Lost 52 Project

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The Lost 52 Project is a private organization founded by Tim Taylor to do research on the 52 U.S. Navy submarines lost on patrol during the Second World War, performing discovery, exploration, and underwater archeology where possible. [1] [2]

Found, so far: [3] [4] [5] [6]

SubmarinesDate lostCircumstances of lossDate found
USS S-3621 January 1942Scuttled after striking Taka Bakang reef near Sulawesi13 May 2001
USS Lagarto 4 May 1945Depth charged by Japanese escort ships while attacking a convoy in the Gulf of Thailand May 2005
USS Grunion 30 July 1942Sank after torpedo and dive plane malfunction near Kiska August 2006
USS Wahoo 11 October 1943Sunk after combined aerial bombing and surface depth charging in the La Pérouse Strait 31 October 2006
USS Perch 3 March 1942Depth charged on 1 March, partially repaired, then scuttled after being fired upon on the surface to prevent falling into enemy hands near Surabaya 23 November 2006
USS Flier 13 August 1944Struck a mine and sunk in the Balabac Strait 1 February 2009
USS R-12 12 June 1943Sank due to flooding from unknown causes in forward battery compartment near Key West 25 May 2011
USS S-26 24 January 1942Sank after collision with Sub chaser PC-460 in the Gulf of Panama September 2014
USS S-28 4 July 1944Sank under unknown circumstances near Oahu 20 September 2017
USS Robalo 26 July 1944Presumed to have struck a Japanese mine near Palawan Island May 2019
USS Stickleback 29 May 1958Sank after collision with USS Silverstein during training near Hawaii August 2019
USS Grayback 27 February 1944Sunk by aerial bomb from Japanese B5N torpedo bomber in the East China Sea 10 November 2019
USS S-35 4 April 1946Used as a target ship and sunk by torpedo fire4 August 2020
USS Harder 24 August 1944Depth charged by Japanese escort ships while attacking them near Dasol Bay May 2024
USS Bonefish 18 June 1945Destroyed by Japanese escort ships during an attack on the cargo ship Konzan Maru in the Sea of Japan 2025

The organization has not limited itself to discovery of submarines. It has also located other Navy ships:

ShipDate LostCircumstances of lossDate found
USS Mannert L. Abele 12 April 1945Struck by kamikaze plane and Japanese flying suicide bomb during the Battle of OkinawaDecember 2022
USS Drexler 28 May 1945Struck by multiple kamikaze planes during radar picket station duty off Okinawa2025
USS William D. Porter (DD-579) 10 June 1945Fatally damaged by a bomb-laden kamikaze plane that came to be underneath the ship's keel and abandonded2025

As of 2026, the organization has announced that it has also located non-US Navy ships:

ShipDate LostCircumstances of lossDate found
Konzan Maru18 June 1945Torpedoed and sunk by the USS Bonefish 2025

References

  1. ↑ Lost 52 Project
  2. ↑ United States Submarine Losses
  3. ↑ US Navy validates final resting place of WWII submarine S-28.
  4. ↑ "7th WWII Submarine Discovered by Explorer Tim Taylor's 'Lost 52 Project'". PR Newswire . Cision. 4 August 2020. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  5. ↑ "Veteran ocean explorer discovers WWII submarine in South China Sea". NBC News. 22 May 2024. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  6. ↑ "Discovery of Four Major WWII Shipwrecks and 243 Sailors in One Month Redefines Underwater Exploration". PR Newswire . Cision. 24 March 2026. Retrieved 25 March 2026.
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