The Turtle First Combat Submarine
Used in the Revolutionary War and Still Subject of Controversy
Aug 7, 2007
Turtle: – def “any of various aquatic and land reptiles having a bony shell and flipper-like limbs for swimming”.
When you say “Turtle” around any fan of military history, especially of the naval subgenre you are instantly brought face to face with David Bushnell’s Turtle. Bushnell was a young inventor and patriot. A graduate of Yale with an interest in nautical engineering he came up with an idea of r the world's first combat submarine. The craft, which was taller than it was long or wide, resembled well, a Turtle stood on its back end. It was eight feet tall, and six feet wide at its center. It was made of oak reinforced with iron bands and sealed with tar. The ship used 700 pounds of lead ballast and flooded with water collecting at the bottom to submerge and was pumped back out to re-float. The only way in or out of the Turtle was through a large hatch on the top. With no batteries or motors available everything had to be done by hand. This meant that the crafts single operator was forced to manually steer, crank the propeller to move, man the brass pumps to maintain the water level, and operate the crafts weapon. The vessel was equipped with a crude 150 pound limpet mine, possibly the first operable time bomb of its type. From inside the craft the operator would drift/propel his way to its target-which had to be moored-and then drill a hole into the victim’s hull, to which the mine would be attached. A crude compass and depth meter were designed and installed for navigation. The craft’s interior was lit by foxfire, a luminous fungus, at the suggestion of fellow inventor and patriot Benjamin Franklin. No periscope could be had but the craft did have six small glass windows to observe the outside world. With the hatch closed the device could operate submerged for about a half an hour before its supply of oxygen would be exhausted.
Combat Missions of the Turtle
After successful trails with Ezra Bushnell, the inventor's brother at the helm off the Syabrook Connecticut coast, the Turtle was placed into combat in New York harbor on September 6th, 1776. Its volunteer crew, Sgt Ezra Lee took the helm and moved out under cover of darkness to attack the British Fleet. The blockaders were moored just off of what is now Liberty Island. The HMS Eagle, the blockade fleet flagship, was a brand new 64 gun a 3rd rate ship of the line with a 520 man crew. The Turtle was vastly overmatched but was able to approach the ship successfully. Sgt Ezra Lee however had no luck attaching his mine as the drill was unable to penetrate the heavy copper sheathing over the HMS Eagles hull. After two tries Lee dropped the mine and set the timed fuse with the hope that it would drift into the Eagle. The attack failed but the Eagle's crew sounded and alarm and pulled further off shore. The Turtle was recovered after several hours of close calls.
Bushnell went onto invent a drifting naval mine that was further used to harass the determined Royal Navy later in the war. This larger four hundred pound mine was used against the frigate HMS Cerebrus off the coast of New London, Connecticut in 1777 with some success. The mine exploded aboard the Cerebrus’s tender and killed three men, sinking the small craft as well. Some sources state that Sgt Lee and the Turtle were involved in planting the device1 After this event and a pair of unsuccessful attempts in Boston Harbor later that year, the Turtle was deconstructed and retired with Bushnell becoming a Captain in General Washington's Engineers and Sgt. Lee being transferred into ‘secret service’ After the war, Bushnell shortened his name to Bush and moved to Georgia where he became a physician, corresponding frequently with Thomas Jefferson. Sgt Ezra Lee died an old man, having participated in the epic Battles of Brandywine, Trenton, and Monmouth. During the War of 1812 a near exact copy of the Turtle ’s design, was used to unsuccessfully attack the British ship HMS Ramillies.
A replica of the Turtle, created for the 1976 Bicentennial is on display at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex, Connecticut. Another replica has become the subject of recent headlines and controversy. The homemade craft launched into New York Harbor and came to within 25 yards of the Queen Mary II docked at Red Hook. The craft's operator, an artist from Brooklyn named Duke Riley, was cited for reckless operation of a craft and towing in a reckless manner. They chronicled their work on the photosite Flickr.
Sources
Swanson, June. David Bushnell and His Turtle" - The Story of America's First Submarine. Athenaeum 1991
1David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace of the East Lyme Historical Society-online
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