Today’s film is a war movie with a scene that happens on
February 17. Watch it tonight and enjoy.
THE HUNLEY
H. L. Hunley takes his ship the Hunley, out in Charleston harbor and it
sinks with all hands. As the blockade still needs to be broken, Gen. Beauregard
has the ship raised and puts George Dixon in charge. He starts looking for a
crew and after some difficulty, finally finds enough volunteers to man it. They
practice cranking the propeller. The crew do not all get along with each other.
Dixon flashes back to the Battle of Shiloh, where a gold coin given to him by
his wife (who was later killed in steamboat explosion caused by a drifting
mine), deflected a bullet and saved his life.
They take the ship down and sit on the bottom to see how long they can
stay down and almost get stuck. The Union navy is warned about the sub. They
crew votes that if after an attack they are stuck on the bottom, they will open
the valves, flooding the ship rather than suffocating. They go out to attack
the U.S.S. Wabash, but the attack
fails. Following the warning, the ship has draped metal chain netting over the
side. Also the rope which was attached to the torpedo they were to release
under the ship gets loose and becomes entangled in the propeller. It has to be
cut loose while sailors on the Wabash
shoot at the Hunley. Beauregard proposes putting the torpedo at
the end of a long spar. The Housatonic
is ordered to change its position in the harbor and always be ready to steam,
meaning it can’t hang metal netting over the side. The second in command Lt.
Alexander is ordered to Mobile, and a young soldier who had been volunteering
to join the crew is allowed to do so.
On February 17, 1864, the C.S.S.
H. L. Hunley sails out and attacks the U.S.S.
Housatonic. The torpedo is rammed into the side of the ship. It blows up,
and the Housatonic is the first ship
ever sunk by a sub. A bullet from the
ship breaks a window in the conning tower and wounds Dixon. The explosion opens
the seams on the Hunley and it takes
on water. It settles to the bottom, and they can’t release the ballast or pump
the ship. As agreed the crew opens the valves and the ship floods, killing the
entire crew. [1:12: 44 to 1:30:38]
An interesting film about an
important, but overlooked moment in naval history. The story of the crew is
almost wholly fictional, but is still interesting. Concentrates on the
character of Dixon and his private struggles.
The Encyclopedia of Military History from 3500 b.c. to
the Present by R. Ernest Dupuy & Trevor N. Dupuy (Harper & Row, New
York, 1977) at page 901 gives the attack date
Director - John Gray Screenplay - John Gray and John
Fasano
Awards - Won the Emmy for Outstanding Sound Editing.
Runtime - 1 hour 34 minutes
Released - July 11, 1999
Starring –
Arman Assante as Lt. George Dixon
Donald Sutherland as Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard
Alex Jennings as Lt. Alexander
Christopher Bauer as Simkins
Gerry Becker as Capt. Pickering
Michael Dolan as Becker
Sebastian Roche as Collins
Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015
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