History Top 10 Most Famous Ships

  Top 10 Most Famous Ships in History

 10.    The Santa Maria Though less than 70 feet long and by all accountsa slow and hideous vessel, few can deny the fame the tiny Spanish boat achieved when shebrought Christopher Columbus to the new world. While Columbus has acquired a bad rap of latefor his brutality as governor of Hispaniola and other little foibles he was famous for,no one can deny his extraordinary seamanship or his courage in making the crossing notjust once, but four times during his lifetime. Unfortunately, the sturdy little Santa Mariawould not be making a repeat journey, as she ran aground on Christmas day, 1492, and wassalvaged for her wood (which, interesting enough, went into the construction of another ship originally called La Navidad—Christmas—because the wreck occurred on Christmas Day). While the original is long gone, no fewerthan four replicas of the ship have been built since, all of them capable of putting to sea. Unfortunately, none of them are exact duplicatesas no records of the ship’s original construction exist, resulting in a number of different configurations. 

9. C.S.S. Hunley This early excuse for a submarine proved tobe far more dangerous to her own crews than she was to the Union Navy, but she was tostart a revolution in naval engineering that remains with us to this day. Built by the Confederates in 1863 specificallyto sink Union ships then barricading Southern ports, she sank twice while being tested, killing 13 of her crew (including her designer, H.L. Hunley) in the process. Finally ready for her first combat test, onthe evening of February 17, 1864, the Hunley, which never seemed to run out of men eagerto serve on her despite the generally suicidal nature of doing so, snuck up on the Unionsloop Housatonic and buried a spar torpedo in her side. Remarkably, the torpedo detonated as plannedand the Housatonic sank, giving her the dubious distinction of being the first ship in historyto be sunk by a submarine. Tragically, the little boat didn’t makeit back to dock but sank for the third and last time that evening for unknown reasons,taking her entire eight-man crew down once again. After sitting on the bottom of CharlestonHarbor for the next 136 years, she was finally located and raised in August of 2000 to greatfanfare. The remarkably well preserved hulk now sitsin a specially designed tank awaiting conservation. 

8. U.S.S. Monitor and C.S.S. Virginia (aka Merrimack) While the hours-long battle fought betweenthese two behemoths off Hampton Roads, Virginia in March of 1862 was relatively unspectacularand ended in a draw, it may have been one of the most important battles in naval historyin that it was the first time two ships made predominantly of iron rather than wood everengaged in battle. The Union-built Monitor—derisively calleda “cheesbox on a raft” (which proved to be a fairly accurate description)—also hadthe distinction of being the first ship to possess a rotating gun turret, changing thecourse of naval warship design for the next century. The interesting thing about the Confederateironclad was that it was built upon the refloated hull of the Union frigate Merrimack (hencethe confusion regarding her name), which had been scuttled when Norfolk fell into the handsof the South in April of 1861. Refloated and fitted with massive iron plates,she not only proved to be impenetrable to cannon fire, but a dangerous weapon the Southused to sink a pair of traditional wooden Union warships a day earlier. Neither ship fought again or survived theyear, however; the Virginia would be blown up to prevent her from being captured in Mayof 1862 when Union troops retook Norfolk and the Monitor would be lost in heavy seas offCape Hatteras on New Year’s eve of that year, taking 16 of her crew down with her. (Note: The wreck of the Monitor was locatedoff Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in 1973 and was designated a national landmark. Since then, many artifacts from the ship,including her turret, cannon, propeller, anchor, engine and some personal effects of the crew—alongwith the remains of two of her crew—have been recovered and are now on display—minusthe bodies—at the Mariners’ Museum of Newport News, Virginia.) 

7. U.S.S. Constitution Known as “Old Ironsides” due to her sturdyconstruction, the oldest still intact ship in America serves as a museum in Boston, Massachusetts. Still afloat after 213 years, she had an usuallylong service life, having remained in commission on and off between 1797 all the way to theCivil War, after which she was made a training ship and continued sailing periodically rightup to her final decommissioning in 1881. During that time she fought in two conflicts:the First Barbary War—when she battled real pirates—and the War of 1812, during whichshe distinguished herself by defeating the British frigates HMS Guerriere and HMS Java. It was those engagements that gave her somethingof a reputation as a ship that could take on the British in a head-to-head fight, whichwas no small feat when one considers that the Royal Navy was the largest and most powerfulin the world at the time. Her fame saved her from the wrecking yardand in 1907 she began serving as a museum ship. Old Ironsides has been restored, refurbishedand otherwise rebuilt so many times, it is said her keel is the only part of the originalship that remains, the rest having being replaced numerous times over the decades. She can still get underway, however, whichshe proves once a year when she is towed into to Boston Harbor for her “turnaround cruise”designed to ensure she weathers evenly on both sides. She is also a still officially commissionedwarship, with a sixty-man crew who are all active duty members of the United States Navy.

 6. Battleship U.S.S. Missouri Though not a participant in any major ship-to-shipsea battles, the “Mighty ‘Mo”, as she became known to her crew, had the distinctionof being the vessel upon which the surrender documents that ended World War Two were signedin Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. But World War Two wasn’t the only actionthe massive 45,000 ton battleship was to sea in her lifetime; decommissioned after thewar, she was reactivated and sent to fight during the Korean War, and again in 1984,when she became part of Ronald Reagan’s 600-ship fleet plan. She even saw service in the First PersianGulf War in 1991, when she lobbed cruise missiles and 16-inch rounds from her massive guns againstIraqi targets in Kuwait. Today she sits tied up serenely at Pearl Harbor,where she serves as a museum and war memorial. Interestingly, she is moored just a few hundredyards from the wreck of the Battleship Arizona (see no. 3), making it possible to see from her decksboth the place the war started and the place that it ended at the same time. 

5. HMS Victory No single ship serves as a better symbol forthe power that was the Royal Navy during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centurythan does Lord Nelson’s venerable and, indeed, almost legendary, flagship. One of the largest wooden warships ever built,the ship not only saw considerable action in the last decades of the eighteenth centuryfighting both the French and Spanish fleets, but she became the stuff of legends at thepivotal battle of Trafalgar in 1805, where Nelson was to be mortally wounded but notbefore besting the combined French and Spanish fleet and effectively saving England froma sea-borne invasion. Originally slated to be broken up shortlyafter the Napoleonic Wars ended, she was saved, the story goes, by the wife of the First SeaLord, who, upon learning that the vessel that had served so long and gallantly was to bedelegated to the wrecker’s yard, broke into tears and demanded that he rescind the order. Being no fool—and perhaps in a well-advisedeffort at maintaining marital bliss—the man did exactly that and the ship served forthe next century as a pier-side training school. Heavily restored in 1922 by the British government,she now serves as a museum in Portsmouth, England, making her one of the oldest shipsstill afloat in the world.

 4. Battleship U.S.S. Maine Some ships become famous not for what theydid, but for what they represented. In this case, the battleship Maine (a tinything compared to the later behemoths that were to carry the title of battleship) becamea rallying point for a nation intent on war. Anchored in the shallow waters of Havana harborlate on the evening of February 15, 1898, the ship was torn in two by a mysterious explosionand sank in a matter of minutes, killing all but 89 of her 355-man crew. Though the cause of the explosion was neverdetermined (some historians and naval engineers believe it may have been an accidental detonationof her magazines by a coal bin fire), it was immediately suspected to have been an intentionalact of sabotage—probably by a pre-placed mine—sending the country into a war frenzythat would, in the next few months, propel the United States into a short and spectacularlysuccessful war with Spain. While Spanish complicity in the incident hasnever been proven (and would have been counter-productive to the Spanish in any case), the battle cry“Remember the Maine” would remain a popular and long-remembered one for many decades afterwards. As for the ship itself, in 1911 what was leftof her was raised from the mud of Havana Harbor where she had become a hazard to navigation,towed out to the open sea, and scuttled with full military honors—a fitting end to aship that did so little but caused so much trouble. 

3. German Battleship Bismarck Perhaps no ship struck as much fear into theheart of the British Navy in the spring of 1941 than the massive German dreadnought Bismarckwhich, at 823 feet and with a top speed of 30 knots, was the largest and fastest warshipthen afloat. Breaking out of her Baltic haven in late May,1941 intend on decimating the ragged and besieged British merchant fleet keeping the BritishIsles afloat, the ship became the subject of the largest naval hunt in Royal Navy historyand one that was to cost the British dearly. Engaged by the British battle cruiser HMSHood and new battleship HMS Prince of Wales off Iceland in the early morning hours ofMay 24, after a brief but vicious battle the Hood exploded and sank, taking down all butthree of her 1,418-man crew, and left the Prince of Wales damaged and limping for home. Damaged herself a day later by British aerialtorpedoes, the wounded battleship made a run for the French coast for repairs, only tobe chased down by a pair of British battleships, the Rodney and King George V, whose combinedfirepower finally managed to send Hitler’s proud but battered warship to the bottom—alongwith all but 200 of her 2,200-man crew—after a two-hour barrage. There the infamous warship remained undisturbeduntil it was located by Robert Ballard (the same man who had found the Titanic three yearsearlier) in 1989 and carefully examined. Even then the venerable ship had a story totell, for it appeared that despite the heavy damage it endured during its final battle,it was still largely intact, suggesting that she had been scuttled rather than sunk bythe British after all, giving her, even in death, the last laugh.

 2. Battleship U.S.S. Arizona Few ships illicit the sort of emotion amongAmerican veterans as does the name Arizona. A World War One era battle wagon with an undistinguishedcareer, her active life in World War Two lasted a mere fifteen minutes before she was sunkby a well-aimed Japanese bomb that ignited her forward magazine and tore her in two duringthe surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. The “unlucky shot”—a one-in-millionhole in one—killed 1,177 men out of her crew of 1,400—including her captain andan admiral—and left her a blazing wreck that was to burn for days.* Too badly damaged to be salvageable (she wasone of only three ships sunk during the attack that was never repaired) the ship remainsthere to this day as a war memorial, where she is visited by literally millions of peopleevery year. Considering how famous the ship is today,it is interesting that few Americans knew about the Arizona’s fiery fate until yearslater due to wartime censorship, and that she lay largely forgotten in the shallow watersof Battleship Row for decades after the attack. It wasn’t until the 1960s that she becamea symbol of American resolve and sacrifice and acquired the mystique—along with a simplebut powerful memorial that straddles her remains—that she enjoys today. 

1. British Luxury Liner RMS Titanic Easily the most famous ship in history, thisluxury liner was designed to showcase mankind’s technological brilliance but instead onlyillustrated his hubris. The largest and fastest passenger ship ofits time, the British White Star liner left England on April 10, 1912 on its maiden voyageto New York, only to strike an iceberg five days later and sink. While most would imagine two hours would beplenty of time to evacuate the nearly 2,300 souls onboard, the ship had only half thelifeboats needed, dooming some 1,500 passengers and crew to a watery grave in the middle ofthe icy North Atlantic. The sinking sent shockwaves through the maritimecommunity, resulting in wholesale changes in regulations mandating the number of lifeboats every vessel was required to carry and making other much needed safety improvements. Eventually the ship’s name became synonymouswith avarice, indifference, and class privilege (most of the lost having been passengers fromsteerage) and holds a mystique that, if anything, has only grown over time. The ship was rediscovered three miles belowthe surface of the North Atlantic in 1985, and has since then become the inspirationfor a multitude of documentaries as well as the backdrop to the most successful movieof 1999. It could truly be said that with the Titanic,humanity learned a hard lesson that continues to pay dividends to this day. 

Other Famous Ships in History: BattleshipPotemkin (Russian warship famous for firing the first shots of the Russian Revolutionin 1905); HMS Bounty (British frigate famous for its mutiny); HMS Endeavor (Captain Cook’sship used to explore the Pacific Ocean); Mayflower (the ship that delivered the Pilgrims to Massachusettsin 1620); U.S.S. Enterprise (the most decorated warship ofWorld War Two); RMS Lusitania (her sinking in 1916 was the catalyst for America’s entryinto World War One); Japanese Battleship Yamato (largest battleship ever built); and the EnglishGalleon Golden Hind (the ship used by Sir Francis Drake to make the first complete circumnavigation of the globe between 1577 and 1580.)