The story comes from KCLU’s podcast The One Oh One. You can listen to the full episode here.
Every investigation needs a detective.
“I refer to myself sometimes as a shipwreck detective. I love the detective work. I love the challenge to get answers,” said Robert Schwemmer.
Schwemmer’s official title is the West Coast Regional Maritime Heritage Coordinator for NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. NOAA stands for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Schwemmer’s love of ships and shipwrecks is in his blood… literally.
“I'm a descendant of Robert Fulton, the steamboat inventor,” he said.
Fulton, if you’re not steeped in maritime history, was the first person to successfully build a steam-powered boat. Steamboats revolutionized travel and trade around the 1800s, because before that boats mostly had to rely on currents.
But I digress… back to our modern day ship enthusiast.
“When I was scuba diving, I got my first shipwreck and I was hooked. And it's become a passion,” he said.
And Schwemmer isn’t exaggerating. He maintains several shipwreck databases along U.S. coasts, and has thousands of books about ships and shipwrecks…
“So probably one of the larger privately owned maritime libraries,” he said.
100 years since the Honda Point Disaster
With our shipwreck detective by our side let’s go back 100 years to the decisions that led up to the Honda Point disaster. Specifically to September 8, 1923.
It was Fleet Week in San Francisco – a tradition that continues to this day where military ships dock in major cities so the public can interact with them and their crews. That 1923 Fleet Week also featured demonstrations of navy shipping prowess.
Military leadership of that time wanted to test some of the ships – destroyers specially – to see if they (and the crew) were ready for high speed battle operations. To do that, a high endurance test run was planned.
Schwemmer reads from a publication written about the demonstration.
“The order was given to make a high speed endurance run from San Francisco to their home port in San Diego. The destroyers were to run 20 knots and maintain radio silence, with the exception of the flagship,” he read.
14 destroyers set out in close formation.
It was a foggy night and that was already causing problems. As they approached the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara – one of the destroyers actually came across a passenger steamer that had … run aground near one of the islands. They abandoned their test run to help those passengers. But the other destroyers continued on.
The Commander of the squadron, Captain Edward Watson, felt positive about the mission. Here’s Schwemmer again, reading from a book written about the disaster that was published in 1960.
“Quote, I feel that we have two factors in our favor. The wind and the sea are pushing us along and according to the coast pilot, we have a slight assist from the Japanese current, end quote” he read.
Visibility worsened as their journey continued.
“At 9 p.m. that night was described as dark. The sky – overcast and the sea was moderate with whitecaps and a heavy ground swell,” said Schwemmer.
And then suddenly as the destroyers plunged into a heavy layer of fog and visibility dropped to zero...
“A grating sound was heard, followed by the smashing crash of a head-on collision. The quartermaster leaped and pulled the whistle and sounded four blasts, which is the danger signal,” said Schwemmer.
Gene Bruce survived the Honda Point disaster
Gene Bruce was on one of those ships, the USS Chauncey.
“I joined the Navy at the age of 15,” said Bruce.
Born in Albuquerque in 1907, Bruce moved to the San Fernando Valley just before joining the Navy.
After training and soon after his sixteenth birthday, he was given his first assignment onboard the USS Chauncey – one of the destroyers on the test run that fateful night.
“1923 was my 16th birthday. Four months later is when the tragedy happened,” said Bruce.
Bruce is now deceased but his experience was recorded by Robert Schwemmer.
Bruce described how the ships were playing follow the leader and that the front ship was doing all the navigating. He was on ship number four or five – he couldn’t quite remember.
“We heard sirens up ahead. That's the first inkling we had – a lot of sound. We thought at that time that it was… maybe it could have been a man overboard, but it wasn't,” said Bruce.
Something had gone very wrong with the navigation and the ships traveling at high speed ran into the towering rocks along the shore at Honda Point, north of Santa Barbara. One after the other ships started crashing and piling up on the rocks.
“Our ship was washed up by waves and up against rocks,” Bruce said.
Bruce said he and his fellow crew started climbing out onto the rocks and up onto the bluff. Fortunately no one was hurt on his destroyer. But nearby, another destroyer, called the USS Young, had flipped on its side and started taking on water as sailors were trapped inside.
Bruce described what he saw.
“So we were trying to go a stern between this big rock and the Young. And some waves, surf, washed up against the Young,” said Bruce. “She had turned over. So her propellers were still going. They cut into the side of our ship.”
20 lives were lost on the USS Young and three aboard another ship.
Gene Bruce served a total of four years in the Navy. He lived to the age of 98, dying in 2005.
The largest shipyard graveyard
The Honda Point disaster was seen as a big embarrassment for the Navy as seven ships were destroyed and two were left stranded. And official explanations about why and how it happened, remain murky to this day.
On the 100th anniversary of the disaster, September 8, this year, Vandenberg Space Force Base held a quiet remembrance event. Flags across the base were flown at half-staff, and a trumpet played just after 9 p.m. – the time the disaster occurred.
The 75th anniversary event in 1998 was more public – a trumpet played at the base as a helicopter flew over dropping a wreath into the ocean where the accident occurred.
Today remnants of that disaster are still visible at Honda Point – or Point Pedernales as it’s commonly called today. Wreckage or artifacts from the seven destroyed ships is visible in the intertidal zone and likely deep under water on the ocean floor.
And it’s not just ships from that disaster that rest there. This is the final resting place of many ships over the years.
“It certainly is the largest Central Coast graveyard,” said Robert Schwemmer.
The largest, and perhaps the most well known.
What a new marine sanctuary would mean for shipwreck exploration
But there is so much still to be discovered in the much larger proposed marine sanctuary – which if approved in the summer of next year, would stretch 134 miles along California’s Central coastline and make up 5,600 square miles of protected ocean space.
Out in that vast ocean space are potentially over 100 lost shipwrecks waiting to be found.
And these types of discoveries become possible if the Biden Administration designates this space as a marine sanctuary.
How? Well, firstly there’s money.
“Funding resources such as staff and research vessels,” said Schwemmer. “Creating opportunities for NOAA to partner with state, federal, private sector and indigenous community partners in the discovery and survey of shipwrecks”.
Secondly – there’s protection.
“Federal protection for maritime heritage resources for disturbance, salvage, looting of artifacts and so future generations can enjoy,” said Schwemmer.
Money and protection means the filling in of so many gaps in history books.
“It's important to continue the inventory. You know, consider going down the Washington Mall in Washington, D.C., and each of the buildings you will assess those and look at the criteria. Are they the National Register or National Landmark? Do they rise to that level?” said Schwemmer. “The same thing underwater. Any historic property. We need to assess those. It's our mandate.”
Descendants might also get closure about what happened to their ancestors.
Shipwrecks we know are out there
So, what’s actually out there to be found?
Some exploration has already been done… but really only a little. Only 18 shipwrecks are known or located in this vast proposed sanctuary space.
They include a passenger steamer called the Yankee Blade which was lost in 1854 – that ship’s cargo included gold.
We know about a steamer that sank in 1909 with a cargo of pine onboard. This wreck can sometimes be seen above the surf (often after a storm) just off the coast of Lompoc.
And as recently as 1987 a transport ship called the Pacbaroness sank in a collision off Point Conception – it had a whole lot of copper concentrate onboard. Authorities actually have this down as a potentially polluting wreck – they keep an eye on these.
One of the most interesting shipwrecks of those 18, to detective Schwemmer, is a private oil tanker called the Montebello that ran into a Japanese sub…
Let me take you back in time again…
This time it’s 1941. World War II. Richard Quincy, who was also interviewed years later by Robert Schwemmer, was part of the crew onboard the Montebello.
“We knew there was a submarine out there because we were the company ships coming down from San Francisco had sighted one and turned back,” said Quincy.
That’s a Japanese submarine he’s talking about.
“We knew that they were out there. But at that time, of course, we were at sea and there wasn't much we could do. We had to keep going,” he said.
Quincy had been put on watch.
Looking out into the nighttime ocean. He saw a dark outline in the water – the submarine they’d been warned about.
“And just when I pointed to where it was there was a little flash of light on it, like somebody turned the flash light on and off,” Quincy said.
That was the flash of a torpedo being fired.
“I think what was worrisome about that is it seemed like forever before we heard the explosion on the ship. And it was that wait between... is it going to hit here where we are or is it going to go over us?” said Quincy.
Because the torpedo traveled at a speed slow enough to track it visually, Quincy could actually watch it as it approached and eventually pierced their ship’s hull.
As the crew scrambled for lifeboats, Quincy’s boat got stuck, attached to the sinking tanker – sailors couldn’t release the lifeboat – it was taking them down with the ship.
Quincy luckily found an ax to free them. But they weren’t out of danger.
“The meantime they're shooting at us with the deck guns. So that was more exciting than the torpedo,” he said.
Miraculously Quincy and all his fellow crew members survived. They watched as the Montebello sank in front of them.
“That stern went right up in the air and right straight up. It was a fantastic sight. There was a light enough then to really see it. I figured about 150 feet in the air and then just slowly went out of sight,” said Quincy.
It was later determined that the torpedo had just missed the oil storage tank – and, even more lucky, there was apparently another torpedo fired that missed the tanker altogether.
Shipwreck detective Robert Schwemmer dived the Montebello wreckage in 2003. Here’s what that dive unearthed.
“They are so fortunate. If it had struck ten feet further aft on the ship. We probably would have killed 38 crewmen,” said Schwemmer. “And I actually got to pass through that opening where the torpedo impact zone was. So I was able to kind of solve that mystery and say, ‘Man, you guys are really lucky’”.
They also determined that the oil was no longer a threat as it had probably dissipated over the decades.
For many years Richard Quincy mostly kept his story of survival to himself. When he talked about it, he said no one believed him – some even called him a liar. The discovery of the shipwreck proved he was telling the truth.
The shipwrecks still to be discovered
So that is just one of the 18 shipwrecks that have been explored in the proposed Marine Sanctuary. But Schwemmer, through his research, says he has a list of 140 more waiting to be found.
For our final shipwreck story…let’s focus on just one of those… a passenger cargo ship called the Roanoke.
This time we go back to 1916.
The vessel had departed San Francisco for Chile. The cargo was 600 tons of commercial explosives – dynamite. Because of this, no passengers were on board but there were 48 crew members.
Here’s detective Schwemmer again reading from the official wreck report from the national archives.
“Roanoke ran into heavy seas. The ship rolled and took on a heavy list. Attempting to make shore at Port San Luis, the vessel foundered. The crew tried desperately to get off in the lifeboats, but there were difficulties. Most of the lifeboats were smashed in the sinking of the ship,” read Schwemmer.
Of the 48, 45 crew members lost their lives.
“One lifeboat drifted close to shore, heading for the rocks. It was spotted by a lookout at the lighthouse,” said Schwemmer.
The tragic loss of life is one of the reasons Robert Schwemmer wants to find this shipwreck.
“To me, it's a really tragic story, but I think the potential for closure, family descendants, is important. I have a list of all the names lost in the wreck report of official publication,” said Schwemmer. And I think like some of the other shipwrecks that I've been involved with and their discoveries. We've connected the descendants and it's brought them closure. So that to me would be a priority site.”
They don’t know precisely where this ship went down… It’s going to require an expedition and some detective work.
For our shipwreck hunter Robert Schwemmer the case remains open.
More than just shipwreck hunting
This proposed marine sanctuary’s name is the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary – named for the Native American tribe with a long history in this region. One of the branches of that tribe – the Northern Chumash Tribal Council – actually submitted the sanctuary nomination in 2015 and have been closely involved (along with other tribes and branches) in the designation process. The sanctuary space holds great spiritual significance.
So yes, the sanctuary isn’t just about shipwreck hunting… it would work to protect cultural and indigenous sites. But also – marine ecosystems, like kelp forests and rock reefs by prohibiting new offshore oil and gas development or boats from dumping sewage, for example.
Certain things won’t change that much though, like fishing.
This national marine sanctuary would also almost fill in a big gap of unprotected ocean space along the California Coast. There are already a number of national marine sanctuaries along our coast but this area has been left unprotected.
But there’s a catch in all of this… All of this potential discovery does, though, depend on the sanctuary getting its official designation.
Currently Draft Designation Documents are in the Public Comment Period. There are a few more steps NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries has to go through until everything becomes official. They have set an end target of summer 2024.
But, there’s a presidential election in 2024… and if the process becomes delayed for some reason that could mean it could stretch into possibly a new administration.That new administration could put everything on hold to see if a new sanctuary even aligns with their agenda.
So, we have on our hands, a race against the clock.
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