![]() ![]() Not just one shipwreck, but an entire ghastly genre of them. The exact whereabouts of the warship remained a mystery for decades, but was finally located by a team led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, in 2017 - 18,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific. The drop-off of the deadly cargo went without a hitch, but on its return journey, the Indianapolis was hit by a Japanese sub, with many crew members perishing from shark attacks and salt poisoning. The Indianapolis was chosen to transport the uranium core of the “Little Boy” nuclear bomb to Tinian Island, where the weapon was assembled shortly before being used to devastating effect on Hiroshima. Rotten Tomatoes’ “Tomatometer” might rack up a rancid 17% for the 2016 Nicolas Cage movie, “USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage,” but in real life, the ship played a game-ending role in World War II. Said the late thriller writer Clive Cussler, who spent much of his life searching for the wreck, “I guess she is going to continue to be elusive a while longer.” Ninety years after the Waratah went down, the National Underwater and Marine Agency thought they’d finally found it, but it was a false alarm. ![]() The entire liner, complete with eight staterooms, music lounge and all 211 passengers and crew, was never found. It may not have its own theme song sung by Celine Dion, but the SS Waratah is known as “Australia’s Titanic” - and for good reason.Ī passenger cargo ship built to travel between Europe and Australia with a stopover in Africa, the Waratah disappeared shortly after steaming off from the city of Durban in present-day South Africa in 1909 - just three years before the Titanic tragedy. Recently, a fictionalized version of the pirate Zheng Yi Sao went in search of the treasure on an episode of British sci-fi series “Doctor Who,” only to unleash the dreaded Sea Devils. Most of the crew perished, and its booty - said to include the entire personal fortune of a Portuguese governor, worth a cool $2.6 billion in today’s money - was lost. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before the Flor de la Mar went down, which it did in a heavy storm off Sumatra, Indonesia in 1511. ![]()
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