CARLATA BRADLEY

A Russian nuclear submarine sank to the bottom of the Barents
Sea on August 12, 2000; all 118 crew members are later found
dead. The exact cause of the disaster remains unknown.

Kursk left port on August 10 to take part in war games with the
Russian military. Russian ships, planes and submarines met
up in the Barents Sea, which is above the Arctic Circle, to
practice military maneuvers.

On the afternoon of May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania
was torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the
south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into
the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people
drowned, including 128 Americans.

A German U-boat sunk a British troop ship, the Laconia, killing
more than 1,400 men on September 12, 1942. The commander
of the German sub, Capt. Werner Hartenstein, realizing that
Italians POWs were among the passengers, strove to aid in
their rescue.

The Laconia, a former Cunard White Star ship put to use to
transport troops, including prisoners of war, was in the South
Atlantic bound for England when it encountered U-156, a
German sub (below). It was under the command of Captain
Rudolph Sharp.

Werner Hartenstein
(27 February 1908 – 8 March 1943)

CARLATA BRADLEY

On August 3, 1958, the U.S. nuclear submarine Nautilus
accomplished the first undersea voyage to the geographic
North Pole. The world’s first nuclear submarine dived at
Point Barrow, Alaska, and traveled nearly 1,000 miles under
the Arctic ice cap to reach the top of the world. It then went 
on to Iceland, pioneering a new and shorter route from the 
Pacific to the Atlantic and Europe.