(ORDO NEWS) — The destroyer, “which fought like a battleship” and sank during the battle between the Americans and the Japanese in the fall of 1944, rests at a depth of 6895 meters in the Pacific Ocean.
At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, near the Philippines, found the wreckage of the USS Samuel B. Roberts , a John C. Butler-class escort destroyer of the US Navy, which sank 78 years ago.
This was announced on his Twitter page by an entrepreneur, founder of Caladan Oceanic and explorer Victor Veskovo , who, together with members of the British EYOS expeditions, studied what was left of the ship. They made six dives in eight days.
USS Samuel B. Roberts was commissioned on April 28, 1944, and a few months later, on October 25, she was sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf between the United States and Japan: the destroyer was hit by three shells from the imperial battlecruiser Kongo, breaking hole 12 on three meters to port. Half an hour later, the ship went to the bottom, 90 people died, 120 were saved.
The battle in Leyte Gulf, which ended in victory for the Americans, is called the largest naval battle of the Second World War.
In addition to the USS Samuel B. Roberts, the States lost several other ships in those days. Initially, they had at least 34 aircraft carriers and about 1,500 aircraft, the air fleet outnumbered the Japanese by five times.
The destroyer, “which fought like a battleship,” is split in two and lies at a depth of 6,895 meters, making it the deepest wreck to date. For comparison: the height of the stratovolcano Kilimanjaro in northeast Tanzania is 5895 meters above sea level, and Mount Everest is 8848 meters.
“It looks like the bow hit the seafloor with some force, causing buckling. The stern parted about five meters on impact, but the wreckage is all together. This small ship fought with the best fighters of the Japanese fleet to the end, ”Veskovo noted.
Last year, he also found and examined the USS Johnston ( DD-557 ), a Fletcher-class destroyer, which rested at a depth of 6456 meters on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The ship also sank during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, as a result of a battle with a large flotilla of the Imperial Japanese Navy, taking with it 186 of the 327 crew members.
All data obtained after diving into the wreckage of Samuel B. Roberts, including sonar maps, videos and photographs, will be transferred to the US Navy. And specialists from Caladan Oceanic and EYOS are heading to the island of Guam and will continue their research in the Western Pacific.
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