A U.S. Navy submarine that was missing for 75 years has been located off the coast of Japan. A Nakajima b5N carrier bomber sank the USS Grayback on February 26, 1944, with 80 sailors on board.
The Grayback was discovered 1,400 feet below the water about 50 miles south of Okinawa by the Lost 52 Project, a group of explorers who are searching for the 52 submarines that went missing during World War II.
The Grayback was reported missing three weeks after it failed to return to Pearl Harbor.
The Lost 52 Project got a break in locating the submarine after amateur researcher Yutaka Iwasaki discovered that Japanese military documents had been mistranslated. When Iwasaki retranslated the documents, he learned the correct coordinates for the attack on the Grayback.
Tim Taylor, who founded the Lost 52 Project, discovered the Grayback in June but did not release the details of his findings until Sunday (November 10). The hull of the submarine remained mostly intact, though there was evidence that it was bombed. Taylor said they waited to go public with their find because they wanted to contact the family members of the lost sailors with news of their discovery first.
The Lost Project has now located five submarines that went missing during World War II. With the help of the newly translated military documents and advanced mapping technology, Taylor hopes to find the other subs and bring closure to the families of the sailors who died.