U.S. Navy Ship From World War II Battle Found

(Photos credit: NOAA)

Crew of the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster lowers a remotely operated vehicle

(ROV) into the water. The ROV shot video of the wreck using high-resolution

camera equipment.

By Ed Martinez

September 11, 2009

In 1942, the USS Monitor (YP-389) was sunk by a German submarine just 20 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, N.C. Six sailors died and eighteen survived the attack.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its expedition partners, in an area known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” recently discovered the wreck at a depth of 300 feet. This area is the home to many U.S. and British naval vessels, merchant ships, and German U-boats sunk during the World War II Battle of the Atlantic.

“She rests now like a literal skeleton, a reminder of a time long ago when the nation was at war,” said Joseph Hoyt, Monitor National Marine Sanctuary archaeologist and principal investigator for the project. 

The YP-389 symbolizes the character of the Battle of the Atlantic along the East Coast of the United States. At that time, small poorly armed fishing trawlers were called to defend American waters against German intruders. The vessel was converted into a coastal patrol craft and pressed into service shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It was equipped with one 3-inch deck gun to protect the ship from enemy aircraft and surfaced submarines and two .30-caliber machine guns. The day of the attack, the ship’s deck guns were inoperative, and the YP-389 could only defend itself by using its machine guns. It could not stop the U-701 from sinking it. “It is one of the most dramatic accounts of an engagement between Axis and Allied warships during the dark days of World War II,” added David W. Alberg, expedition leader and superintendent of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. 

Several ships were torpedoed, just off the East Coast of the United States during the Second World War. It is hard to believe that back in those days, many civilians from cities such as New York and Boston, sat on beaches and watched battles between the U.S. and the Germans.

Just a few weeks following the attack on the YP-389, Army aircraft sank the German U-701 submarine in the same vicinity. U.S. and international policy has declared sites such as the YP-389 and others, war graves—and are protected by U.S. and international laws, including the Sunken Military Craft Act, which prohibits removal of artifacts and any alteration or disruption of the wreck site.