Discovering fate of Hunley sub crew

Researchers have completed a three-year analysis of the mysterious fate of the crew of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy ship in combat during the Civil War. A Duke University biomedical engineering doctoral program team said Hunley's eight-man crew were killed from the force of a blast wave created by the ship’s “torpedo.” ... “All the physical evidence points to the crew taking absolutely no action in response to a flood or loss of air,” said Rachel Lance, a 2016 graduate of Duke Engineering. The H.L. Hunley managed to use its ship-mounted torpedo on Feb. 17, 1864, sinking the U.S. Navy sloop-of-war USS Housatonic in about 30 feet of water just outside the Charleston (SC) Harbor. The small naval battle was less interesting for its strategic importance than for the mysterious fate of the sub’s crew. “This is the characteristic trauma of blast victims, they call it ‘blast lung’,” said researcher Rachel Lance. Prior to graduate school, Lane worked as a bio-mechanist at the Navy base in Panama City, Fla., for three years. (Source: Courthouse News 08/23/17) Gulf Coast Note: CSS Hunley was built at Mobile, Ala.