Russian plan to locate and raise the wreck of schooner USS Jeannette in Arctic waters

23 February 2015 – By Olga Gertcyk – The 19th century vessel – formerly the Royal Navy’s HMS Pandora – sank as Americans raced to be first to North Pole.

Now a Siberian adventurer is planning to find and raise the wreck of the historic vessel which sank during an exploration of the Arctic in 1881.

Yakutsk-based Andrey Y – a well-known director, screenwriter, TV presenter and traveller – says the project could help ease the strained relations between Russia and the US.

American author Hampton Sides – who wrote an acclaimed book about the ship published in 2014 – has already expressed an interest in finding and raising the Jeannette, claiming there is US Navy support for such a move, but fearing hopes of co-operation are doomed while relations between the countries are so icy.

The British-built vessel lies off the most northerly island of the country’s largest region, the Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia.

None of the 33 crew were lost in Jeannette’s sinking, but only 13 would survive after an epic escape from the Arctic and across Siberia. Among the dead was the vessel’s legendary captain George Washington De Long.

Sources

The Siberian Times

* Noteworthy

1836 – Texas Revolution: The Siege of the Alamo (prelude to the Battle of the Alamo) begins in San Antonio, Texas.

1861 – President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.

1886 – Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of man-made aluminum, after several years of intensive work. He was assisted in this project by his older sister, Julia Brainerd Hall.

1887 – The French Riviera is hit by a large earthquake, killing around 2,000.

1903 – Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States “in perpetuity”.

1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.