Adventures of a Sea Hunter: In Search of Famous Shipwrecks

by James Delgado

  The catch was that the archeologists had to work fast, as construction of a new fishing harbor at the site meant that they had to completely remove the wreck before October 2002. They met the deadline and recovered nearly eight hundred artifacts, ranging in size from a small tortoiseshell comb to what may be part of the ship’s large keel or backbone. Now their work continues in the laboratory.

  DIVING INTO THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

  When The Sea Hunters team arrives, only half of the wreck has been cleared. Each morning begins with a briefing for all divers, and then the first Japanese team gears up to get to work. They wear masks that cover their faces, and they are connected to shore by air hoses and an underwater communications system. They are continuously fed air and report on what they are doing to the dive supervisor and the supervising archeologist in the control room. We gear up to go in with them, donning wetsuits, heavy tanks and our survey equipment. Stepping up to the edge of the concrete dock, I check my air, make sure all my straps are tight, then step off the edge, falling feet first into the water.

  As the froth and bubbles from my jump clear, I check to ensure all my equipment is in place. A single line leads down the slope to the wreck, which rests in 43 feet of water. I swim in the gray haze of the warm sea, visibility only 5 feet, until I hear a loud humming sound. To my left, I see the air hoses of the first team and a thick, flexible tube that vibrates when I place my hand on it. This is the outtake for a large underwater suction dredge that the crew is using to uncover the wreck. I follow the tube to a cloud of silt and the excavation.

  The seabed is covered with a thick, viscous, almost gelatinous ooze that the archeologists have to dig through to reach the wreck. The task of moving all that mud is immense, as the area of the site covers about two city blocks. The archeologists carefully sweep the handheld underwater suction dredge over the bottom, lying down alongside the thick corrugated hose and gently fanning the mud into the dredge with their hands.

  The divers work in shifts, slowly cutting through 5 feet of mud to uncover the wreck, which lies on what was the seabed in 1281. This historic level is hard-packed, coarse gray sand mixed with shell. When the dredge exposes an artifact, a diver carefully fans away the silt and mud to clean it off while reporting his find back to the surface over his communications system. The dive supervisor and archeologist in the control room make notes on what has been found and assign a number to the discovery; the diver then sticks a large numbered tag into the seabed next to it. A team of diving archeologists will carefully map, photograph and draw the object before another team removes it to shore for analysis.

  Swimming over the site, I pass through a maze of metal pins with tags — nearly a hundred of them — marking artifacts. A grid of metal legs and twine covers the entire site, dividing it into square units. I swim up to one unit and see scattered broken pots and dishes, timbers and a round object. The round object is only 5½ inches in diameter, but it is one of the most significant discoveries made to date. It is a tetsuhau, or an exploding shell. Chinese alchemists invented gunpowder around A.D. 300, and by the year 1100, huge bombs, much like giant firecrackers, were being used in battle. The first reference to exploding projectiles thrown by catapults appears around 1221, when Chinese sources describe hollow shells packed with gunpowder. Some historians have doubted that such shells were made this early, and even recently suggested, in a new book on the Mongol invasion, that the scene in Suenaga’s scroll, in which the wounded samurai is falling from his horse as a bomb explodes above him, was painted long after the fact because bombs did not exist then.

  Some tetsuhau, hollow ceramic shells packed with gunpowder and metal shrapnel. They are the world’s oldest exploding projectiles and were found in the wreck of a Mongol ship off Japan. Courtesy of Kyushu Okinawa Society for Underwater Archeology

  The discovery of not one but six tetsuhau proves that the old samurai was right. While four of them are broken, two are intact. X-ray analysis of the two intact bombs shows that one is packed just with gunpowder, while the other is filled with gunpowder and more than a dozen half-inch thick pieces of iron — shrapnel — to cut down the enemy. They are the world’s oldest exploding projectiles. They date to a century before Europeans first used guns at sea, and centuries before Europeans replaced solid stone and iron cannonballs with shells that exploded. Just a week before our arrival, the discovery of these tetsuhau made national news in Japan, though almost no one in the West has heard about the discovery. And here I am, hovering over this unique, technologically advanced and deadly weapon from more than 720 years ago.

  Nearby lies a bunch of what looks like rust-colored twigs stuck together. It is a bundle of iron arrows. Japanese accounts of the invasion mention showers of Mongol arrows falling from the skies, impaling men and horses. Mongol soldiers used powerful laminated bows and could fire them rapidly — and from horseback. They were the undisputed master archers of their age. In 1245, a papal envoy, Friar John of Piano Carpini, visited the Mongols and described their bows and arrows: “They are required to have these weapons: two long bows or one good one at least, three quivers full of arrows… the heads of their arrows are exceedingly sharp, cutting both ways like a two-edged sword, and they always carry a file in their quivers to sharpen their arrowheads.” Interestingly, the rusted mass I am floating over is the third bundle of arrows found at the site, and I wonder about the “three quivers” comment of the old priest. Could these be the arms of a single Mongol soldier?

  Each of the seventy arrows in the bundle could easily penetrate the armor of a samurai. According to Father John, this was because of the Mongol technique of dipping forged iron arrows “red-hot into salt water, that they may be strong enough to pierce the enemy’s armor.” Some of the Mongol arrows were dipped in poison to weaken their opponents, and looking at the bundle of arrows, which rust has melded into a nearly shapeless mass, it is ironic to see how the salt water that once hardened them to make them more deadly has now taken the sting from them.

  Another exciting find, resting upright on the seabed, is a Mongol war helmet. Close beside it are small fragments of red leather from a suit of Mongol armor, originally made of laminated strips of leather bound with brass. The mud has preserved these fragile traces by burying them out of the reach of the water. Along with the armor, the dredge gently uncovers a small tortoiseshell comb, a fragment of red leather still clinging to one side. I think about another discovery nearby — the bones of a drowned member of the ship’s complement, perhaps a Mongol warrior. The proximity of bones, helmet, armor and arrows raises the question of whether or not they all belong to one victim of the wreck. In the laboratory, just before the dive, I had looked at a broken skull that was found lying face down in the mud, and wondered what stories this victim of an ancient shipwreck could tell.

  Some artifacts do tell tales. A small bowl, broken and found upside down, is painted with the name of its owner and his rank. One of my dive partners, Mitsu Ogawa, later tells me that the man’s name was Weng and that he commanded a hundred troops. I wonder if it is Weng’s armor, helmet, weapons and bones that lie together in the mud. Other artifacts tell us that the preparations for the invasion were hasty. Many of the ceramic jars are sloppily made, misshapen and badly fired, rushed into production for the war. The ship’s massive anchor may also be proof of haste. Unlike the one-piece stone weight for the anchor at Hakozaki Shrine, this anchor’s stones — and others found nearby at Takashima— are made of two crudely shaped pieces. The anchor for the ship now being excavated dragged in the mud and broke apart where the two stone weights were joined by wood and lashings — a fatal shortcut.

  After our dive ends, we get into a discussion on the dock with Kenzo Hayashida. What sank this ship? The anchor is set tight, as if the ship dragged in heavy waves and then broke up. A storm might have sent the ship into the shallows and smashed it into the many pieces the Japanese are recovering. “The question is whether there was one storm,” says Hayashida, or “several centuries o
f storms.” I get his point. The periodic typhoons that lash this coast sweep into Imari Bay and churn up the seabed. The breakup and scatter of the huge wooden wreck being mapped by the archeologists may be the result of generations of storms, not a single catastrophic kamikaze sent by the gods. The timbers of the vessel also show evidence of burning. Did this ship go to the bottom as a result of a Japanese attack with a straw-filled “fire ship?” The fragmented remains may never reveal all their secrets, but they have already enabled archeologists to refute a few stories. Hayashida, who bases his opinion of just how many wrecks should be on the bottom of the bay from 1281 on years of surveys and the information they provide, firmly believes that the figure of four thousand is a gross exaggeration. “How many ships?” I ask him. “Maybe four hundred,” he answers with a smile.

  Over the next week, we make more dives and watch as more artifacts slowly emerge from the mud. Broken timbers from the ship, including the sockets where a mast would have fit into the bottom of the hull; shattered planks; ceramic bowls and pots once filled with provisions; weapons and armor; and personal possessions, like a small delicately cast bronze mirror, are reminders of the individuals behind the myths and the big sweep of history. The personal items and bones are all that remain of the forgotten warriors who came here, on the orders of Kublai Khan, to expand an empire and an emperor’s prestige, and instead met their deaths far from home. I think of all the dead of 1281. And I think of the millions who died later in the 1930s and ’40s, victims of what was, if not a false legend about the kamikaze, then a distorted and exaggerated one that was used to justify the militaristic expansion of a “divine empire” and a brutal war.

  CHAPTER NINE

  BURIED IN THE HEART OF SAN FRANCISCO

  FIRE IN THE CITY: MAY 4, 1851

  Standing on the Clay Street wharf in San Francisco, Etting Mickle stared at the advancing wall of smoke. Since late the previous evening, he had listened nervously to the roar of flames. The bright glow in the sky, the flying sparks and the hoarse shouts had seemed distant, but now, well into the new day, the wind shifted. With terrifying speed, fire raced across the waterfront.

  One block west of where Mickle stood, the ship Niantic began to smolder, then suddenly exploded into flame. Embers carried by the wind swept across the wharf and landed at his feet. “Get out the pump!” he shouted to the crew of his ship, General Harrison. Mickle’s fortune was invested in that ship, now ringed by fire. Inside her hold lay a wealth of merchandise: imported wines and liquor, tools, hardware, rolls of fabric and fancy foods. The men pumped frantically, but it was too late. General Harrison began to burn fiercely. Mickle and the men with him turned and ran for the safety of the open water at the end of the pier. Stopping just beyond the reach of the flames, they hacked away at the wooden wharf, ripping up planks and chopping at the pilings. This last-ditch effort succeeded in cutting off the advancing fire and saved many other ships that sat in thick clusters in the deeper waters of the city’s anchorage. Standing on the truncated end of the Clay Street wharf, choking in the thick smoke, Mickle stared as General Harrison went up in a sheet of flame. A year of hard work and investment was gone.

  UNDER CITY STREETS

  Deep inside the excavation, the backhoe carefully pulls back layers of sand. When the scrape of the huge bucket exposes a dark-stained layer, I raise my hand to stop the huge machine and pick up the high-pressure hose. As water washes over the area, sand streams away to reveal ashes, burned wood, melted glass and twisted metal. Tips of charred pilings become visible alongside the fire-scarred planks of General Harrison. Over the past week, archeologists and construction workers have labored to uncover the ship from her tomb of mud and sand. Now General Harrison’s, charred hull is exposed where she burned and sank in that long-ago fire on May 4, 1851.

  Today, the ship lies 24 feet beneath street level. Lining the construction fence on the streets above are hundreds of spectators drawn to the incongruous spectacle of a ship lying deep in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district. Whether you approach San Francisco by air or sea, or by car across the Bay Bridge, the view is dominated by the high rises of the financial district as they march up from the Embarcadero to the slopes of Telegraph, Nob and Russian hills. The distinctive profile of the Transamerica Pyramid rises above some of the city’s few standing survivors of its youth. The relatively low two- and three-story brick buildings of Jackson Square are the last visible remnants of San Francisco’s infamous “Barbary Coast,” survivors of the 1906 earthquake, fires and urban renewal. They are survivors from another era, perched in the midst of a modern city.

  Directly beneath the financial district lies an immense archeological deposit that dates back to the origins of San Francisco during the gold rush. Six major fires and innumerable smaller conflagrations have devastated the city. After the destruction wrought by the fires, entire burnt districts were filled over. The debris of those fires lies buried beneath the modern city. The astonishing collection of items that came to be buried beneath San Francisco attracted comment even during the gold rush. The San Francisco Evening Picayune, on September 30, 1850, remarked: “At some future period, when the site of San Francisco may be explored by a generation ignorant of its history, it will take its place by the side of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and furnish many valuable relics to perplex the prying Antiquarian. Buried in the streets, from six to ten feet beneath the surface, there is already a stratum of artificial productions which the entombed cities of Italy cannot exhibit. Knives, forks, spoons, chisels, files, and hardware of every description, gathered from the places of several conflagrations. Masses of nails exhibiting volcanic indications, stove plates and tin ware, empty bottles by the cartload and hundreds of other miscellanies, lie quietly and deeply interred in Sacramento Street, and perhaps will be carefully exhumed in days to come, and be distributed over the world as precious relics!” The Evening Picayune’s smug prophecy did not take long to come true. As early as the 1870s, excavation for construction unearthed relics of the gold rush period. The transient nature of San Francisco ensured that most residents were ignorant of the particulars of its past — and the “discoveries” that arose from beneath the streets and sidewalks delighted them.

  Now, I stand watching the high-pressure hose strip away the shroud of mud and sand as history emerges from the buried ashes of a long-ago fire. The oak planks of the ship’s hull are solid, and the wood is bright and fresh. Even more amazing is the stench of burned wood and sour wine rising from the charred debris. A century and a half ago mud, water and sand sealed the wreckage of the ship so perfectly that time has stood still.

  GENERAL HARRISON AND GOLD RUSH DAYS

  The product of the venerable New England seafaring town of Newburyport, Massachusetts, General Harrison was launched from the banks of the Merrimack River in the spring of 1840. Built for a group of local merchants, General Harrison worked as a coastal packet out of Boston and New York, running south to New Orleans with passengers and cargo, then returning north with southern cotton. In 1846, the ship’s owners sold her to a consortium of well-known and moneyed Charlestown residents who had mercantile links to Pacific Coast ports from Chile to Alaska as well as Hawaii and China. The new owners sent General Harrison on a sixteen-month voyage around the world. After trading at Valparaiso, Tahiti, Hawaii and Hong Kong, she returned to New York in 1847. A new owner, Thomas H. Perkins, Jr., son of America’s richest man of the day, kept the ship in his fleet until 1849, the year of the exciting news that gold had been discovered in California.

  San Francisco in the gold-rush days, 1851. In the background are the masts of crowds of ships along the waterfront and the store ships Niantic and General Harrison (circled). San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Smithsonian Institution Collection All.781.2n1

  The gold discovery sparked a “rush” for California’s riches. The editors of the New York Herald remarked in early January that the “spirit of emigration which is carrying off thousands to California… increas
es and expands every day. All classes of our citizens seem to be under the influence of this extraordinary mania… Poets, philosophers, lawyers, brokers, bankers, merchants, farmers, clergymen — all are feeling the impulse and are preparing to go and dig for gold and swell the number of adventurers to the new El Dorado.”

  Most gold-seekers chose to travel to California by ship, and between December 1848 and December 1849, 762 vessels sailed from American ports for San Francisco. One of them was General Harrison. Sailing from Boston on August 3, 1849, the ship rounded Cape Horn to reach the Chilean port of Valparaiso. There, the ship’s agents, Mickle y Compañia, loaded merchandise from Chile’s farms, wineries and shops to sell in San Francisco. On February 3, 1850, the ship reached San Francisco. With her passengers off to the gold fields and her cargo sold, General Harrison would have been ready for another voyage. But the lure of gold was too much for her crew, who deserted and headed for the mines, leaving General Harrison, along with hundreds of other ships, idle on the San Francisco docks.

  The waterfront was then a constantly growing, hectic center of activity. Every day, more ships arrived, workers landed cargoes, and thousands of men crowded the sandy streets seeking passage up the bay and its tributaries to the heart of the gold country. Crowded beyond its capacity, San Francisco was boxed in on all sides by massive, shifting sand dunes and a shallow cove that was by turns either a stagnant pond or an expanse of thick foul mud at low tide. The city’s entrepreneurs solved the problem of lack of space by building on top of the shallows of the cove. Thousands of pilings, shipped south from the forests of British Columbia and Puget Sound, were pounded into the shallows, enabling long wharves to march across the mud flats to the anchorage. Alongside the wharves, buildings were perched atop piles, and ships were hauled up onto the mud to serve the needs of the booming frontier town.