Multimedia: Underwater Flicks All Wet?	Volume 54 Number 1, November/December 2001
by Barto Arnold

Two video documentaries sink, one swims.

Left, the cutting-edge propeller of a successor to the Civil War ship Monitor. Recovery of the sunken Monitor's propeller is featured in Lincoln's Secret Weapon. (Mariner's Museum Collection) Right, visitors to the Monitor inspect dents inflicted in battle. (National Archives) [LARGER IMAGE]  [LARGER IMAGE]

The discovery of shipwrecks engenders tremendous public interest. The media can satisfy that fascination in an unfortunate way, uncritically embracing adventure and thereby uncritically embracing projects that destroy the heritage entombed with lost ships. The three video examples considered here contrast markedly. Lincoln's Secret Weapon, from Nova, gets it right. Hitler's Lost Sub, also from Nova, and Submarine I-52: Search for WWII Gold, from National Geographic, don't. Lincoln's Secret Weapon joins the latest expedition to the wreck of the Civil War ship USS Monitor. Hitler's Lost Sub and Submarine I-52 chronicle the discovery of two World War II submarines, one German, the other Japanese. All three offer ripping good yarns. What is in question is the proper or improper treatment of historic shipwrecks.

Dives on sub I-52 have revealed no gold. (© Jonathan Blair) [LARGER IMAGE]

Barto Arnold is director of Texas Operations for the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University.

© 2001 by the Archaeological Institute of America archive.archaeology.org/0101/abstracts/multimedia.html