Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay and Other Tales of the Lost Chesapeake

by Donald G. Shomette

On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson issued a national call to arms against Imperial Germany. What followed in the United States was a frenzied effort to build hundreds of merchant ships to replace those being destroyed in Germany’s campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare. The newly created U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation embarked on a course that, in the span of a few pivotal years in American history, came to exhibit mankind’s genius, ignorance, avarice, drive—and folly—for the largest portion of that fleet came to rest on the muddy floor of Mallows Bay. In Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay and Other Tales of the Lost Chesapeake, Donald G. Shomette recounts three fascinating tales of the wonders that lie beneath the bay. An accomplished underwater archaeologist, Shomette describes the cutting-edge technology used in the excavation of the steamship New Jersey, the underwater hunt for the earliest English colony in Maryland, and the story of the great fleet that now rests in eternal slumber beneath the waters of Mallows Bay.

400 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1996

About the author

Donald G. Shomette is a marine archaeologist and cultural resource manager.

Reviews

[Vince]

Shomette has an easy to read writing style and his books feel more like conversations with the author than a boring history lecture caught in the minutiae. Three action packed adventures await the reader in this book and each one is just as interesting as the others. The lesson that historic preservation and archeology is important to our understand ing of the past is made throughout the book but not in a way that feels like you are being beaten over the head.

[Ed Gardner]

Very good read on the history of the Bay.