On April 23rd, 1945, the patrol boat USS Eagle 56 was towing targets for US Navy bomber exercises off the coast of Maine. At about noon, there was an explosion around amidships which broke the patrol boat in half.  Of the crew of 62, only 13 survived.  The sinking was originally blamed on a boiler explosion. It would take the Navy until 2001 to conclude that Eagle 56 had been sunk by the German submarine U-853.  USS Eagle 56 was the last US warship sunk by a German submarine in World War II.

Exactly where the patrol boat sank remained a mystery, until this week when Garry Kozak, a specialist in undersea searches, announced that his team had found the Eagle 56  in 300 feet of water off Cape Elizabeth on the Maine coast. 

CentralMaine.com reports that the two hull segments, about 350 feet apart, blended with the uneven, craggy ocean floor, making it difficult to locate them with sonar, Kozak said. Underwater video clearly shows the deck gun on the bow; farther away, depth charges are clearly visible on the stern, Kozak said.

The divers’ research is expected to offer definitive proof that the sub was indeed destroyed by a German submarine, which itself was sunk days later off Block Island, Rhode Island, Kozak said. The video shows the ship’s boilers are intact, he said.

The underwater video will be aired in the fall on the Smithsonian Channel‘s “Hunt for Eagle 56.”