The crew of 309 aboard the USSCyclopsdisappeared without a trace – and we’re still left with more questions than answers.
National Museum of the U.S. Navy / Flickr
No distress call , no lifeboats adrift at ocean . Nothing . Like it was tweak from the Earth by God himself , the USSCyclopsand all of its 309 gang were go without a trace .
TheBermuda Trianglehas lay claim its fairish share of vessels over the centuries , but none are quite as baffling to Navy historian as the tale of the 1918 disappearance of the USSCyclops . The ship never made it to its Baltimore , Maryland destination from the Bralizan port wine metropolis of Salvador and a century later people are still wondering what risk befell it .
National Museum of the U.S. Navy/Flickr
Before The Vanishing
Library of Congress
Named for the fierce one - eyed goliath of Hellenic mythology , the USSCyclopswas a savage of a ship . At 540 groundwork prospicient and 65 foot spacious , it was thelargest pitman in the United States Navyand had a loading belongings capacity of 12,500 tons . Upon the culmination of its twist in Philadelphia in 1910 , paper headlines swash its sizing , calling it“a floating coal mine . ”
When the United States recruit World War I , theCyclopswas outfitted with 50 - gauge accelerator and helped to shuttle doctors and medical supplies from Baltimore ’s John Hopkins Hospital over to France . At this time , Lieutenant Commander George W. Worley served as commander of the mighty ship .
Library of Congress
It was in other January of 1918 , that theCyclopswas assigned to refuel British ship off the glide of Brazil . Less than two months by and by , it would be go forever .
The USSCyclopsDisappears
United States Naval History and Heritage Command / Wikimedia Commons
After arriving in Brazil with 9,960 stacks of ember for English ship , theCyclopsloaded its hull with 10,000 tons of manganese ore that would be used for munitions and began throw its way up the Atlantic . Its destination was Baltimore and while there were no plosive on the schedule when theCyclopsdeparted Brazil on February 22 , it did stop in Barbados on March 3 .
Commander Worley cover that one of the ship ’s engine had become inoperative because of a cracked piston chamber . The ship would depart for its Baltimore destination , roughly 1,8000 marine Swedish mile away on March 4 , but would never make its scheduled March 13 tying up in Maryland .
United States Naval History and Heritage Command/Wikimedia Commons
The USSCyclopswas go forever without leaving a undivided clue . It would be lost somewhere in the triangular region bind by Bermuda , Miami , and Puerto Rico . Another victim of the inscrutable Bermuda Triangle .
Searching For Answers
What fall out to the Navy shipping watercraft has been a source of argumentation for the retiring C with no clear solution climb to the Earth’s surface .
More than 100 ship andplaneshave vanish within the invisible lines of the Bermuda Triangle , and the efforts to locate the lostCyclopswere thorough . Navy ships scouted the route that theCyclopswas believe to have take up and crews radioed day after daytime for any sign of contact . All of it proved fruitless .
Several theories about what happened to the ship and its man emerged in the weeks and long time following its disappearance .
Wikimedia CommonsCaptain George W. Worley, commander of the USSCyclops.
The possibility of an attack by German U - boat was take into question , but not a shadow of debris was ever found . Others claimed that boisterous ocean could have sunk the ship that was already overloaded with its heavy manganese ore cargo . That could have been a possibility , but no violent storm were reported and there were no distress calls from the ship .
Like other disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle , some speculated that theCyclopswas sucked down into the ocean ’s depths by a giant sea colossus or supernatural phenomenon . Of course , the Navydidn’t give much considerationto this and instead change by reversal its focus to the ship ’s commander .
Wikimedia CommonsCaptain George W. Worley , commander of the USSCyclops .
One of the more intriguing theories concerning the ship ’s fade rotate around its commandant . Lieutenant Commander George W. Worley was have a bun in the oven in Germany as Johan Frederick Wichmann and changed his name after coming to the United States . Worley was reportedly disliked by his crowd because of his frequency for berating his men and punishing them for the most minor offenses . guess arise that he was pro - Germany during the war and may have turn theCyclopsover to the Germans , though no German phonograph recording have ever been found to back up this possibility .
There have been moments where it looked like the whodunit of the fate of theCyclopsmight at long last be reveal , but they never panned out .
In the 1960s , a Navy frogman believed that he had located its wreckage off the coast of Virginia , which would have backed up a rumored sighting of it in this field by a molasses tanker , but the search turn up nothing .
For the Navy and those who had congener aboard the ship , the USSCyclopsremains a tale of catastrophe that ends with a interrogation mark .
“ I just want her to be found,”said Marvin Barrash , the great - nephew of one of the men who was lose with the ship . “ I want the 309 to be at rest , as well as the families . ”
After this look at the USSCyclops , learn out the story ofFlight 19 , which disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle . Then , inquire the tragic chronicle of theFranklin despatch shipwreck that culminated in cannibalism .
