Bradley A. Rodgers

The lost flying boat of Kaneohe Bay: Archaeology of the first U. S. casualties of Pearl Harbor

Can archaeology add to the narrative of the Japanese attack on the U. S. Naval and Air installations in Hawaii, 7 December 1941, or is this event too recent and historically well documented to benefit from the tools of archaeology? One answer to this question lies at the bottom of Kaneohe Bay, some 25 mi. (40 km) from the famed U. S. Naval base of Pearl Harbor. In June and July 1994, East Carolina University, the Marine Option Program of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and the National Park Service co-sponsored an unusual field school. The project called for a pre-disturbance survey and archaeological documentation of a sunken flying boat recently located by U. S. Marine Corps divers near the Naval Air Station in Kaneohe Bay on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu. Our purpose was to document and identify the abandoned craft and ascertain whether it had been destroyed as a result of the Japanese attack on Oahu, 7 December 1941. Yet the project achieved far more than this, revealing for the first time in 53 years what was not seen or heard through the smoke and thunder of that battle; a patrol crew’s gallant effort to save their craft.

Vernacular Craft of the North American Great Lakes

Over the last 30 years, East Carolina University’s Program in Maritime Studies has conducted historical archaeology research on the Great Lakes. The results of this research summarize and describe both the niches and ship adaptations of various watercraft developed there in the nineteenth century and serve to advertise the large amount of literature available concerning these craft in the so-called “gray literature” of unpublished Masters theses, collaborative “in-house” reports, as well as published reports and books. Discussion of this research includes brief descriptions plus archaeological examples of Grain, Canal, and Scow Schooners, along with Steamers, Steam Barges, Passenger/Freight Propellers, and Bulk Freighters. Research suggests that maritime development on the Great Lakes in the nineteenth century was shaped to a large degree by both economic and geologic/geographic circumstances.

The Watercraft of Castle Island, Washington, North Carolina

Between June 1998 and June 2000, the Maritime Studies Program at East Carolina University (ECU) conducted three underwater archaeological field schools in Washington, North Carolina. During these projects, archaeologists and students examined the bottom of the harbor of Washington, near Castle Island for submerged cultural resources, and documented 11 vessels with Phase II pre-disturbance survey techniques. The watercraft proved to be of a diverse array of vernacular vessel types; from schooners, flats, terrapin smacks, oyster sloops, and sailing log canoes, to river steamers and motor boats. Research indicates that Hurricane Floyd may have moved, buried, or damaged a number of these vessels in September 1999, and the results of the ECU preliminary investigations remain the only evidence of the existence of some of these watercraft.