The 20 Most Amazing Shipwrecks On The Planet

In a strange way the Titanic sets the standard for shipwrecks through the ages; some 1,500 crew and passengers lost their lives when she infamously sank. It’s not the worst casualty toll from a sinking — other maritime disasters have seen more deaths — but the Titanic’s loss was particularly shocking because her owners, the White Star Line, had rashly boasted that the ship was “unsinkable.”

As the ship sailed through the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, warnings of icebergs in her vicinity came through to the radio operator and were relayed to the bridge. Although the commander Captain Edward J. Smith made a course alteration, he maintained the ship’s high speed.

Motor Vessel Panagiotis, a 157-foot-long cargo ship, was launched in 1937 from the Scott & Sons shipyard on the River Clyde in Scotland. Her original name was Saint Bedan and she played a part in the famous WWII evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940. Her name changed to Meropi after she came into Greek ownership in 1964.

The exact circumstances of how Panagiotis beached on the white sands of Agios Giorgos are murky to say the least. By some accounts the ship was actually in the business of smuggling contraband cigarettes to Turkey when disaster hit her. On that 1980 voyage it’s said she was chased by a Greek Navy vessel, forcing her towards the coast of Zakynthos. A storm then drove her onto Agios Giorgos and her owners subsequently abandoned the ship.

William Denny & Brothers of Dumbarton on Scotland’s River Clyde built Steam Ship Maheno in 1905 and she was launched in the same year. In her early years the 400-foot ocean-going passenger liner plied routes between Australia and New Zealand until 1915.

When the war ended in 1918 she was refitted and reverted to the SS Maheno, sailing as a passenger liner across the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia. By 1935 the ship had been superseded by more modern vessels: she was taken out of service and was sold to a wrecker’s yard in Japan.

Livingstone and Cooper’s Shipyard on the River Humber in Hull, England, built the Saint Didier cargo ship in 1920 for a French shipping company based in the port of Le Havre. In 1940 after France had been invaded by Germany, the German puppet regime of Vichy France pressed the vessel into military use.

The British saw through the German ruse of camouflaging the Saint Didier as a hospital ship, and a naval air squadron of Swordfish planes attacked the vessel. She survived this assault and made for the neutral Turkish port of Antalya.

Constructed by the Newport News Shipbuilding Drydock Company in Virginia and launched in 1931 this 654-foot ocean-going liner was the last word in luxury in its day. With a passenger capacity of 988 and a crew of 385 SS President Coolidge sailed from San Francisco for Dollar Steamship Lines to a variety of Pacific destinations including Manila, Honolulu, and Yokohama.

Even before the Pearl Harbor attack, President Coolidge was transporting soldiers to U.S. bases in the Pacific, and she continued in this role after war broke out. In 1942 she embarked on a voyage to Espiritu Santo, one of the islands of the southwestern Pacific nation of Vanuatu.

It was in the summer of 1914 that the British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by Sir Ernest Shackleton set sail from London, England, aboard the Endurance. She’d been launched in Norway under the name Polaris in 1912 and was specifically designed to sail in heavily iced waters.

Endurance remained icebound for ten long months, gradually drifting with the floes, until eventually the brute force of the shifting ice crushed her. Shackleton gave the order for the 28-man crew to abandon ship in October, and four weeks late Endurance sunk beneath the ice. Eventually, after months of horrendous hardship, all of the men who’d embarked on the expedition were rescued in August 1916.

The New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn built the USS Arizona and she went into service with the U.S. Navy in 1916. In the first part of her career the 31,400-ton Pennsylvania-class battleship made cruises to a variety of destinations including France, Turkey, and Peru. In 1929 she had a major refit, bringing her up to modern standards.

The Japanese made their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Several bombs hit the Arizona during the airborne assault, and her magazine exploded with devastating force. The front section of the ship was destroyed and she sank with the loss of 1,771 of her crew.

When she was launched from the Newport News shipyard in Virginia in 1939 the SS America was a byword for modern comfort and technology. Some 30,000 spectators watched as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt broke the traditional bottle of Champagne over the ship’s bow before the vessel slid down the slipway.

In 1964 and for the next 20 years the ship passed through various hands under several names until she was partially scrapped in the late 1980s. Yet more owners and names came in the following years until in 1993 the ship was bought with plans to turn her into a hotel in Thailand. Now sporting her final name, American Star, she was to be towed from Greece to her new mooring.

Built in Seattle, Washington, and commissioned by the U.S. Navy in October 1943 the destroyer USS Johnston was quickly in action in the Pacific theater of WWII. The Naval History and Heritage Command website records the words of her captain, Lieutenant Commander Earnest E. Evans, before she put to sea.

It was at the Battle of Samar in October 1944 that USS Johnston met her fate. A relatively small American fleet of destroyers, including Johnston, faced a much stronger Japanese naval force off the island of Samar in the Philippine Sea. After two hours of fierce fighting, Johnston was so badly damaged that she sank.

The Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation of Pascagoula, Mississippi, constructed the Spiegel Grove and the U.S. Navy commissioned her for service in 1956. She was an amphibious warfare vessel; as well as a helipad, the ship also featured a docking facility. Although her early missions were in the Mediterranean she ultimately spent more time engaged in training exercises along the Eastern Seaboard and in the Caribbean Sea.

After nine years of inactivity Florida State took control of the Spiegel Grove in 1998. Why would it want to do that? Well, Florida had ambitious plans to transform the redundant vessel into a diving reef off Key Largo. In 2001 the ship sailed to Florida and was prepared there for scuttling.

This shipwreck is something of a mystery. We don’t actually know the name of this vessel, which lies in shallow water just off the northern Greek coast near a town called Epanomi, hence the name by which the wreck is known.

The nameless vessel sank in the winter of 1970; it was said to have been carrying a cargo of topsoil which was to be used to create a new stretch of agricultural land. Yet the site for this was one of great natural diversity, so the project had not been popular with many of the locals.

Her Majesty’s Victorian Ship Cerberus was originally in service at a time when Australia, including the state of Victoria, was still a part of the British Empire. This iron-hulled, steam-powered warship was launched in 1868 and in her day was at the cutting edge of naval architecture.

Cerberus was now sold for scrap and stripped of her fixtures and fittings. But that still left the hull. Officials at the local town hall at Sandringham, a suburb of the Australian city of Melbourne, decided they had a use for the remains of the once-proud battleship.

Built in France and launched there in 1966 the MV Salem Express was originally called the Fred Scamaroni in honor of a prominent WWII French Resistance fighter. The vessel was a passenger ferry with space in its hold to carry vehicles; in its early days it sailed between France and Corsica and other Mediterranean destinations, as well as across the Channel to England. 

In December 1991 Salem Express sailed from Jeddah with Muslim passengers who had visited the holy city of Mecca on pilgrimage. Her destination was her home port. As the vessel headed towards Safaga, a violent storm blew up and the captain decided to take evasive action, hugging the coast.

Armstrong, Whitworth & Company built SS Yongala at its Low Walker Yard on the River Tyne in the north-eastern English city of Newcastle. The 350-foot passenger and cargo ship was launched in 1903. A contemporary report in the Shields Daily News admired the ship’s décor.

In 1911 Yongala set out from the Port of Mackay on Australia’s north-east coast with 142 souls aboard. It was her 99th voyage in Australian waters, and she was heading for Townsville some 240 miles up the coast. Unknown to the captain and crew, there was a cyclone brewing ahead.

The Dimitrios was built in Norway and launched there in 1950 under the name Klintholm. The 220-foot cargo ship was later bought by a Greek company and that was when she changed her name. In 1980 the ship docked at the port of Gythio in the southern Greek region of the Peloponnese.

The owners of Dimitrios failed to respond to the port authorities and so the ship was seized and anchored in waters out of the harbor. It’s said that the ship may have been involved in smuggling cigarettes, which perhaps explains why the owners failed to respond.

Built by the Charles Reynaud shipyard in Sète, a city on the French Mediterranean coast, the Prophète was launched in 1852. The twin-decked, 140-foot vessel carried both passengers and cargo and she was an early example of a ship powered both by wind and steam.

The Prophète was overwhelmed by the stormy weather and sank, but all of the 23 passengers and crew aboard were able to escape to land. The whereabouts of the wreck remained unknown until the 1960s, when the ship’s remains were discovered at a depth of about 110 feet.

The J&G Thomson shipyard of Govan on Scotland’s River Clyde built the steamer SS City of Adelaide; she was launched in 1863. She was operated by the Australasian Steam Navigation Company as a passenger liner sailing between Australian cities and to destinations such as San Francisco and Honolulu.

But as the burnt-out hulk was being towed to her new mooring at Magnetic Island off the coast of northern Australia she ran aground in the island’s Cockle Bay. The wreck became a popular destination for sightseers until Royal Australian Air Force bombers used her for target practice during WWII.

Commissioned into service in 1927 USS Saratoga was the U.S. Navy’s first fast aircraft-carrier. For the early years of her life, the ship took part in exercises in the Mediterranean, the Pacific and the Atlantic. After WWII broke out, Saratoga joined the Pacific Fleet in operations against the Japanese.

At the war’s end Saratoga took on a new assignment in what was known as Operation Magic Carpet. That involved ferrying some 29,000 troops back home from the Pacific battlefields. Saratoga’s final mission came in 1946.

Before she became the Guvernøren, this vessel had a variety of identities. She was built in the Northern Ireland city of Belfast at the Harland and Wolff shipyard, where the Titanic had also been constructed. Originally named Runic, she was launched in 1889 and started life as a passenger and livestock carrier with space for 1,000 head of cattle and 48 humans.

Sailing from Halifax, Canada, in 1917 to take on relief supplies in New York, the Imo — as she still was then — collided with the Mont Blanc, which had been loaded with high explosives. The resulting blast destroyed the Mont Blanc with the loss of nearly 2,000 lives, and it badly damaged the Imo. The ship was repaired and not long after became SS Guvernøren and resumed her role as a whaler.

Built by the Kuryshima Dock Company, based in Imabari on the Japanese island of Shikoku, the Giannis D started life as the Shoyo Maru. Launched in 1969 the 325-foot diesel-powered freighter was sold in 1975 and renamed Markus.

Giannis D sailed south across the Mediterranean and then through the Suez Canal to her first destination, Hodeidah in Yemen, where she unloaded part of her cargo. She then set sail for Jeddah in Saudi Arabia with the remainder of the timber.