US Nuclear Sub Seeks Shipwreck off UK Coast

Yorkshire, UK - In a final attempt to locate the wreck of the Bonhomme Richard, the US Navy is sending in its smallest nuclear-powered submarine. The 150ft NR1, which played a part in salvaging wreckage from the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 will arrive next week off the east coast of Yorkshire.

The Bonhomme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, sank somewhere off Flamborough head after a sea battle against the British warship, the Seraphis. This will be the third year the team from the Ocean Technology Foundation has searched the area for the remains of the vessel. The problem of finding the wreck is compounded by the enormous number of shipping losses along this coast. The turbulent North Sea weather was responsible for many losses as the English coast from the Firth of Forth to the Humber offered no natural harbours of safety for sailing ships. As many as 50,000 vessels may have been lost along this coast from the earliest times. World Wars I and II added substantially to the shipwreck population.

A remarkable percentage of these vessels are believed to have been the colliers which were shipping coal from the Tyne to London. In 1692 alone nearly 200 colliers were lost along the Yorkshire coast. In 1865 no fewer than 675 came to grief during the year.

During the eighteenth century, most of these colliers were based at Whitby and Scarborough. It was on one such ship, the Endeavour, in which the Whitby-trained James Cook set off in 1768 on his famous exploration of the Pacific Ocean. And it was these vessels which made up the bulk of the Baltic Fleets. Timber, needed for the building of naval shipping to defend the islands against invasion and to protect trade, was in short supply and needed to be imported from the Baltic.

On September 23, 1779, it was one such convoy of 41, sailing under the protection of HMS Seraphis and Countess of Scarborough, which the Bonhomme Richard attacked near Flamborough Head. The Bonhomme Richard engaged Seraphis in a bitter engagement and the Battle of Flamborough Head ensued. During the four hours fight the lives of nearly half the American and British crews were lost. At first, a British victory seemed inevitable as the more heavily armed Seraphis used its superior firepower to rake Bonhomme Richard with devastating effect. However, Jones eventually succeeded in lashing the two ships together, nullifying his opponent's greater manoeuvrability. After a chaotic battle, he boarded and captured the British frigate just before the Bonhomme Richard sank. He then sailed the Seraphis to the Texel for repairs.

Among the crowds watching the moonlit battle on the Yorkshire cliffs, there will have been many supporters of the American Revolution, which at that time divided opinion in Britain. However as the merchant fleet being attacked was manned mainly by local people, their sympathies must have been mixed to say the least. Their feelings must also have been tempered by the knowledge, through their seafaring connections, that the ships operating under the Stars and Stripes were to all intents French mercenaries.

The Bonhomme Richard was a French Indiaman, a merchant ship built 1765, for service between France and the Orient. She was placed at the disposal of John Paul Jones by the aristocratic French shipping magnate, Jacques-Donatien Le Ray on instructions from that icon of the Ancien Régime Louis XVI.

John Paul Jones, the captain of Bonhomme Richard, has been referred to as the father of the US Navy. Jones was the first man to be assigned to the rank of 1st Lieutenant in the "Continental Navy" on December 22, 1775. The Continental Navy, a short lived fiasco, was founded in 1775 and the last of its ships, the Alliance, was sold off in 1785. The reluctance of Congress to support the establishment of a Navy at that time was the insistence that an extended US Navy would only serve to involve America in foreign conflicts. Furthermore, the cost of maintaining a standing navy placed an additional drain on the limited revenues that Congress, with its aversion to taxation, was able to raise.

It was not until March of 1794, that the US Navy truly came into being, when an Act to Provide a Naval Armament was passed and signed into law by George Washington.

Yet John Paul Jones is certainly regarded as one of the most prominent figures in the US maritime history, and his body lies in the crypt at the US Naval Academy. If the wreck is found, items recovered from it could be taken to the academy in Maryland.

- Mike Taylor