USS Cyclops, a huge carrier ship, used to supply fuel to the American fleet during the World War I.
The Cyclops used to displace 12000 tons of water and was 522 foot long.
On 8th of January 1918, the ship started from the snow covered Norfolk navy port towards Rio of Brazil under the command of Lt. Commander Worley. The ship was only few years old. The purpose of this voyage was to unload coal at Rio and load Manganese ores which is used for making steel.
On 28th of January, the ship reached Rio. It would now dock here for two weeks. And as planned, large amount of coal was unloaded and in return, 10,000 tons of Manganese ores were loaded into the ship. So the ship was heavy and almost full.
On the day of its departure, surprisingly, some 73 odd local sailors were also ordered to board the ship. And more surprisingly, the American Consulate General of Rio, Gottschalk also boarded the ship. When asked, he mentioned that he wanted to enlist his name in the U.S army to serve the nation during the war.
USS Cyclops then set sale again on 16th of February with a total of 309 persons on board and huge load of cargo. It was homebound for Baltimore in U.S via Bahi.
Now there was another surprise. After the ship left Bahi, instead of going straight towards Baltimore, the captain took it to Barbados in West Indies on 3rd March. He said that they needed more fuel and supplies. Although the U.S Consul General in Barbados did not feel the necessity of loading more coal and supplies, but the captain insisted and it was finally agreed.
On 4th March, Cyclops set sale again and was scheduled to be reaching Baltimore on 13th March. But, it was never heard of again.
When the ship did not reach Baltimore on the 13th of March, a massive search began along her whole course.
Every naval ship from Cuba to Puerto Rico searched for any possible debris anticipating that it might had fallen pray to German Submarines. However, there was no trace of Cyclops.
Till date, this has remained as the greatest mystery of the ocean, and strangely, the ship was right in the middle of Bermuda Triangle.
So, what happened to USS Cyclops?
There are many theories, but none could prove it with real facts and evidence. Even after some 15,000-page report that the US Navy has produced probing the Cyclops mystery, most of the theories have remained as speculations. Here are some of them:
# The Captain Worley used to be hated by most of his fellow staff and officers. They always accused him to be a pro-German. It was actually found out later that Captain Worley was a German born and had a different name earlier. It is not known what caused him to change his name. Also Gottschalk, the US Consulate General of Rio, who surprisingly boarded the ship along with 73 other local sailors, was also very popular among the German community in Brazil. To top it all, lot more coal and fuel were loaded from Barbados when it was not scheduled for or even required.
So was it a case of Sabotage? Why was there no SOS call made by the captain. Since the US war with Germany already broke out by then, did the captain and Gottschalk connived together and sunk the ship or destroyed it? Or may be taken it all the way to Germany?
# Here is another theory. One of the navy officers, Nervig was onboard the Cyclops till Rio. He wrote a report that he often found the deck of the ship swaying when large waves struck the ship. So the ship was already showing signs of weakening and getting split up. This would have resulted in a major structural failure that sunk the ship.
# Another report says that on its sail from Rio, Cyclops was very heavily loaded with Manganese, fuel and many persons aboard. The load was more than the ship was designed to handle. A heavy mid oceanic storm had hit the ship and it overturned, cargo scattered and it all sank to the bottom of the ocean.
# Was the ship blasted by a German underwater mine or torpedoed by a German Sub? US Navy claims that such possibility does not exist if the ship had been on its right course. However, had the ship been off its track by a large margin, it would have perished.
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