USS 'Grunion' shipwreck found after 80 years - video

After years of searching, a research team specialising in finding World War II era wrecks has found the bow of the USS “Grunion” ship. The wreck was located at a depth of 820 metres, on the seabed near the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. The ship sank during its first mission, on which it set sail almost 80 years ago during World War II. The ship’s crew of 70 sailors was also lost along with the ship.

After tracking the bow section of the ship, the researchers used an unmanned underwater vehicle (AUV) to scan the wreck in detail and use the photogrammetric data to create a highly detailed 3D image of the sunken vessel.

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“Technology has advanced so much that what we are doing is really the future of documenting historical discoveries made on the seabed. Making these detailed 3D images is useful to the scientific world because archaeologists and historians can now spend months doing detailed research in the comfort of their studios,” – said Tim Taylor, a researcher with the Lost 52 Project, a group searching for 52 submarines lost during World War II

The first patrol of USS “Grunion” was unfortunately also the last one. In June 1942 the ship was sent to Aleutian Islands. At Kiska, Alaska, the ship sank two Japanese patrol boats. Then, on 30 July, called back to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, the US naval base of operations in the region. However, she never arrived there, and all hearing of her was lost.

The search for the missing ship was initiated by the three sons of a sailor who was part of the crew of the USS “Grunion”. In turn, in 2018, a team of researchers carrying out the Lost 52 project, which aims to find 52 missing US ships, got involved in the search for the submarine.

Source: livescience.com