U.S. Navy ship sunk in WWII found
It was too deep to be seen by casual divers
CAPE ELIZABETH, Maine — A private dive team has located the last U.S. Navy warship to be sunk by a German submarine in World War II, just a few miles off the coast of Maine.
The sinking of the USS Eagle PE56 on April 23, 1945, was originally blamed on a boiler explosion. But the Navy determined in 2001 that it had been sunk by a German submarine.
The patrol boat’s precise location remained a mystery — until now.
Garry Kozak, a specialist in undersea searches, announced this week that diver Ryan King, of Brentwood, New Hampshire, confirmed in June 2018 that an object Kozak previously discovered on sonar is the vessel 300 feet down.
King’s team, which later began working with the Smithsonian Channel, extensively explored the ship on the ocean floor, 5 miles off Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
“With the deck guns, there was no mistaking it for what it was,” said Paul Lawton, a Massachusetts attorney whose research helped to convince the Navy how the ship was sunk.
The patrol boat was equipped with depth charges, explosives used to battle enemy submarines. But it was towing a practice target for bombers from a nearby Brunswick Naval Air Station when it sank. Only 13 of the 62 crew members survived; they were plucked from the water by a nearby Navy destroyer.
The underwater video, which will be aired in the fall on the Smithsonian Channel’s “Hunt for Eagle 56,” backs up the story of sailors who said an explosion broke the ship into two pieces, said Kozak, of Derry, New Hampshire.
The two hull segments, about 350 feet apart, blended with the uneven, craggy ocean floor, making it difficult to locate them with sonar, Kozak said. Underwater video clearly shows the deck gun on the bow; farther away, depth charges are clearly visible on the stern, Kozak.
The divers’ research is expected to offer definitive proof that the sub was indeed destroyed by a German submarine, which itself was sunk days later off Block Island, Rhode Island, Kozak said. The video shows the ship’s boilers are intact, he said.