Invention The Cunningham Torpedo

Summary

In the 1890s Patrick Cunningham designed a rocket-propelled torpedo. Although it was built and tested bu the United States Navy, it was found to be unsuitable for naval service and very few details remain of its specifications. In its most infamous outing, Cunningham himself fired the torpedo down the main street of New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1896.

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Published resources

Books

  • Gray, Edwyn, Nineteenth Century Torpedoes and Their Inventors, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2004. Details

Journal Articles

  • 'The Flying Devil', Yankee, 21245, pp. 36-37 and 88-90. Details
  • Maxfield, F. A., 'Torpedo-Propulsion Systems', Journal of the American Rocket Society, 18233, pp. 166-184. Details

Newspaper Articles

  • 'Inventor of Cunningham Torpedo Dead', New Bedford Morning Mercury, 23 May 1923. Details
  • 'Newport's Torpedo Station. To again test submarine explosion - the Cunningham Rocket', The New York Times, 24 December 1893. Details
  • 'The Cunningham Torpedo', The New York Times, 9 January 1893, p. 9. Details
  • 'The New Rocket Torpedo: Trial of a missile constructed on a new principle', The New York Times, 24 July 1893. Details
  • 'The Torpedo Went Wrong The Cunningham projectile bored into the mud - the fault supposed to be in the firing tube', The New York Times, 8 December 1894. Details
  • 'Mr Cunningham Explains It Why his torpedo sank to the bottom of Coddington's Cove during the test given last Friday', The New York Times, 11 December 1894. Details
  • 'Cunningham Torpedo Trial Improvements that are expected to obviate certain defects in the original', The New York Times, 23 October 1894. Details
  • 'Another Cunningham Torpedo Trial', The New York Times, 25 September 1895. Details
  • 'Torpedo Exploded Patrick Cunningham Celebrates the Day', New Bedford Morning Mercury, 2 November 1896, p. 1. Details

Sources used to compile this entry: Gray, Edwyn, Nineteenth Century Torpedoes and Their Inventors, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2004.

Prepared by: Rebecca Rigby