Existing comment:
Turtle:
Turtle originated in the mind of a thirty-something Yale student named David Bushnell. Built from wood and iron with glass slits for viewing, a hand-cranked propeller for power, and a mine for a weapon, the egg-shaped craft had great potential for surprise attacks on British warships. The secret tests went well, then things began to go wrong. The trained pilot of Turtle was injured in a fall shortly before the first attack against the British flagship Eagle anchored in New York harbor. His replacement made two attempts to attach the mine by means of a screw, but an iron bar in the hull foiled him. After the failure of a second attack on a British frigate anchored in the Hudson River off Fort Lee, a disappointed and disgusted Bushnell destroyed the craft and burnt his drawings. After the war a still miserable Bushnell moved to Georgia, changed him name to "Bush," and abandoned naval engineering for medicine. |