A US exploration team has managed to locate the sunken wreckage of a US Navy destroyer hit by the Japanese military during World War II.
The wreck is considered the deepest ever found.
The USS Samuel B Roberts sank during the Battle of Samar in the Philippine Sea in October 1944. It is located 6,895 meters below the surface.
Texas financier and adventurer Victor Vescovo used his own submersible on the high seas to discover the damaged but mostly intact “Sammy B”.
The ship is famous for its heroic last stand against the Japanese.
A ‘heroic’ defender
Outnumbered and outgunned, the USS Samuel B Roberts was able to hold off and thwart several enemy ships before sinking.
Of the crew of 224 men, 89 lost their lives. The remaining 120 survived clinging to lifeboats for more than 50 hours.
Vescovo, who is also a US Navy reservist, said it was an extraordinary honor to have located the ship and, in doing so, have had the opportunity to retell her story of heroism.
“We like to say that ‘steel doesn’t lie’ and that the remains of these ships are the last witnesses of these battles,” he told BBC News.
“Sammy B took on Japanese heavy cruisers at point-blank range and fired so fast it ran out of ammunition — it even fired smoke grenades and flares just to try to set the Japanese ships on fire and kept firing. An act of extraordinary heroism. Those men, side by side, they fought to the death.”
‘War scars’
In the images captured by the submarine, called the Limiting Factor, it is possible to see the structure of the hull, weapons and tubes for torpedoes.
The Sammy B has Japanese bullet holes and there is evidence of a strong impact on her stern.
Due to its corrugated appearance, it appears that it was the ship’s bow that directly impacted the sea floor.
To get an idea of ​​the depth of the place where the boat is, 98% of the ocean beds are less than 6 thousand meters deep.
Only a few places in the great tectonic trenches reach depths greater than this plateau.
The Battle of Samar, part of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, was a fierce event in contemporary history. The conflict eventually resulted in the withdrawal of Japanese Imperial forces.
Several ships ended up lost in the depths of the ocean.
Last year, Vescovo managed to find the destroyer USS Johnston at a depth of 6,460 meters.
other wreckage
It is possible that there are others at greater depths than the Sammy B or the Johnston.
“There are two other American ships missing: the USS Gambier Bay [porta-aviões] and the USS Hotel [destróier]”says Kelvin Murray of EYOS, the company that organized and led the Vescovo expedition.
“We have historical records indicating places where they could have sunk. We looked for Gambier Bay, but this detective work and all this sort of offshore operation has never been done before. research behind it looking to reduce the size of this ‘haystack’. But there is a certain amount of luck involved.”
Vescovo was the first person to visit the deepest points of the planet’s five oceans.
He’s also scaled the highest peaks on all seven continents and recently took to space on the New Shepard, the rocket and capsule system developed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
This text was originally published in https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-61945224
