A rare piece of America's military history was located this spring, when dolphins from the Navy's Marine Mammal Program located an unusual artifact: a torpedo from the 19th century. Discovered during a training exercise in the ocean near San Diego, the torpedo will eventually make its way to a museum.
The bottlenose dolphins were honing their ability to find underwater mines when the discovery was made. The torpedo did not have a warhead, Navy officials say.
"The Howell torpedo, one of the first self-propelled torpedoes developed and used by the U.S. Navy, was discovered off the San Diego coast," reads an announcement from the Space and Navy Warfare Systems Command's .
The torpedo was developed in an era when naval power defined a nation's might; its design was seen as "a leap forward in military armament," reports. The Times describes the torpedo as "made of brass, 11 feet long, driven by a 132-pound flywheel spun to 10,000 rpm before launch. It had a range of 400 yards and a speed of 25 knots."
The weapons have remained rare. The U.S. Navy only had 50 of them built, according to the .
The Howell was named for its creator, Lieutenant Commander John A. Howell. The Naval Undersea Museum in Washington state has one of the torpedoes on display; the recently found artifact is likely to join it. The museum's website describes the Howell as part of a new crop of "automobile" — or self-propelling — torpedoes of the late 19th century. The torpedoes were built by the in Providence, R.I.
It seems to have taken a while for the Navy to identify the torpedo the dolphins located near San Diego — after all, it was decommissioned generations ago. In the end, a search on Google helped, a Navy official tells San Diego's .
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