WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:15.540 --> 00:00:18.450 The Pacific Ocean. A mesmerizing dance 00:00:18.450 --> 00:00:19.710 of power, beauty, 00:00:19.710 --> 00:00:22.400 and unspeakable terror. 00:00:22.400 --> 00:00:25.170 Within it, many mysteries of the sea lie in wait. 00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:32.820 Some of these mysteries are surrounded by tales of harrowing glory or defeat 00:00:32.820 --> 00:00:39.820 like the tale of the USS Conestoga. One of the top 10 maritime mysteries of our age, 00:00:39.820 --> 00:00:45.360 when she left San Francisco the Navy tug was bound for American Samoa 00:00:45.360 --> 00:00:51.550 via Pearl Harbor. Not long after leaving port the USS Conestoga would vanish 00:00:51.550 --> 00:00:58.670 leaving skant evidence of the events that befell her and her crew. 00:00:58.670 --> 00:01:03.239 An exhaustive search by the Navy, deploying every available vessel and aircraft, would rescue no souls, 00:01:03.239 --> 00:01:10.530 locate no ship, and leave so many questions unanswered. 00:01:10.530 --> 00:01:16.250 For nearly a century this mystery has remained unsolved. The loss of the vessel and crew has left 00:01:16.250 --> 00:01:21.659 holes in the hearts of families, puzzled maritime historians, and inspired the 00:01:21.659 --> 00:01:28.970 public's imagination to wonder: whatever happened to the USS Conestoga? 00:01:28.970 --> 00:01:34.270 NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries may have solved the Conestoga riddle. 00:01:34.270 --> 00:01:38.100 Two thousand miles from where the tug was suspected to have gone lost 00:01:38.100 --> 00:01:39.810 an unexpected discovery 00:01:39.810 --> 00:01:45.000 in Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary is revealing clues as to the 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:50.500 fate of the missing naval vessel. With new hope in solving this mystery the 00:01:50.500 --> 00:01:56.480 closure sought for so long by the families of the loved and lost might finally be within reach. 00:02:04.280 --> 00:02:07.840 In 1904, the Maryland Steel Company, in Baltimore, Maryland 00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:12.069 completed construction on a ship that was likely destined to have an 00:02:12.069 --> 00:02:16.830 unremarkable career by maritime standards. Like most vessels of similar 00:02:16.830 --> 00:02:22.390 construction the sea going tug was the often overlooked a workforce of seaports 00:02:22.390 --> 00:02:23.760 and navies. 00:02:23.760 --> 00:02:28.129 At a hundred and seventy feet in length, constructed as a supply mover for the 00:02:28.129 --> 00:02:33.329 Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, Conestoga served her initial owners well 00:02:33.329 --> 00:02:36.819 before being purchased by the Navy in 1917. 00:02:37.720 --> 00:02:42.360 It was then that she was refitted for mine sweeping and fleet tending in service to her 00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:50.260 country at the latter part of the First World War. 00:02:50.260 --> 00:02:54.690 From this point on, her fate would be intertwined with that of her crew: 00:02:54.690 --> 00:02:56.500 A collection of men from across America 00:02:56.500 --> 00:03:01.180 several of whom had never seen a day on the water before meeting her deck with their feet. 00:03:01.380 --> 00:03:08.760 They were young men like Seaman Second Class Charles Joseph Balint from Passaic, New Jersey 00:03:08.770 --> 00:03:14.180 Who was only 16 when he enlisted in the Navy. 00:03:14.180 --> 00:03:20.440 Or or boatswain Harvey Herbert Reinbold of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: a brother to at least six siblings. 00:03:20.440 --> 00:03:24.770 And you would also find Mess Attendant First Class Edward Wilson, one of the first 00:03:24.770 --> 00:03:30.450 African-Americans to be allowed to serve aboard an American naval vessel. 00:03:30.450 --> 00:03:36.410 They would be led by Ernest Larkin Jones of Walnut Grove, Kansas. 00:03:36.410 --> 00:03:41.260 He has to take this older fleet tug, and take it across the Pacific, dropping off a few men at Pearl Harbor and then 00:03:41.260 --> 00:03:45.320 proceeded to American Samoa where she's going become a station ship. An important 00:03:45.320 --> 00:03:49.420 job, basically the floating representation of the United States Navy in those waters. 00:03:50.780 --> 00:03:56.470 Jones with sale the Conestoga from Norfolk, Virginia to Mare Island, where 00:03:56.470 --> 00:04:01.600 she would undergo final preparations and repairs. And on March 25, 1921, 00:04:01.600 --> 00:04:08.600 she would push off toward Pearl Harbor. 00:04:08.600 --> 00:04:13.670 by mid afternoon, she would clear the rocky entrance of the San Francisco Bay, likely with a barge in 00:04:13.670 --> 00:04:20.109 tow and head out into the open waters of the Pacific. Steaming toward the horizon, and out of 00:04:20.109 --> 00:04:25.300 sight of land, the ship and all her crew were never seen or heard from again. 00:04:41.620 --> 00:04:52.199 Bob Schwemmer has a list, about as long as this arm, of sonar targets from a variety of surveys. 00:04:52.199 --> 00:04:58.349 In particular we were working with a 2009 survey. It had a series of targets, some of which looked like they might 00:04:58.349 --> 00:05:01.709 be shipwrecks. We decided we'd go check those out. 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:10.180 One of the targets of interests was certainly a shipwreck as it was revealed with the multibeam survey. 00:05:10.190 --> 00:05:16.150 We had no historical record of a ship wreck of a hundred and seventy feet in length so we were very 00:05:16.150 --> 00:05:18.770 curious to investigate this site. 00:05:18.770 --> 00:05:20.770 One of the most parts of doing the 00:05:20.770 --> 00:05:23.880 work that we do in NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, is better 00:05:23.889 --> 00:05:27.770 understanding what's in those sanctuaries. Of course when they're designated 00:05:27.770 --> 00:05:31.870 and created you do research you know, for example, with the Farallones that there's close 00:05:31.870 --> 00:05:35.729 to 400 shipwrecks out there. But knowing that they exist on a list or in a 00:05:35.729 --> 00:05:39.870 newspaper story dating back a hundred years is very different than actually 00:05:39.870 --> 00:05:44.110 going out there and seeing yes there is a wreck, this is what's left of it, this 00:05:44.110 --> 00:05:47.780 is what it can tell us if we do archaeology and this is how it has 00:05:47.780 --> 00:05:51.260 interacted with the marine environment and some cases has become habitat. 00:05:51.260 --> 00:05:59.440 But this is exciting to actually find a vessel, be able to identify the rig or service of the vessel 00:05:59.440 --> 00:06:02.440 and then do our detective work to try to piece together the puzzle 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:06.680 to give her name tell her story. 00:06:17.169 --> 00:06:20.870 There's still a sense of excitement a little bit of impatience when you drop 00:06:20.870 --> 00:06:27.810 that robot into the water. Working in shallower sites means you can get there faster in the case of the work 00:06:27.810 --> 00:06:32.310 in the Farallones, it's a matter of minutes. You're always watching, waiting, hoping that you can 00:06:32.310 --> 00:06:36.139 find the target that shows up on the sonar and then suddenly there it is: 00:06:36.139 --> 00:06:42.169 Sometimes out of the darkness in the murk it appears, sometimes you drop down 00:06:42.169 --> 00:06:47.969 and suddenly you are right there. There's a moment where you just go "wow" for 00:06:47.969 --> 00:06:51.259 second, and then you're keenly focused. You want to see exactly what it is, you're trying 00:06:51.259 --> 00:06:53.930 to soak up as much as you can, 00:06:53.930 --> 00:07:00.999 making observations, trying very hard not to blurt out "it's a this, it's a that!" 00:07:00.999 --> 00:07:05.229 Realizing that in many cases you're the first eyes since some of these things went 00:07:05.229 --> 00:07:08.349 down to ever see them. 00:07:08.349 --> 00:07:10.349 Our first dive to the site we came up on the starboard side of 00:07:10.960 --> 00:07:17.129 the bow of the shipwreck it had a very distinct stem. My colleague, 00:07:17.129 --> 00:07:23.529 Dr. James Delgado recognized the ship as a tugboat. 00:07:23.529 --> 00:07:27.289 Of course Bob says, "are you sure", well let's start looking if it is there going to be other things 00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:31.560 that we'll find. That's the top of the engine. Ambient (light). 00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:41.780 Cylinder head, see? What we're going to wanna be looking for down below is traces of boilers as we start 00:07:41.780 --> 00:07:51.700 to move we should be seeing at some stage a boiler and steam chest... like anytime. 00:07:55.280 --> 00:08:13.820 We're going to take a look today at the historic steamship Hercules because I suspect they 00:08:13.830 --> 00:08:17.800 date to about the same time period and that'll be an important clue in trying to 00:08:17.800 --> 00:08:22.340 identify the tug boat wreck, but it also gives us an opportunity as we do outreach 00:08:22.340 --> 00:08:31.410 and education to say "this thing on the bottom once looked like this." Let's go. 00:08:31.410 --> 00:08:35.620 What's missing on our wreck on the bottom, is all of the superstructurewhich in the tug on that we've got out 00:08:35.620 --> 00:08:39.390 there that's wrecked this would have all have been wood, as opposed to this. 00:08:39.390 --> 00:08:42.390 On the other side of the bulkhead will be the engine just as our engine is. 00:08:44.980 --> 00:08:52.250 When we were on the wreck and the ROV came in we flew past the tow winch and 00:08:52.250 --> 00:08:56.199 we came right over and we stopped and we have hovered right here and we were 00:08:56.199 --> 00:09:01.579 looking straight down on the top of the engine of the wreck. And the shape of the 00:09:01.579 --> 00:09:06.290 engine is the same as you can see the cylinder placement is about the same... 00:09:06.290 --> 00:09:11.650 My guess is, being refreshed with Hercules, that we probably have a triple expansion. 00:09:12.140 --> 00:09:22.040 So in comparison, seeing this vessel above water gives you a context of size. 00:09:22.040 --> 00:09:24.040 Cause underwater you're only looking at one portion of the wreck at a time. 00:09:26.999 --> 00:09:28.980 The more we looked at Hercules I felt Bob, I, 00:09:28.980 --> 00:09:35.279 everybody began to better understand and begin to reconstruct in our mind's eye that 00:09:35.279 --> 00:09:41.879 tug we saw on the bottom, from a wreck covered with marine growth into the tugboat it once had been. 00:10:04.560 --> 00:10:10.990 So our mission ended and Bob and I had to pack up and quickly across the country to maritime heritage conference 00:10:10.990 --> 00:10:14.529 which happens every few years, it was in Norfolk, Virginia, there were tables 00:10:14.529 --> 00:10:19.480 displays. One of them was the Navy's fleet tug association and as I stood there and 00:10:19.480 --> 00:10:26.130 looked at things there was a model of a fleet tug and I thought more and more - Bob and I had discussed: 00:10:26.130 --> 00:10:28.430 Maybe it's a military tug. 00:10:28.430 --> 00:10:32.089 Ironically the room that I stayed in overlooked the Norfolk Navy Yard. 00:10:32.089 --> 00:10:36.870 I recall seeing tugs moving in and out towing 00:10:36.870 --> 00:10:38.710 barges in the harbor there. 00:10:38.710 --> 00:10:40.710 So the more I looked at this model I said 00:10:40.880 --> 00:10:43.040 It's gotta be a military tug. 00:10:43.040 --> 00:10:46.520 So I started working through the newspaper accounts of "missing tugboats" 00:10:46.700 --> 00:10:48.820 off San Francisco. 00:10:48.820 --> 00:10:54.660 And then my phone rang and it was Bob who said "can you come up to my room?" 00:10:54.860 --> 00:10:59.959 And I was struck by this article out of the San Diego Union from 1921 00:10:59.959 --> 00:11:04.579 about a tugboat, military tugboat, ah, USS Conestoga. 00:11:04.579 --> 00:11:06.540 So he'd brought the disks, the hard drives 00:11:06.540 --> 00:11:11.240 with all the video footage was going through it bit by bit 00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:17.180 and as he did he spotted something and so when I came in he said "what does that look like to you?" 00:11:18.200 --> 00:11:23.250 We had an historic image of the gunnery crew next to the three-inch fifty-caliber gun very close 00:11:23.250 --> 00:11:29.560 up with the two siting scopes and continue reviewing the video and as we 00:11:29.560 --> 00:11:34.670 got closer there was the three in fifty caliber gun we certainly had a 00:11:34.670 --> 00:11:44.020 military tug and it matched up perfectly with the image that we had from 1921. 00:11:50.920 --> 00:11:56.020 No matter Conestoga's historical significance, whether it captured a headline or not 00:11:56.029 --> 00:11:58.250 and what it did during the war 00:11:58.250 --> 00:12:04.110 when the ship went missing what made important is that there were 56 guys on board who 00:12:04.110 --> 00:12:08.170 had families people who care about them, who wondered what had happened and who never 00:12:08.170 --> 00:12:13.240 had an answer. As it became clear to us that this wreck was Conestoga perhaps now 00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:19.380 for their families knowing where they were this could provide closure. 00:12:36.080 --> 00:12:40.400 Hello, hello! 00:12:40.400 --> 00:12:41.040 Hi, there. 00:12:41.040 --> 00:12:44.880 What an honor it is to meet you, Dr. Delgado. 00:12:44.880 --> 00:12:46.880 "Jim", please. It's so nice to meet you. 00:12:46.880 --> 00:12:48.880 Diane. Thank you. 00:12:48.880 --> 00:12:50.880 My pleasure. And this is Pam. 00:12:50.880 --> 00:12:52.880 Hi, Pam. 00:12:52.880 --> 00:12:54.240 Hi Diane, nice to meet you! 00:12:54.240 --> 00:12:55.200 Same here! 00:12:55.200 --> 00:12:56.240 And that's David. 00:12:56.240 --> 00:12:58.240 Hi, David, I have a son named David, I won't forget that. 00:13:03.080 --> 00:13:06.760 Yes, stories go back to my earliest recollections. 00:13:07.840 --> 00:13:12.760 That's the only one I have, you have to pick that one up to see it, the only one I have 00:13:12.760 --> 00:13:15.920 of him holding my mother. 00:13:15.920 --> 00:13:17.920 Ohhhh. 00:13:17.920 --> 00:13:23.360 So, ah, she made, Aunt Maye made a Christening dress and I have it in my mother's handwriting 00:13:23.360 --> 00:13:31.760 that my mother wore it in that picture and then she passed that same hand-made Christening dress 00:13:31.760 --> 00:13:36.480 down, which my two children wore, ahh, so... 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:45.320 life goes on and their are traditions and unfortunately a loss cuts so many of those. 00:13:45.320 --> 00:13:52.600 What I think happened is that they left the Golden Gate, they sailed into a storm. 00:13:52.870 --> 00:13:55.340 the winds will build into gale force 00:13:55.340 --> 00:14:04.020 they had 30 to 40 kt winds. So the sea is building up. The wire her towing machine, on her winch is 00:14:04.020 --> 00:14:13.000 somewhat loose its not neatly wrapped which suggests that if they were towing that they lost it 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:17.010 and they're starting to take on water. At a certain stage engineers probably called 00:14:17.010 --> 00:14:22.820 up to him and said "we are in danger of sinking" and with that he has to make a decision. 00:14:22.820 --> 00:14:27.240 He probably figured they couldn't make it all the way back into the Gate into 00:14:27.240 --> 00:14:34.930 San Francisco Bay without going down but close by the Farallon Islands and at that time 00:14:34.960 --> 00:14:38.880 there's a Navy radio station there. And there's a light house there. 00:14:38.880 --> 00:14:42.880 But it was the only chance they had. 00:14:43.520 --> 00:14:48.000 The tug is pointed directly at the island, almost directly at the light house as if they just kept going 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:49.290 And they're making for it. 00:14:49.290 --> 00:14:55.160 And the sad reality is they were just little better than three miles away 00:14:55.160 --> 00:14:58.040 when it looks like they lost the fight. 00:14:58.040 --> 00:15:00.040 The sea was just too powerful. 00:15:02.080 --> 00:15:12.550 My mother always thought he was a hero, was just a void in our family and for my mother a 00:15:12.550 --> 00:15:20.589 bigger void without her father but I'm so thankful that it was found. It can answer the biggest 00:15:20.589 --> 00:15:29.490 question our family has ever had. The fact that it's in a marine sanctuary seems more fitting. 00:15:29.490 --> 00:15:33.730 It's just... natural, and I know it will not be disturbed. 00:15:34.560 --> 00:15:36.560 Thank you! 00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:40.480 We'll see you soon. 00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:42.480 God bless you. 00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:44.480 See you on the 23rd. 00:16:10.160 --> 00:16:20.640 "A wreck of some age, festooned with marine life, indeed speaking to the fact that it is in a sanctuary.." 00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:29.680 We've been given this great responsibility to share this story with the family members, the American public 00:16:29.680 --> 00:16:35.440 So this is my great uncle, Edward Wilson, who was my grandmother's brother. 00:16:35.440 --> 00:16:41.840 Because it is a great story, you know, these guys went down with their ship in service to the United States Navy. 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:47.440 Well, it was more of an opening than a closure for me because I found out about my great great grandfather. 00:16:47.520 --> 00:16:54.560 Well the ringing of the bells 56 times was quite spiritual. 00:16:54.560 --> 00:17:00.960 And so fitting as a dedication at the end of this beautiful day. 00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:04.900 You read something in a history book. You dive on a wreck 00:17:05.040 --> 00:17:15.040 and there's certain emotions that go with that, but nothing compares to finding something like Conestoga. 00:17:16.860 --> 00:17:22.819 It's history as it as it should be. It's about individuals it's about families, it's not 00:17:22.819 --> 00:17:26.619 big names, it's not headlines. It's people who, in this case, grew up hearing stories about a 00:17:26.620 --> 00:17:30.030 grandfather just simply didn't come home one day. 00:17:30.740 --> 00:17:41.730 It's all about people and it's how we can connect with people and why we are, ultimately, no matter what 00:17:41.730 --> 00:17:43.840 branch we serve in, we are a government of the people, by the people, 00:17:43.840 --> 00:17:45.840 and for the people. 00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:53.400 "BELLS RINGING"