Famous Ships III Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sailing Ship

Treasure hunter Mel Fisher finally found the mother lode on the 'Atocha' in 1985 after 16 years of searching. The 'Atocha' was a Spanish Treasure Galleon which struck a reef and sank in the Florida Keys in 1622. The Galleon contained 47 troy tons of treasure, including over 255,000 silver coins and 1,000 silver bars.

Answer: Battlecruiser

'HMS Hood' was a large battlecruiser in the British fleet in World War II. It was lightly armored in order to get more speed, but that tradeoff was to have disastrous consequences. In an engagement with the German battleship 'KMS Bismarck,' the 'Hood' took a direct hit on her powder magazine and exploded, with only three survivors out of the ship's crew of 1,418.

Answer: Sailing Ship

The sailing ship 'Half Moon' ('Halve Maen') was commissioned in 1609 for the Dutch East India Company for Henry Hudson and a crew of twenty to find an all-water route to Asia. Hudson never found that passage, but he did discover Coney Island, the land now known as New York City, and a river which today bears the Captain's name--the Hudson River.

Answer: Destroyer

During the 1982 Falkland Islands war between Great Britain and Argentina, Argentine air attacks using French-manufactured Exocet air-to-surface missiles sank the British destroyer 'HMS Sheffield,' with twenty men killed. The war lasted only 72 days and resulted in a British victory.

The Falkland Islands are a group of islands in the south Atlantic which are administered by Great Britain but they were also claimed by Argentina.

Answer: Heavy Cruiser

The American heavy cruiser 'USS Indianapolis' was sunk by a Japanese torpedo in 1945, just after it had delivered to Tinian Island components for the atomic bomb which was later dropped on Hiroshima. Of 1,196 men on board, approximately 300 went down with the ship.

The remainder, about 900 men, were left floating in shark-infested waters with no lifeboats. By the time the survivors were spotted by accident four days later only 316 men were still alive.

Answer: Ore Freighter

The 729-foot ore freighter 'Edmund Fitzgerald' sank in Lake Superior in 1975. Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot immortalized this sinking in his 1976 song 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.'

Answer: Aircraft Carrier

Just after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on 12-7-41, Lt.-Col James Doolittle led a retaliatory attack on Japan by 18 B-25 Mitchell medium bombers launched from the aircraft carrier 'USS Hornet.' They did not inflict much material damage on Japanese cities, but they severely shook Japanese morale.

Answer: Passenger Liner

After the 'RMS Titanic' struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, the British passenger liner 'RMS Carpathia' raced about 48 miles to pick up the 705 survivors. Both 'Titanic' and 'Carpathia' were designated 'RMS,' which stands for 'Royal Mail Ship.' The 'Carpathia' was torpedoed in 1918 by a German submarine and sank.

Answer: Aircraft Carrier

Two days after the battle of Midway in Word War II, the hastily repaired American aircraft carrier 'USS Yorktown' was finally sunk by a Japanese torpedo. The carrier's wreck was discovered in 1998 by Bob Ballard beneath more than three miles of seawater.

Answer: Tanker

In 1989, the 214,000-ton oil tanker 'Exxon Valdez' struck a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling more than 11 million gallons of crude oil, resulting in great damage to the environment.