Remembrance of things past
Posted on | December 24, 2009 | No Comments
My habit of studying oil spill problems has reminded me of something different: a note to our British contributors. I’ve been meaning to send it, but something always comes up these days, and here at last is my end-of-year comment.
On January 15, 1942, before even I was born, the British tanker COIMBRA was lost to enemy action off Moriches Inlet, Long Island, New York, with heavy loss of life. Since that time, the wreck has been intermittently “burping” oil. It is one of more than 100 wrecks off the Atlantic coasts of the United States and Canada that are now the subject of possible abatement efforts, even though they have been under water for, in some cases, more than 65 years.
Some of you will say that we need no reminding. But I think we do.
The COIMBRA wreck, still a source of trouble to Long Island beach-dwellers, holiday makers and the like, is of course a story of human loss and sacrifice.
Some of the remaining veterans of the North Russia run, and the Battle of the Atlantic generally, are still remarkably spry and active. I know one, Captain Hugh Stephens, who is teaching a course at the New York State Maritime Academy; but, then, he admits to only one trip to Murmansk and back. Others who survived, and still survive, are less frequently seen and heard from these days. Those British seafarers who did not survive the war totalled 29,994 lost to enemy action. The American statistics are more vague, and I would welcome comments from historically-minded contributors. The German losses, in U-boats alone, amount to about 32,000 dead.
The end of 2009 is, at least, my time to remember the larger meaning of the loss of the COIMBRA. The scientific challenge of removing viscous oil and tar from an old wreck – - now an environmental nuisance – - should not blind us to the existence of loss and sacrifice, and the existence of a great collective war grave going back more than 65 years. Our memory muscles should be at least as strong as our environmental impulses.
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