A WWII Navy Submarine, Lost for 75 Years, Has Been Discovered Off the Coast of Japan

The U.S. Navy lost 52 submarines during World War II, many of which are still missing today. But as The New York Times reports, the wreck of the U.S.S. Grayback—a submarine that disappeared along with its 80-person crew in 1944—has been found off the coast of Okinawa, Japan.

On January 28, 1944, the Grayback departed from Pearl Harbor for its 10th combat patrol. It missed its scheduled return date that spring, and after weeks of failing to locate the vessel, the Navy declared it was likely lost.

Immediately following World War II, the U.S. military studied Japanese war records in search of clues that might lead them to their missing ships. One recording clearly states the Grayback was brought down by a bomb dropped by an Japanese aircraft, and it even gives the longitude and latitude of the attack. But due to a poor translation of the audio, the Navy went looking for the sub 100 miles away from its actual resting place.

Seventy-five years later, the submarine's coordinates were finally uncovered in old Imperial Japanese Navy files.

A Japanese researcher named Yutaka Iwasaki noticed this error while looking at the World War II records of the Imperial Japanese Navy base at Sasebo. He was asked to review the files for the Lost 52 Project, an organization dedicated to finding lost World War II submarines. Using the newly uncovered information and an autonomous underwater vehicle, the team was able to locate the vessel at the bottom of the East China Sea near Okinawa.

Lost 52 doesn't hunt for submarine wrecks with plans to recover them. Rather, the goal of the project is "documenting and preserving the story of the Lost 52 WWII Submarines, leaving a foundation of knowledge for future generations." In the case of the Grayback, the site where it settled on the seafloor will be protected from any human interference.