The world's first combat submarine to sink a warship sank itself three times — twice during training, killing 21 men in total, including its own inventor.
The H. L. Hunley was a Confederate hand-cranked submarine built in Mobile, Alabama in 1863, measuring just 39 feet long and barely wide enough for a crew of eight. It was named after its inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley, who funded its construction himself.
The submarine sank twice before it ever saw combat. The first time, in August 1863, five crewmen drowned. The second time, in October 1863, the vessel went down again — this time killing eight men, including Horace Hunley himself. The Confederate Navy raised it both times and kept going.
On the night of February 17, 1864, the Hunley made history. It approached the Union warship USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor and drove a torpedo mounted on a long spar into its hull. The Housatonic sank in just five minutes — the first warship in history to be sunk by a submarine in combat.
The Hunley signaled shore with a blue light to indicate mission success. It never came back. The vessel disappeared that same night, along with its eight crew members. For over 130 years, no one knew exactly what happened.
In April 1995, the wreck was discovered off the coast of South Carolina, buried in sediment just a few miles from where it had attacked the Housatonic. It was raised on August 8, 2000, in a major archaeological operation watched around the world.
When scientists examined the recovered remains, they found the eight crew members still at their posts, showing no signs of panic or attempted escape. The cause of the sinking remains debated — theories include a faulty torpedo blast, a leak, or oxygen depletion.
The crew was given full military honors and buried in Charleston's Magnolia Cemetery in 2004, 140 years after they died. The Hunley itself is preserved at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, still undergoing painstaking restoration to this day.