Lost at sea?

Started by Bill Barnes on Tuesday, November 1, 2016
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11/1/2016 at 6:13 PM

My wife's great uncle died on the Hood when it was sunk by the Bismarck. I was watching a documentary for the centenary and they underlined the fact that the majority of the crew were killed almost instantly when the ammunition exploded as the shock would have been contained in the iron hull. Perhaps some would have been knocked unconscious and drowned but without finding and autopsying the bodies we not really know if they did drown or not. I'm probably overthinking it but even with something classic like The Titanic quite a few people would have died when sea water got into engines. My great-grandfather was a stoker on the Vicksburg which sunk in 1875 and we don't really know how he died, although one news report highlighted their earlier reports about concerns over the poor provision of life rafts and life preservers so he probably did drown.

The shipwrecked project says: "This list does not include deaths by natural disasters, war, or violent acts." so the wouldn't fit there.
https://www.geni.com/projects/Shipwrecked/28080

Leaving aside the issue "shipwrecked" means someone stranded because of a shipwreck (rather than someone killed when a ship sunk):
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shipwrecked

So am I overthinking it, or do we need a project for unspecific deaths at sea due to the ship sinking by accident, natural disaster or violent act, including war (those swept overboard can be confidently put down under the drowned)?

11/1/2016 at 6:16 PM

Or do we just lose the caveat on shipwrecked and open it up to all those lost at sea?

11/2/2016 at 1:03 AM

I think lose the caveat.

I took out the phrase

"* This list does not include deaths by natural disasters, war, or violent acts. "

And changed the project title to "Died in a shipwreck"

I think we want to see larger scale disasters (the Titantic!) in their own projects, related to this one.

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