(Photo credit, top image: US Naval Institute Photo Archive)
The US Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) confirmed the identity of a wreck site off the coast of Hokkaido, Japan, as USS Albacore (SS 218). The NHHC made the announcement on Thursday, after several months of examining Japanese surveys conducted on the site in 2022.
The newly-found wreck lies off the coast near Villanova di Ostuni, some 19 miles from Monopoli.
First believed to be found by Italian divers in 1999, it was later determined in 2020 that the wreck thought to be Regent was in fact the Italian submarine Giovanni Bausan which had been sunk by the RAF in 1944.
Now, it seems another dive team has had better luck in identifying Regent. She rests off the coast near Villanova di Ostuni, some 19 miles from Monopoli, upside down in 70m of water. The apparent victim of a mine.
According to an exclusive report by National Geographic (link opens in new tab), a team of shipwreck hunters has discovered an extraordinary sunken vessel off the East Coast of the United States: the wreck of a World War I German U-boa
Today, the wreck of the Italian Regia Marina submarine Scirè lies at a depth of 33m in Haifa Bay and four IANTD expeditions were necessary to survey the wreck, collect measurements for a 3D reconstruction and accomplish historical, cultural and scientific research.
According to Wallin's report, UMEX (Underwater Exploration Team) found and identified Sch-317 yesterday, 2 May 2018.
This Soviet submarine lies at 78 meters / 255 ft between Gogland (Suursaari) and Tuiters (Tytärsaari) in the east part of the Gulf of Finland in Russian waters.
Sch-317 was sunk in 1942 by a German mine after surviving several attacks by allies that included bombing the Swedish coast.
The submarine's final resting place is near her home port.
The 400-ton Russian submarine, commissioned in 1911, was the biggest in the pre-revolutionary Russian navy. During the first world war, she served in the Baltic Fleet making 16 patrols and unsuccessfully attacked the German coastal defence ship SMS Beowulf.
In November 1915 during her 17th patrol, she struck a mine and sank near Hiiumaa with the loss of all 35 seamen and came to rest at a depth of about 30 meters.
At the end of Second World War, the allied forces were in possession of 120 German U-boats. They decided to let them sink in the deep water of the Atlantic Ocean during a special operation for this purpose.
The project was launched by the English Heritage as part of an initiative to create up to a dozen trails by 2018 for historic wreck sites from the 17th to 20th centuries. Trails are already running on three sunken warships including HMS Colossus in 1787, which off sank off the Isles of Scilly.
The Coronation sunk off the coast of Plymouth in 1691 and the Norman’s Bay sank during the Battle of Beachy Head in 1690 in Sussex.
Alex Attwood has banned diving at the site of the discovery near the Foyle Bridge. He said it was important that the wreck was not disturbed until it was positively identified. "The wreck is in quite low water, it is quite accessible," Mr Attwood told the BBC.
BBC Northern Ireland Environment Correspondent Mike McKimm said that was unlikely to be a full-sized submarine.
"A German U-boat, for example, would sit almost 10m high and would have been visible, even at high tide in the Foyle, which has an average depth of just over 5m."
U-533 was a Nazi German U-Boat (Type IXC/40) that operated during World War II between April 15, 1943 and October 16, 1943. It was first launched on September 11, 1942 with a crew of 53, under the command of Helmut Hennig.
It was sunk by a Royal Air Force Blenheim bomber while it was operating in the Gulf of Oman. Of the crew of 53, only one survived by staying afloat without a life jacket for 28 hours until he was rescued by the HMS Hiravati near Khor Fakkan.
