WWII U.S. patrol boat wreckage discovered

HAMPTON ROADS, Va., Sept. 10 (UPI) -- A U.S. Navy patrol boat sunk by a German submarine off Cape Hatteras, N.C., during World War II has been found untouched, a government agency said.

The converted trawler YP-389, which sank June 19, 1942, was found about 18 miles off Hatteras Inlet during a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expedition, said Joe Hoyt, a maritime archaeologist with NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary.

The sanctuary is the site of the wreck of the U.S. Civil War steam-propelled warship USS Monitor, one of the most famous shipwrecks in U.S. history.

As many as five men from the YP-389 may be entombed under 325 feet of water in the relatively intact 102-foot vessel, David Alberg, the sanctuary's superintendent, told The (Norfolk, Va.) Virginian-Pilot.

Footage taken by an advanced diving robot Aug. 7 and confirmed with historical records shows a skeletal vessel with numerous artifacts -- light fixtures, batteries, fire extinguishers and port holes -- scattered around it, the newspaper said.

The sides of the hull, with its rivets corroded, had fallen to the side.

The finding is significant because the wreck is untouched and because it is believed to be a Navy war grave, Alberg said.

The YP-389 lost a 90-minute surface battle with a German U-701 Type VIIC submarine, which itself was sunk two weeks later by U.S. Army aircraft about 10 miles north.

The fight was part of the Battle of the Atlantic, a term coined by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1941. The battle was the war's longest continuous military campaign, lasting six years, involving thousands of ships and stretching hundreds of miles.