National Lecture Program

AIA Lecturer: Tane Casserley

Affiliation: NOAA, Monitor National Marine Sanctuary

Tane Casserley joined the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries in the spring of 2001. As the Resource Protection and Permit Coordinator for the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, Tane is responsible for the development of policies and programs to address commercial and recreational uses and impacts in and around the Sanctuary. Tane’s specialties Tane Casserley joined the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries in the spring of 2001. As the Resource Protection and Permit Coordinator for the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, Tane is responsible for the development of policies and programs to address commercial and recreational uses and impacts in and around the Sanctuary. Tane’s specialties include interagency communications, public outreach and exhibit design, as well as 19th-century warships and deep-water archaeology. Tane holds a graduate certificate in maritime archaeology from the University of Hawaii and a master’s degree from the Program in Maritime Studies at East Carolina University. He has led NOAA archaeological expeditions in the Florida Keys, the Great Lakes, California, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Alaska, and the USS Monitor. He’s participated in projects including a sunken Boeing B-29 Superfortress in Lake Mead, a Civil War blockade runner in Bermuda, USS Arizona, and was most recently part of an expedition to RMS Titanic. Tane’s focus now is on the maritime landscape of World War II’s Battle of the Atlantic off the coast of North Carolina. Tane’s projects have used technical diving, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and manned submersibles

Abstracts:


More than any other place in the United States, North Carolina serves as a uniquely accessible underwater museum and memorial to WWII’s Battle of the Atlantic. Since 2008, NOAA’s Monitor National Marine Sanctuary and partners have documented and surveyed this unique collection of WWII Allied and German vessels. NOAA’s goal is to protect these fragile historic resources for future generations, and to preserve the memory of the brave Allied service men and U.S. merchant mariners who fought to rid the world of tyranny. This presentation will discuss the danger posed by German U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic along the Mid-Atlantic coast, their effect on Allied shipping, and the naval adaptations and convoy system that finally ended the U-boat threat.

When World War I began in 1914, neither the United States Navy nor American coastal shipping vessels were directly affected. By the end of the war in 1918, three German U-boats, U-151, U-140, and U-117, had sunk a total of 10 vessels off North Carolina alone. When the U-151 arrived off the U.S. East Coast in May 1918, it was the first foreign enemy naval vessel to invade U.S. waters since the War of 1812. World War I had come home to the United States. This is the story of the brave Americans that went up against Germany’s newest weapon, the U-boat, and NOAA’s work to honor and document these national significant shipwrecks off North Carolina’s coast.

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