Most of the 52 US submarines lost in WWII are yet to be found

LAHORE: As search continues for the missing tourist submarine that had embarked upon an under-water journey to explore the wreckage of a luxurious British passenger liner “Titanic,” which had sunk in the North Atlantic Ocean in April 1912, a Canadian military surveillance aircraft had reportedly detected some noises on Wednesday, rekindling hopes of the devastated families that they would soon be reunited with their dear ones onboard the vessel.

Archival research shows that during the first 60 years of World War II, no one was able to find any of the 52 American vessels that had presumably sunk during the war.

According to the Honolulu-based “USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park” of the American Navy, the exact locations of all the sunk vessels were also lost to history.

However, a World War II American submarine “USS Wahoo” was found in July 2006 by a Russian diving team. The team had photographed the lost submarine’s wreckage in 213 feet of water. It was found between two Japanese and Russian islands.

In 2019, according to the “New York Times,” wreckage of another American submarine, “Grayback,” was found after 75 years near Okinawa, Japan’s fifth largest island.

The prestigious American newspaper had stated: “Private explorers found the “Grayback” beneath 1,400 feet of water after realizing that a mistranslated Japanese war record had pointed searchers in the wrong direction.

After the war, the United States Navy tried to piece together a comprehensive history of the 52 submarines it had lost.

The history, issued in 1949, gave approximate locations of where each submarine had disappeared.”

According to the “Gulf News,” UK-based Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, 48 and his son Suleman Dawood, 19, are among the five passengers onboard the ‘Titanic’ submarine.

The UAE-based newspaper states: “Shahzada and Suleman were on board the tiny underwater craft taking paying tourists to view the wreck 12,500ft underwater when they stopped communicating in the Atlantic Ocean, 640-km off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

The 21-foot tourist craft, operated by OceanGate Expeditions, began its descent on Sunday but lost contact with the surface less than two hours later, according to authorities.”