British submariners honor crew of Confederate sub

The Associated Press By The Associated Press The Associated Press
on February 18, 2012 at 12:00 PM

Sharing a bond with those who fought beneath the waves, a group of submariners from the United Kingdom paused Friday in Charleston, S.C.. to pay tribute to the crews of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship. During a brief ceremony in a grove where the three crews are buried, 78-year-old Dennis Wade of the Portsmouth Submariners Association placed a poppy wreath at the gravesite and then saluted. The poppy is a symbol of courage and sacrifice.

confederate-submarine-dennis-wade.jpgView full sizeDennis Wade of the Portsmouth, England, Submariners Association salutes after placing a poppy wreath at the gravesite of the crews of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley in Charleston, S.C., on Friday. The black cloth behind him hides a new Hunley memorial, which is being dedicated today.

Three other British submariners and a group of Confederate re-enactors looked on.

Friday marked the 148th anniversary of the Hunley's ill-fated mission. Two crews died while the sub was being made operational. Then, in February 1864, the hand-cranked Hunley and its third crew left from Sullivans Island and sank the Union blockade vessel Housatonic off the Charleston coast.

But the Hunley never returned from the mission and, a dozen years after it was raised from the Atlantic, the reason for its sinking remains unclear. The historic vessel is being conserved at a conservation lab in North Charleston.

"To any submariner in whatever nation there's a brotherhood because they are subject to the same type of intense training and operating in the same conditions," said 67-year-old Bob Lewis of Portsmouth, who served in the Royal Navy for 35 years. "It takes a special person to be a submariner and not everyone makes the grade."

Prior to the ceremony, the association members saw the Hunley.

"Two crews lost their lives in bringing this vessel into its operational state and when it was in operation it was the first successful submarine combat mission," he said.

But would Lewis have gotten aboard the Hunley as a member of its third crew?

"I would like to think so," he said. "The thing that drives a submarine is its crew and the team spirit that generates in that crew."

Paul Jevons, 52 and a veteran of 22 years as a submariner in the Royal Navy, said he felt sorry for all the crews.

"It's the early development of the submarine service. If it wasn't for them, we may have never been in submarines ourselves," he said.

In the center of the grave site is a large monument to one of the Hunley crews. Beside it, black cloth shrouded two more monuments of similar size.

Those are dedicated to the other two crews and will be unveiled on Saturday, said Randy Burbage, a re-enactor and member of the South Carolina Hunley Commission.

"It's pretty humbling to be a descendent of a Confederate veteran and realize the Hunley crew and the mission it accomplished is internationally known and renowned and admired," he said.

The association has been sending a wreath to the Hunley gravesite since 2004 where the last crew was buried in what has been called the last Confederate funeral. Lewis said the members were glad they finally got a chance to visit the submarine and gravesite.

Bruce Smith of The Associated Press wrote this report.