Is It The Grunion?
I first posted about this last year. Three brothers who lost their father in the Second World War have been funding a search for the remains of the submarine their father commanded. USS Grunion was lost sometime after July 30, 1942 when her last report was received. Somewhere in the waters off the Aleutian Island of Kiska, the Grunion disappeared and was presumed sunk. I questioned the find at the time based off a single image that wasn't particularly clear. The family now says they have even more detailed imagery and that they believe they have discovered the badly mangled remains of their father's submarine.
The discovery of the USS Grunion on Wednesday night culminates a five-year search led by the sons of its commander, Mannert Abele, and may finally shine a light on the mysterious last moments of the doomed vessel.
"Obviously, this is a very big thing," the oldest son, Bruce Abele, said Thursday from his home in Newton, Mass. "I told my wife about it when she was still in bed and she practically went up to the ceiling."
A remotely operated vehicle snapped pictures and captured three hours of video footage of the Grunion on a rocky underwater slope north of the volcanic island, according to another brother, John Abele, who was in Kiska Harbor with the search team on Thursday.
The submarine lies 1,000 feet below the surface and had been crushed by water pressure, said Abele. He is director and co-founder of the medical equipment company Boston Scientific Corp. and the youngest of the three brothers.
"The most surprising thing was the damage," he said. "It was much more than we or anyone else imagined. Initially it was very hard to recognize as a ship."
The hull had imploded so severely that the interior, including bunks and a dive wheel, were clearly visible, Abele said. No human remains were found.
The search team hired by the Abeles, Deep Sea Systems International, said no identifying markings or lettering could be seen, however, the location and appearance of the vessel indicate it is the missing sub.
"There's a 95 percent chance that this is the Grunion and a less than five percent chance that it's not," said Christopher J. Nicholson, general manager of the Cataumet, Mass.-based company. "The fact that they actually found this in an expanse of ocean is really pretty spectacular."
For the sake of all of the families who are waiting for news, I hope they have found it. The image galleries they have up over at their blog have some issues and most images are not loading properly, but there certainly appears to be what could only be a submarine prop guard in one picture that loads. That is pretty convincing.
UPDATE: Many thanks to Maggie's Farm for linking this. I thought people jumping over here from that link might also be interested in this post, it's about some new underwater technology.
