World's deepest WW2 shipwreck discovered in the Philippines
The ship, known as Sammy B, had gone down fighting during World War II.
A US exploration team has managed to successfully find a US Navy destroyer that had sunk during World War II. The shipwreck has been found nearly 7,000 metres below sea level off the coast of the Philippines.
The USS Destroyer Escort Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413), also referred to as the Sammy B, was found on June 22 following eights days of continuous efforts.
The mission was carried out by Texas-based undersea technology company, Caladan Oceanic, whose founder Victor Vescovo is an explorer himself. He has completed similar expeditions to the world's deepest points in the past.
The ship went down during a battle in 1944, when the US forces fought to liberate the Philippines, a US colony then. The intense battle near the central island of Samar eventually led the Japanese Imperial Navy to withdraw its forces.
Part of the dive on the Sammy B. It appears her bow hit the seafloor with some force, causing some buckling. Her stern also separated about 5 meters on impact, but the whole wreck was together. This small ship took on the finest of the Japanese Navy, fighting them to the end. pic.twitter.com/fvi6uB0xUQ
— Victor Vescovo (@VictorVescovo) June 24, 2022
Some additional photos from the Sammy B. The bow, the fallen mast, the gap between fore and aft where she was hit by a battleship round, and the aft turret . . . where the brave and mortally wounded GM3 Paul H. Carr died trying to place a final round into the broken breech. pic.twitter.com/3VcZoZyPo3
— Victor Vescovo (@VictorVescovo) June 25, 2022
The ship sits 22,621 feet deep in the Philippine Sea, which is equivalent to roughly 51 Empire State buildings. It was found split in half and lodged on a slope at the sea floor. "Resting at 6,895 meters, it is now the deepest shipwreck ever located and surveyed," tweeted Victor Vescovo who found the wreck along with his team.
The ship "fought ferociously even though she was completely outclassed by the Japanese battleships and heavy cruisers she went up against," he told CNN in an interview later. "The heroism of her captain and crew is legendary in the Navy, and it was a great honor to find her final resting place," he added.
Its crew had awaited rescue for almost three days before some of them perished from wounds and shark attacks, according to US Navy records. Of the 224-man crew, 89 people were killed during the battle.
According to a report in BBC, 98% of the world's ocean bottom is less than 6,000m deep, making the discovery of Sammy B an extraordinary feat. The wreckage of the most famous ship, Titanic, lies in just about 4,000 metres of water.
Vescovo's company had managed to find the USS Johnston at a depth of 6,469 metres last year. It was considered the deepest wreck ever identified before Sammy B.
