Rediscovery
In 1951, retired Rear Admiral Edward Ellsberg proposed using external pontoons to raise the Monitor, the same method of marine salvage he had used on the sunken submarine S-51. Ellsberg estimated the project would cost $250,000. No action was taken on the proposal. In 1973, the wreck of the ironclad Monitor was located on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean about 16 nautical miles (30 km) southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The wreck site was designated as the first U.S. marine sanctuary. Monitor National Marine Sanctuary is the only one of the thirteen national marine sanctuaries created to protect a cultural resource, rather than a natural resource.
In 1986, Monitor was designated a National Historic Landmark. It is one of only four accessible monitor vessels in the world, the others being the Australian vessel HMVS Cerberus, and the wreck of the Norwegian Thor, which lies at about 25 ft (7.6 m) off Verdens Ende in Vestfold county, Norway, and the British vessel Hellman.
The U.S. Navy interest in raising the entire ship ended in 1978 when Willard F. Searle, Jr. calculated the cost and possible damage expected from the operation: $20 million to stabilize the vessel in place, or as much as $50 million to bring all of it to the surface. However in 1998 the warship's propeller was raised to the surface. On 16 July 2001, divers from the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary and the US Navy brought to the surface the 30-metric-ton (30-long-ton) steam engine. Due to the depth of the wreck, the divers utilized surface supplied diving techniques while breathing heliox. In August 2002, after 41 days of work, the revolutionary revolving gun turret was recovered by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and a team of U.S. Navy divers. Before removing the turret, divers discovered the remains of two trapped crewmen. The remains of these sailors, who died while on duty, are at the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, awaiting positive identification.
The site is now under the supervision of NOAA. Many artifacts from Monitor, including her turret, cannon, propeller, anchor, engine and some personal effects of the crew, have been conserved and are on display at the Mariners' Museum of Newport News, Virginia. Artifact recovery from the site has become paramount, as the wreck has become unstable and will decay over the next several decades; this fate also awaits many other well known wrecks of iron and steel ships, such as Titanic and Lusitania.
In 1996 a Greenpoint Monitor Museum was chartered, hoping to display the ship near her launch site.
Northrop Grumman in Newport News constructed a full-scale non-seaworthy static land-bound replica of USS Monitor. The replica was laid down in February 2005 and completed just two months later.
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