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"Mysterious Disappearance of the USS Cyclops" Topic


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Personal logo Editor in Chief Bill The Editor of TMP Fezian06 Mar 2025 2:47 p.m. PST

In early March 1918, the USS Cyclops set sail from Barbados, bound for Baltimore. She carried manganese ore vital to the war effort. But somewhere in the vast expanse of the Atlantic, she disappeared. There was not a single distress call. She was gone without a trace. More than a hundred years later, the fate of the Cyclops and the 306 souls aboard remains one of the greatest maritime mysteries of all time…

Fold3: link

Extrabio1947 Supporting Member of TMP06 Mar 2025 4:37 p.m. PST

The USS Cyclops' two sister ships were also lost in the Triangle: USS Proteus (58 souls) and USS Nereus (61 souls). Like the Cyclops, neither ship has ever been found.

A naval inquiry found these colliers were "poorly constructed and extremely vulnerable to breaking up in heavy seas." Of course, that doesn't explain why none of these ships has ever been found.

Shame the navy didn't figure that out earlier.

Personal logo 20thmaine Supporting Member of TMP07 Mar 2025 5:35 a.m. PST

They should kept an eye on it….

Personal logo 20thmaine Supporting Member of TMP07 Mar 2025 9:41 a.m. PST

Have kept….

Personal logo foxbat Supporting Member of TMP08 Mar 2025 6:13 a.m. PST

LOL! My first acquaintance with USS Cyclops was through Charles Berlitz's "The Bermuda Triangle" book. As I was a teenager then, I found he made a fairly convincing case that little green men had abducted it… *chuckles*

Now, more seriously, Wikipedia has a fairly good page on it, summarizing what I found about the case later in life.

link

To sum it up, you won't have a definitive answer till the wreck is found, if ever. But factoring a dysfunctional (to say the least) skipper, a cargo heavier and denser than what the ship had been designed for, a storm and leaky hatches give an ample enough case for a shipwreck. The fact that 2 sister ships went down in very similar circumstances hints at some kind of design structural defect.

BTW, the last ship in class became the USN's first aircraft carrier, USS Langley, that was sunk off Java by the IJN.

Personal logo Wolfshanza Supporting Member of TMP08 Mar 2025 11:19 p.m. PST

Wasn't it loaded badly with something very heavy ? Think the hitler channel had something on it ? Just went blub in heavy seas ?

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