Voyage of the Turtle
How would you like to go underwater in a hand-powered wooden submarine, big enough to hold only one person, to try and blow up an enemy ship? That’s what Sergeant Ezra Lee did near New York City in September 1776, when he tried out an American invention that later became known as the Turtle.
David Bushnell, who invented the Turtle, and Ezra Lee, who operated it, were both from Connecticut. When Bushnell came to New York in 1776 to help the American army, he had already spent a lot of time and effort designing and building his ingenious submarine. It was made of oak, and it was shaped kind of like two turtle shells stuck together. The top end was made of brass and could be opened like a lid. To get in, you would open the top, squeeze through a small hole, then close the top again.
Inside the submarine, you could sit or stand up. Some light came in through a few glass portholes in the top. Air came in through two pipes that had some sort of automatic shutoff valves for when the sub went underwater. If you were at the surface, there were three covered holes you could open to look around or to let air in.
There were two hand-cranked propellers: one to make the submarine go forward or backward, and one to make it go up or down. To steer, there was a rudder; to tell where you were going, there was a compass marked with phosphorus, which glows in the dark.
If you wanted to go deeper underwater, there was a valve at the bottom to let in water; if you wanted to go higher, there were two pumps to push the water out. There was also a depth gauge marked with phosphorus, to let you see how far underwater you were. At the bottom end of the sub was some lead for ballast, part of which could be released so that you could quickly rise to the surface in case of an emergency.
If you were on a mission in the Turtle, you would sneak up to an enemy ship during the night, go underneath it, and turn a handle to force a screw into the bottom of the ship. Then you would release a sort of wooden bomb, which was attached to the screw. Once you released the bomb, which was loaded with 150 pounds of gunpowder, a clock inside it would start ticking: when the clock ran out, the bomb would explode and hopefully sink the ship.
Sometime during the night of September 6-7, 1776, Sergeant Lee set out to destroy the British flagship, HMS Eagle. It was early morning when he reached the ship:
The Moon was about 2 hours high, and the daylight about one—when I rowed under the stern of the ship, could see the men on deck, & hear them talk—I then shut down all the doors, sunk down, and came under the bottom of the ship, up with the screw against the bottom but found that it would not enter—I pulled along to try another place, but deviated a little one side, and immediately [rose] with great velocity, and come above the surface 2 or 3 feet between the ship and the daylight—then sunk again like a porpoise I hove partly about to try again, but on further thought I gave out, knowing, that as soon as it was light the ships boats would be rowing in all directions, and I thought the best generalship, was to retreat, as fast as I could as I had 4 miles to go, before passing Governor’s Island. … When I was abreast of the fort on the island 3 or 400 men got upon the parapet to observe me,—at leangth a number came down to the shore, shoved off a 12 oar’d barge, with 5 or 6 sitters, and pull’d for me—I eyed them, and when they had got within 50 or 60 yards of me, I let loose the magazine, in hopes, that if they should take me, they would likewise pick up the magazine, and then we should all be blown up together, but as kind Providence would have it, they took fright, and returned to the island, to my infinite joy.
The Turtle was really an ingenious submarine, but things had to be just right in order for it to be successful, and, as George Washington recalled, “One accident or another was always intervening.” Two more attempts failed, and then the vessel carrying the Turtle was sunk by the British (which is a little ironic, if you ask me: a submarine being sunk aboard a ship). Bushnell managed to recover it, but it was never used again.
Sources
- Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 6:1509-10.
- “From George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, 26 September 1785,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-03-02-0251. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Confederation Series, vol. 3, 19 May 1785 – 31 March 1786, ed. W. W. Abbot. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994, pp. 279–283.]