Life for European commoners was tough early in the nineteenth century. The Holy Roman Empire had just collapsed and political entities jockeyed to fill the power void.

NUMA lost a cherished friend and contributor on January 17th when David Ellsworth Boyd passed at the age of 92. Ells, as he was known to his pals, was a legend in the diving community, having explored and written about dozens of shipwrecks over his busy lifetime.

The USS America is typical of passenger ships of the times that were converted into troop ships during WW II. They returned to their original role as passenger ships when the war ended.

The USS Enterprise was one of many U.S. Navy ships that officers and crew designated “Pride of the Fleet. Shortly after she was commissioned, the Yorktown Class American Carrier had just delivered a marine air squadron to Wake Island when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

If it takes a storm to pass a law for future safe passage, so be it. But it’s sad that lives must be lost in the process. A countdown to lives lost in a disaster at sea is the major issue here. What was the count, 160 or 190 lives lost and who were they?