――The turtle is the first submersible to be operated in actual battle.
--Developed in 1775 to equip depth charges on warships moored during the American Revolutionary War.
――The power was human power, a screw was used to move forward, and the structure was such that water was put into the tank at the bottom of the ship to dive.
--The turtle was used on an enemy ship moored on Governor's Island in 1776, but the attack was unsuccessful.
――After that, it was dismantled without being used, but it was a submersible that left a mark in history.
The Turtle (also called the American Turtle) was the world's first submersible with a documented record of use in combat.
In 1776, during the Revolutionary War, the American submersible craft Turtle attempts to attach a time bomb to the hull of British Admiral Richard Howe's flagship Eagle in New York Harbor. It was the first use of a submarine in warfare.
David Bushnell, an American inventor, began building underwater mines while a student at Yale University. Deciding that a submarine would be the best means of delivering his mines in warfare, he built an eight-foot-long wooden submersible that was christened the Turtle for its shape. Large enough to accommodate one operator, the submarine was entirely hand-powered. Lead ballast kept the craft balanced.
Donated to the Patriot cause after the outbreak of war with Britain in 1775, Ezra Lee piloted the craft unnoticed out to the 64-gun HMS Eagle in New York Harbor on September 7, 1776. As Lee worked to anchor a time bomb to the hull He could see British seamen on the deck above, but they failed to notice the strange craft below the surface. Lee had almost secured the bomb when his boring tools failed to penetrate a layer of iron sheathing. , causing no harm to either the Eagle or the Turtle.
During the next week, the Turtle made several more attempts to sink British ships on the Hudson River, but each time it failed, owing to the operator's lack of skill. Only Bushnell was really able to competently execute the submarine's complicated functions, but because of During the Battle of Fort Lee, the Turtle was lost when the American sloop transporting it was sunk by the British.
Despite the failures of the Turtle, General George Washington gave Bushnell a commission as an Army engineer, and the drifting mines he constructed destroyed the British frigate Cereberus and wreaked havoc against other British ships. After the war, he became commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers stationed at West Point.
( This is a machine translation. Please allow for possible misinterpretations in the text. )