Bottled message hints at Cyclops mystery
By Marie Beth Jones
The Facts
Published February 22, 2010
If a message in a bottle found at San Luis Pass was authentic, it could solve the mystery of what befell the U.S.S. Cyclops in 1918. But the note?s authenticity is questionable.
The ship?s name was chosen from Greek mythology in which Cyclops denoted a race of giants with a single eye.
The vessel by that name, which had a crew of 236 men, was a 542-foot-long ?collier? used to supply the coal that fueled many other ships at that time. The Cyclops measured 65 feet across the beam, had a draft of 27 feet and 8 inches, and was capable of a speed of 15 knots.
Built in the Cramp Shipyard, the vessel was named by Mrs. Walter H. Grove, the daughter-in-law of Henry S. Grove, the shipyard?s president.
On May 8, 1910, the New York Times ran a story datelined from Philadelphia on May 7, stating the Cyclops was ?the first of its type to be constructed on the Atlantic seacoast for the navy.?
This article also noted the ship was capable of delivering 1,440 tons of coal an hour, and had a cargo capacity of 12,500 tons.
Eight years later, in early March of 1918, the Cyclops disappeared. Only the message found at San Luis Pass gives any indication of what happened to it.
A recent Internet search by Michael Bailey, curator for the Brazoria County Historical Museum, brought to light the story about what was alleged to be the Cyclops? final message.
The ship was carrying 306 crew members and passengers when it disappeared without a trace.
According to the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, the Cyclops was placed in service Nov. 7, 1910, with G.W. Worley, Master, Navy Auxiliary Service, in charge.
After voyages in the Baltic to supply ships in the U.S. 2nd Division, the ship returned to Norfolk and operated on the East Coast from Newport to the Caribbean, servicing the fleet.
During what was described as ?the troubled conditions in Mexico in 1914 and 1915,? the Cyclops provided coal for ships in the south Atlantic and her service rated official thanks from the State Department and Pacific commander-in-chief.
Then she began her final voyage. She put to sea from Rio de Janiero on Feb. 16, 1918, and after touching at Barbados on March 3 and 4, was never heard from again.
The dictionary of ships states that her ?loss ? without a trace, is one of the sea?s unsolved mysteries.?
But on July 12, 1919, the New York Times published a copyrighted story with a headline indicating a note had been found that would solve the mystery.
Datelined Velasco, Texas, on July 11, the brief article stated:
?What purports to be a last message from the missing steamship Cyclops was found in a bottle which was half buried in the sand on the shore of San Luis Pass, near here, today. The message read:
?U.S.S. Cyclops, torpedoed April 7, 1918, latitude 46 degrees 25 minutes, longitude 35 degrees 11 minutes. All on board when the German submarine fired on us. Lifeboats going to pieces. No one to be left to tell the last.?
?Following the word ?last? another was started but was unfinished.?
Another article found by Bailey concerning the Cyclops? fate indicates the ship?s disappearance still is considered a mystery.
?One can imagine almost any scenario,? according to this story. ?Mutiny could have happened, although unlikely, far off her course when the men realized what was happening. But, alas, a sub might enter the picture again before they could alert base. Certainly a mutiny was not successful, for there would have been survivors.?
This article also mentions a weather-related problem can be ruled out, as ?the only rough weather? involved ?high winds off Cape Hatteras on the 10th of March, but they dissipated the next day.?
Anyway, the Cyclops should not have been around that site at the time, the writer points out, noting ?her engine had been fixed, regardless of popular rumor, so she was not traveling on one engine but was making normal speed.?
This writer even mentions the possibility the ship fell victim to the Bermuda Triangle, which he calls ?a relative latecomer? in theories. ?Like the others,? he says, ?this merely tries to explain the unexplainable.?
The Bermuda Triangle seems to have claimed ?many other missing ships and planes (that) vanished in a like manner: no SOS; no debris; traveling in fair weather,? he states.
The Cyclops? ?last known place on this earth was right in the heart of the Triangle before, like so many others, she went into mystery,? he wrote.
?If there was treachery aboard, perhaps the culprits were surprised by the greater mystery of nature than that which hid in the dark maze of their own hearts.?
Whatever the case, the official Navy statement has not changed in all these years:
?Since her departure (Barbadoes) there has been no trace of the vessel. The disappearance of this ship has been one of the most baffling mysteries in the annals of the Navy, all attempts to locate her having proved unsuccessful.?
This statement adds no enemy submarines were in the western Atlantic at that time, and notes in December of 1918 every effort was made to obtain information from German sources regarding the vessel?s disappearance.
Information was also requested from all attach?s in Europe. The result was ?that it is definite that neither German U-boats nor German mines came into the question,? this statement concludes.
But that leaves still another mystery. If all this is accurate, who wrote the note found in the bottle partially buried in the sand at San Luis Pass?
And why?
Marie Beth Jones, a published author and freelance writer based in Angleton, is chairwoman of the Brazoria County Historical Commission.
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