Aircraft and Submarines / The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day Uses of War's Newest Weapons

by Willis J. Abbot

The credit for using a submarine boat for the first time in actual warfare belongs to a Yankee, David Bushnell. He was born in Saybrook, Connecticut, and graduated from Yale with the class of 1775. While still in college he was interested in science and as far as his means and opportunities allowed, he devoted a great deal of his time and energy to experimental work. The problem which attracted his special attention was how to explode powder under water, and before very long he succeeded in solving this to his own satisfaction as well as to that of a number of prominent people amongst whom were the Governor of Connecticut and his Council. Bushnell's experiments, of course, fell in the period during which the Revolutionary War was fought, and when he had completed his invention, there naturally presented itself to him a further problem. How could his device be used for the benefit of his country and against the British ships which were then threatening New York City? As a means to this end, Bushnell planned and built a submarine boat which on account of its shape is usually called the Turtle.

General Washington thought very highly of Bushnell, whom he called in a letter to Thomas Jefferson "a man of great mechanical powers, fertile in inventions and master of execution." In regard to Bushnell's submarine boat the same letter, written after its failure, says: "I thought and still think that it was an effort of genius, but that too many things were necessary to be combined to expect much against an enemy who are always on guard."

During the whole period of the building of the Turtle Bushnell was in ill health. Otherwise he would have navigated it on its trial trip himself for he was a man of undoubted courage and wrapped up alike in the merits of his invention and in the possibility of utilizing it to free New York from the constant ignominy of the presence of British ships in its harbour. But his health made this out of the question. Accordingly he taught his brother the method of navigating the craft, but at the moment for action the brother too fell ill. It became necessary to hire an operator. This was by no means easy as volunteers to go below the water in a submarine boat of a type hitherto undreamed of, and to attach an explosive to the hull of a British man-of-war, the sentries upon which were presumably especially vigilant, being in a hostile harbour, was an adventure likely to attract only the most daring and reckless spirits. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, other portions of which we shall have occasion to quote later, Bushnell refers to this difficulty in finding a suitable operator and tells briefly and with evident chagrin the story of the failure of the attempts made to utilize successfully his submarine:

Photo by U. & U.

A Bomb-Dropping Taube.

After various attempts to find an operator to my wish, I sent one who appeared more expert than the rest from New York to a 50-gun ship lying not far from Governor's Island. He went under the ship and attempted to fix the wooden screw into her bottom, but struck, as he supposes, a bar of iron which passes from the rudder hinge, and is spiked under the ship's quarter. Had he moved a few inches, which he might have done without rowing, I have no doubt but he would have found wood where he might have fixed the screw, or if the ship were sheathed with copper he might easily have pierced it; but, not being well skilled in the management of the vessel, in attempting to move to another place he lost the ship. After seeking her in vain for some time, he rowed some distance and rose to the surface of the water, but found daylight had advanced so far that he durst not renew the attempt. He says that he could easily have fastened the magazine under the stem of the ship above water, as he rowed up to the stern and touched it before he descended. Had he fastened it there the explosion of 150 lbs. of powder (the quantity contained in the magazine) must have been fatal to the ship. In his return from the ship to New York he passed near Governor's Island, and thought he was discovered by the enemy on the island. Being in haste to avoid the danger he feared, he cast off the magazine, as he imagined it retarded him in the swell, which was very considerable. After the magazine had been cast off one hour, the time the internal apparatus was set to run, it blew up with great violence.

Afterwards there were two attempts made in Hudson's River, above the city, but they effected nothing. One of them was by the aforementioned person. In going towards the ship he lost sight of her, and went a great distance beyond her. When he at length found her the tide ran so strong that, as he descended under water for the ship's bottom, it swept him away. Soon after this the enemy went up the river and pursued the boat which had the submarine vessel on board and sunk it with their shot. Though I afterwards recovered the vessel, I found it impossible at that time to prosecute the design any farther.

The operator to whom Bushnell had entrusted his submarine boat was a typical Yankee, Ezra Lee of Lyme, Connecticut. His story of the adventure differs but little from that of Bushnell, but it is told with a calm indifference to danger and a seeming lack of any notion of the extraordinary in what he had done that gives an idea of the man. "When I rode under the stern of the ship [the Eagle] I could see the men on deck and hear them talk," he wrote. "I then shut down all the doors, sunk down, and came up under the bottom of the ship."