The Ship Pandora and a Giveaway

Aftermath of the Bounty

The HMS Pandora was a British naval frigate of the late eighteenth century. She was in use during England’s threatened invasion by France and Spain in 1779, and in American Revolution. The Pandora captured or helped capture several American privateers. But she is best known for her final mission, in 1790—to capture and return the mutineers of HMS Bounty.

The Pandora set sail Nov. 7, 1790, with Edward Edwards as captain. At the start of the voyage, 134 men made up the crew. Most were English, Scottish, Irish, or Welsh, but there were also quite a few Germans and Scandinavians. Their mission was to recover the Bounty, capture the mutineers, and return them to England for trial.

The refitted ship had twenty six-pound guns and four eighteen-pound carronades. Lots of firepower. They sailed by way of Cape Horn, arriving in Tahiti March 23, 1791.

Captain Bligh of the Bounty

In Tahiti, they found fourteen of the Bounty’s former crew.  Two others of the Bounty men had been killed there since the mutiny.  Four of the survivors had remained loyal to Captain Bligh, but had not been set adrift with him. All of the fourteen men in Tahiti at that time either turned themselves in to Edwards or were captured by his men.

The mutineers had split up. Eight of them had left with Fletcher Christian, who led the uprising, to set up a new home on the then uncharted island of Pitcairn. They took a number of Polynesian men and women with them and burned the Bounty to avoid detection.

Bligh and loyal men set adrift

Though the Pandora searched for months, stopping in at several islands, these men were never recaptured. The colony at Pitcairn was not discovered until 1808, after all but one of the men had died. Descendants of Christian and the other mutineers still live on Pitcairn.

The plan was for the Pandora to return the mutineers they took into custody to England to face trial. The prisoners were locked in a makeshift cell on the quarterdeck, which they referred to as “Pandora’s Box.”

For three months, the ship sailed about, stopping at various islands in fruitless search of the rest of the escaped mutineers. During this period, fourteen of the Pandora’s crew went AWOL with two of the ship’s small boats, perhaps succumbing to the same allure of the islands as the Bounty’s crew had before them.

Site of the Pandora wreck courtesy Queensland Museum

At last the Pandora headed home via the Torres Strait. She wrecked on the coral of the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of North Queensland, Australia, claiming the lives of 35 men. These were thirty-one of the Pandora’s crew and four of the prisoners. A crewman had unbolted the cell, allowing ten of the prisoners to escape before the ship sank.

 After two nights on a small sand cay, the remaining eighty-nine men of the ship’s company and ten prisoners set out in four open boats, hoping to make it to Timor, where Captain Bligh had sailed with the other eighteen displaced Bounty officers and crewmen a couple of years earlier. Bligh’s accomplishment of navigating 5,800 kilometers (3,100 miles) in an open boat is seen as one of the greatest navigational feats in history.

Sinking of the Pandora, painting by Peter Heywood, one of the mutineers who survived.

The Pandora’s captain and crew arrived in Timor Sept. 16 and went on to Batavia (modern day Jakarta). Sixteen more men had died on the way after surviving the wreck. One man deserted in Capetown while on the way home.  Eventually, 78 of the original 134 crewmen made it home.

Captain Edwards, after a court martial, was exonerated in the wreck of the Pandora. No attempt was made to salvage the ship at that time. The ten surviving prisoners were tried for mutiny. Four were found innocent. Three of the six found guilty were hanged. The other three were either pardoned or acquitted.

A final note: the wreck of the Pandora was rediscovered in 1977. It was declared a protected site under the Australian Historic Shipwrecks Act of 1976. The Queensland Museum gradually excavated part of the wreck. A large collection of artifacts is now on display at the museum.
 




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Susan Page Davis is the author of more than sixty published novels. She’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. Her newest books include The Seafaring Women of the Vera B. and The Cowboy’s Bride Collection, which was recently named to the Publisher’s Weekly Bestselling Religious Fiction List. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .

Salvaging - The Home Front Helps Supply the Military

By Marilyn Turk

While researching everyday life during 1941 and 1942 for my current novel, I've been intrigued by the community involvement that supported the nation's war effort behind the scenes.

Last month, I talked about rationing in World War II, and how civilian supplies were limited to aid the military.

The other side of rationing was salvaging – giving the government personal goods to supply the troops. All over the country, there were public drives to salvage rubber, scrap metal, paper, silk and grease.

Schools and civic organizations like Boy or Girl Scouts spearheaded these efforts to collect household goods and spur public involvement. Some towns held scrap metal parades with trucks and carts loaded with piles of metal. Women and children participated as cans were emptied and crushed, baking pans were donated, and garages cleaned out as they searched for any metal they could find, metal which would be used to make bombs and cartridge casings. Many towns had assigned areas where scrap metal was stacked as citizens proudly made sacrifices to support the war.

Factories that formerly made ladies’ hosiery began making parachutes. Since the Japanese controlled the islands that supplied these factories, recycled stockings were a necessary source of material. All over the country, hosiery drives collected thousands of silk and nylon stockings. At that time, women always wore skirts and hose, so they developed creative solutions to replace the hose, such as applying leg makeup and even drawing lines up the backs of their legs to emulate seams. Ads appeared such as the one in a Colorado newspaper: “Wanted to Rent: 1 pair silk stockings for 1 hour every Sunday mornings to wear to church.”

Another recycled product was animal fat. These fats made glycerin, an essential ingredient in explosives. The government posted guidelines for housewives to collect their cooking oil or grease cooked off from meat so it could be reused. Signs were posted on meat markets or groceries designating them as “Official Fat Collection Stations.” Celebrities on the radio appealed to housewives to turn in their waste fat regularly. Often those who donated were compensated with a penny per pound or given points for rationing.

The publicity campaigns that promoted salvaging appealed to the importance of those at home helping their soldiers on the field. As a result, there was a huge wave of patriotism that swept the country and encouraged civilians to proudly make sacrifices to aid the war effort and share the subsequent victory.

I heard from several of you last month who remembered rationing or saw the coupon books. How many of you remember or heard of saving cans, grease or donating hosiery?

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