the ship and swept passengers away in their dozens at 5am just an hour after the grounding the ship rolled totally onto her port side huge waves roaring down the ship's deck and washing away the lifeboats spas and even part of the ship's superstructure the Captain Crew and any remaining passengers held on for dear life and Captain Finlayson ordered that the masts should be cut away to try to ride the vessel somehow the crew managed to do it the masts were all cut off but despite this heroic effort the kataraki was stuck fast on its side passengers caught blowing the hull drowned when the ship inevitably filled totally with water a few hundred people now clung desperately to the side of the ship exposed totally to the storm now all they could do was try to wait to outlast it Chief mate Guthrie recalled as the day broke we found the stern of the vessel washed in numerous dead bodies floating around the ship some banging up on the rocks several of the passengers and crew about 200 altogether were still holding onto the vessel the sea breaking over and every wave washing some of them away incredibly they clung on from 5am when kataraki rolled to four in the afternoon with no hope of Escape to jump into the water would mean almost certain death because the Seas were so high that you'd be ground hard into the rocks then in the late afternoon something horrifying began to happen kataraki had been subjected to unbelievable stresses withstanding the full force of thunderous ocean waves for hours with a groan and a crack the ship began to give way and then she split in two immediately around 100 survivors were thrown into the waves and anybody left holding on huddled around on the remaining section of the ship the ocean surging around them they attempted to Fashion a buoy to float out to the Shoreline but it became Tangled and it broke up in the seas then the ship began to break up beneath their feet even more flinging more into the ocean until there was just one section of the ship's bow or front left poking out above the waves with just 70 people left holding on unbelievably this group clung onto the ship until Daybreak the next morning but when the sun rose only 30 were left a party including one of the Dr Carpenter Brothers attempted to set off in the only remaining Lifeboat but it was immediately capsized and they were all lost then the bow section began to break up and kataraki was finished with only 20 left holding on for dear life whatever ropes they'd fashioned to hold them to the wreck were undone to give them a final chance at life Chief mate Guthrie grabbed a plank of wood and plunged into the Raging ocean the plank helped carry him over the worst of the rocks and he was somehow washed up alive on shore he found another man a passenger who also miraculously survived and then a smaller group of frightened shivering crew the survivors were tended to by a resident of the island who'd seen chunks of ship floating by and figured there had been a wreck in the end the survivors were stranded on the island for five weeks while the storm abated and a rescue could be organized in total nine men eight crew and one passenger survived out of a total compliment of 423 souls and not a single woman or child made it Braley is a ship so badly damaged that it sinks in less than five minutes but so it was with the case of one of the Spanish-speaking world's worst losses of Life at Sea Principe di Asturias was for her time a comfortable and modern passenger liner built in Scotland in 1914 for the Spanish line naviera pinilos the ship was a pretty decent size at about 460 feet or 140 meters long and around 8 370 tons the ship provided the first class second third and a fourth immigrant class who were packed into dormitories all 1 500 of them life down there was very different to Up In First Class where Oak panel dining music and smoking rooms were supplemented by a library and an ornate crystal-studded Dome by March 1916 the ship was offering a regular service from Barcelona in Spain to Buenos Aires along the way you should call it Santos and Sao Paulo and it was here and should meet her Doom the ship was loaded with a cargo of lead iron and copper as well as 20 ornate Bronze Statues each way more than 800 kilograms which had been made to commemorate A Century of Independence in all some 588 people boarded for the final leg of the voyage and set off for Santos and Buenos Aires but there was a problem see six kilometers or 3.7 miles off the coast of Sao Paulo lies ilabella Island ringed by Shoals and reefs which are extremely dangerous to passing ships it's easy enough to steer clear of the shoreline in good conditions but on March 5th 1916 Principe di asturius's Captain had two issues to deal with first he had to steer closer to shore than he otherwise would the first world war was raging and because the ship was carrying a number of German passengers he was afraid of being intercepted by British warships that was bad enough but then on March 4th a storm rolled in which shrouded the coastline in fog and driving rain making visibility almost nil the result was catastrophic in the pitch black at around 4am on the 5th Principe de asturius dragged the full length of her 460 foot Hull over a Shoal at speed and she was opened up stemmed to stern like a tin can no ship could ever hope to survive this kind of damage within seconds hundreds of tons of water had roared into the ship immediately submerging the boilers and drowning the crew the stokers had absolutely no time to close the furnaces or Dows the fires the temperature and pressure differences caused the boilers to explode violently further damaging the ship and hastening the sinking after only just having grounded seconds earlier the principe's bow had dropped low into the water and the ship was a goner the lights immediately cut out as steam pressure was lost and the interior of the rapidly flooding liner was plunged Into Darkness her captain and officers must have been mortified but their horror didn't last long after just five minutes the ship had rolled onto her side and sunk beneath the waves taking 445 people with her the ship's story passed quickly from newspapers for a couple of reasons it had happened at the height of the first world war after the loss of Lusitania and a number of other warships not only that but it happened in the Spanish-speaking World there was a degree indifference from Britain and America today diving on the rack is extremely difficult owing to the conditions and visibility it's usually less than three meters it's thought that even after Decades of salvaging efforts more than half the ship's cargo remains intact locked firmly in the holds the 20 Bronze Statues were a prized Target in 1992 an attempt was made to locate them and the hull was dynamited open but in the end only one Statue could be recovered and even then it was damaged by the dynamiting today it's on display at The Maritime Museum of Rio De Janeiro the damage to the ship from the grounding was just catastrophic on the ship's bow alone today divers have reported a 45 meter or 150 foot long gash the human cost of the Principe de asturius is hard to ignore the decks and compartments of the ship are crowded with human skulls and bones the worst loss of life in any Australian sinking went almost unrecognized until just this year when the ship's wreck was discovered in 2023 now the horrific end of the Montevideo Maru the poor men trapped inside is a very dark chapter of the second world war for those poor victims of the sinking was a tragic case a friendly fire Montevideo meru was a Japanese combined cargo passenger ship one of three identical sisters designed to operate to South America she was built in 1926 and was 7 200 gross registered tons 430 feet or 130 meters long her main destination was Brazil carrying immigrants and exports but when the second world war broke out the ship was turned over to the Japanese government and repurposed as a trip ship in military transport in early 1942 the ship took part in the invasion of what is now Indonesia then the Dutch East Indies and completed a number of trooping and transport voyages until June that year on the 22nd the ship was tasked with picking up 1054 Allied prisoners Rebel had just Fallen to the Japanese Army and the mostly Australian and New Zealander Garrison had been captured loaded full of prisoners of War sweltering Down Below in the tropical heat the ship set out unescorted for Hainan China but she would never make it off the Philippine Coast five days later she was spotted by the U.S submarine USS sturgeon and submarine had no idea that the ship was carrying over a thousand friendly prisoners in its holds all they saw in their Periscope was an enemy ship they tailed the Montevideo meru for some time unable to fire because she was traveling too fast and they could not get a decent bearing but then at midnight the ship slowed down to just 12 knots she was ordered to pick up a Destroyer Escort for the remainder of the voyage sturgeon seized the opportunity and fired a spread of four Torpedoes at the ship about 2 30 A.M there was at least one hit the torpedo slammed home and opened Montevideo maru's Hull up to the ocean the ship began taking on a huge amount of water and it was obvious she was doomed the Japanese crew Abandoned Ship but the Australian New Zealander prisoners were left trapped down Behind Bars they had virtually no hope for escape as water roared into the doomed ship and around their feet Japanese Sailors and guards did their best to escape their ship which was going down by the stern but their lifeboats flipped and capsized in the chaos meanwhile some small groups of Allied prisoners had somehow broken free made their way to the upper decks jumping into the ocean they swam together in little groups and watched as the ship sank beneath the waves they knew that aboard trapped below were hundreds of their comrades and friends who had no chance of Escape Japanese Survivor yoshiaka yamaji was interviewed in 2003 and recalled there were more prisoners of war in the water than crew members the pows were holding pieces of wood and using bigger pieces as rafts they're in groups of 20 to 30 people probably a hundred people in all they were singing songs I was particularly impressed when they began singing Auld Lang Syne as a tribute to their dead colleagues watching that I learned that Australians have big hearts those groups of pow survivors must have suffered from exposure or shark attack because none ever made it to shore alive the Montevideo meru sank in just 11 minutes in the Japanese crew also had a hard time evacuating their ship of the 88 Japanese on board only 17 survived just last month April 18th 2023 the wreck of the Montevideo meru was found at a depth of over four kilometers or 13 000 feet in the South China Sea by the Dutch International search specialist organization fugro cars and trucks that were being transported lit to the sea floor the ship seems to have been ripped into two sections but remarkably her foremost is still standing upright no doubt the interior of the ship would reveal horrors of that night with the remains of those poor trapped servicemen left behind but out of respect for the families of those who were lost no artifacts or bones will ever be removed from the wreck Hospital ships as their name implies rely on their striking bright paint schemes to adequately tell any observing enemy or friendly ships so they are non-combatants and protected under the rules of War but unfortunately there are plenty of examples of this being ignored such as the case with the Centaur faithful transport for wounded Allied servicemen that was deliberately sunk by a ruthless enemy AHS centaur was an Australian hospital ship that had started life out as a combined passenger cargo vessel built in Scotland she was small at 315 feet or 96 meters in length and only 3 200 gross registered tons but she originally carried plenty of refrigerated cargo between Australia Singapore and the Dutch East Indies when the second world war broke out centaur was acquired by the admiralty and was used initially as an armed transport even rescuing German survivors from the legendary mutually destructive duel between the German auxiliary Crews at cormoran the hmas Sydney in 1943 with casualties mounting in the Southeast Pacific centaur was converted into a hospital ship with cavernous Wards fitted and bright red crosses painted on the hull to deter enemy attacks centaur's reason for selection as a hospital ship was a small size meant that the ship would be able to access shallow water Harbors that other larger Hospital ships couldn't her first voyage was a success and she evacuated many wounded but then in May 1943 centaur's Good Fortune ran out Centaur set off from Cairns and Queensland Northern Australia for a voyage up to New Guinea she had taken on 74 civilian crew and 53 Australian medical Corps personnel as well as 12 nurses from the Australian Army nursing service supporting them were 192 men of the 212th field ambulance unit who were Specialists of Battlefield casualty recovery and treatment Centaur set off for her intended destination and into the history books unbeknownst the stentors compliment they were spotted by a Japanese submarine which had them perfectly in sight the ship was lit stem to stern with bright lights to show that she was a hospital ship but the commander of the enemy submarine didn't seem to care 4 10 AM the small ship was shaken violently by an enormous impact as the torpedo exploded against the hull the Warhead had detonated at the exact site of the port fuel tank sparking a fire that suddenly roared out of control and burned white hot many on board were killed by the impact or the fire but then the ship began to take on a huge volume of water through the 33 foot or 10 meter wide hole left behind by the torpedo Centaur began to quickly settle in the water and those aboard only had seconds to act she began to roll onto her port side too quick to launch any of the lifeboats in just three minutes the Centaur had capsized and sunk into the waves leaving behind clumps of bewildered terrified survivors floating alone in the Darkness fortunately two lifeboats and several rafts Broke Free in the sinking and Bob behind half waterlogged but enough for the lucky few to cling onto many aboard Centaur had been asleep at the time of the attack and they had no chance of Escape of 332 people aboard there were only 64 rescued survivors who had to spend 36 hours in the water only one nurse sister Ellen Savage Survived The Sinking and in the water she provided Medical Care and did her best to boost morale for which she eventually won a medal at 2PM on the 15th of May an American Destroyer the USS mugford spotted an object in the distance an Australian aircraft was able to do a low fly past and report back that there were shipwreck survivors in the water requiring assistance if not for mugford being in the right place at the right time there would have been no survivors from this horrible event the offending submarine was never conclusively identified with many operating in the waters that centaur was lost in sinking of Centaur shocked the world and led to an intense feeling of hatred towards the Japanese Army from the Australian people and the Western allies as a whole it got so bad that the Japanese government issued a statement officially denying responsibility for the attack although it's thought that the i-777 commanded by Hajime nakagawa was the culprit the submarine Commander survived the war and was never prosecuted because Allied investigators could never determine Beyond reasonable doubt that it was his sub that had fired the torpedo akagawa for his part refused to discuss the subject even to defend himself he had a vicious track record though on three separate occasions in 1944 he had ordered the survivors of sunken ships to be machine gunned in the water a war crime for which he was tried and sentenced to only four years imprisonment after the war he died in 1991. in 2008 The Battered Hulk of centaur was discovered resting on the sea floor by a shipwreck Hunter and Expedition leader David merns the ship is brilliantly preserved and the hospital markings can still be seen painted on the hulls a tragic detail beds for wounded soldiers led to the sea floor but perhaps the most poignant Discovery was an iconic Australian Army slouch hat resting on the sand more than two kilometers down at the bottom of the ocean ladies and gentlemen it's your friend Mike Brady from ocean liner designs thank you so much for watching this video If you enjoyed it please leave a comment below don't forget to subscribe to the channel because we get new videos out weekly if you want to support my work and get really cool perks like behind the scenes and Early Access please visit my patreon in the link in the description below or sign up as a YouTube member come and join the crew as always stay safe stay happy I'll see you again next time

Channel: Oceanliner Designs

Views: 301,068

Keywords: great ocean liners, maritime history, ocean liners, famous oceanliners, ships documentary, history of ships, engineering, history, ships, documentary, origins explained, world history project, animated history, open educational resources, titanic, shipwreck, sinking, boats, ocean, disaster, tragedy

Id: oQoqKOktvtY

Length: 23min 30sec (1410 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 13 2023