How did the crew of the H.L. Hunley die? Scientists may have an answer to this mystery.
Bob WeathersIn the chill of February 1864, the eight-member crew of the Hunley navigated the small submarine out to the Charleston harbor and successfully torpedoed the Union blockade ship Housatonic. The warship sank in five minutes, and the Hunley signaled success and headed for home.
And that’s where certainty melts into mystery. The Hunley, of course, never made it to port, and researchers have assumed that her hull was compromised from the torpedo blast and she filled with water and sank, drowning the courageous crew.
But new evidence indicates that the Hunley’s aft pump had not been engaged, so the crew probably had no water rushing in that needed to be pumped out. So if the sub did not fill with water, what caused the deaths of the crew? Perhaps not the presence of water, but the absence of air. Scientists speculate that the crew, waiting for the tide to turn and the current to push them toward land, slowly but certainly used up their oxygen. If that was the case, each man gradually lost consciousness until all had suffocated.
The tragic demise of the crew of the Hunley offers insight into human nature. For them, waiting may have been a nautical necessity. But for you and me, waiting for conditions to be perfect can deplete our spiritual oxygen as well. We float around, assuming the tide will turn and take us back to a kind of perfection, before this or that went wrong. But such a perception causes us to miss what God wants us to learn and experience in the middle of the circumstances.
Paul writes that we should “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Not for all circumstances, for that would just be dishonest. But in all circumstances, for that is a reminder of the sovereignty and the care of God.
Call it radical thanksgiving. In the darkest circumstances, when the tide has not yet turned and you’re not even sure that it will, give thanks. Such faith is like fresh air, a reminder that, no matter what is happening, God is still in charge.