July 24, 2002--The groundbreaking revolving turret of the historic ironclad gunboat USS Monitor may see the ocean surface from above for the first time in almost 140 years before the end of this week.
Divers on the mission to raise the turret have completed the task of removing the hull of the Monitor, the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot reported. The two parts of the ship came apart as it sank on the night of Dec. 31, 1862. The turret hit the sea bed upside down, the the hull of the vessel landed on top of it.
A huge crane was used to lift a 32-ton piece of the ship's deck and armor plating off the turret, exposing it to clear view for the first time. Previous dives on the Monitor wreck have brought up items from the hull, including last year's project to retrieve the ship's engine.
John Broadwater, a native of Kentucky, is manager of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary and head of the recovery project. Originally an engineer, he found himself on a job that permitted him to scuba-dive on wrecks at Kwajaleinin the Marshall Islands. It led to a book, "Shipwrecks of Kwajalein," and eventually to a doctorate in maritime studies.
He spent 10 years helping excavate a British Revolutionary War-era ship, the Betsy, near Yorktown, served as the state's official underwater archaeologist, then head of the sanctuary.
To Broadwater's great regret, he is not one of the divers currently working in the 240-foot depths with the Monitor. A dive to the wreck which led to the recovery of the ship's propeller several years ago resulted in damage to his eardrum, precluding him from further work at such depths.
"To see that come up, all intact, and set down on the deck of the barge -- I think a lot of us are going to consider that a major day in our lives," he said recently.
"The icing on the cake is we're saving parts of the wreck so millions of people, instead of a handful of divers, will get to see them. It's a real good feeling. A real good feeling."
A team of some 150 US Navy divers is doing the excavation and retrieval work this time, and many say that it is not only a professional high point but an emotional one as well.
Experts in salvage, they have a job that is both strenuous and exquisitely delicate job.
"We think of the turret as a little old lady trapped under a building," one of the divers says. "And we're going to get her out safely."
