From: Bill & Louise Decker [mailto:bdecker@shentel.net]
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 11:20 AM
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Subject: USSVI: Another WWII submarine hull found on ocean floor

First, Lagarto, then Wahoo, possibly Grunion and now....

In early March of 1942, less than three months into the War in the Pacific, the submarine USS Perch (SS-176) was conducting her second war patrol in the hostile waters of the Java Sea.

After a series of battles against multiple units of the Japanese Imperial Navy, during which Perch was severely damaged and rendered unable to dive safely or to defend herself, commanding officer David Hurt ordered his vessel abandoned. He sent his vessel to the bottom with an open conning tower hatch in order to avoid its capture. The entire crew was picked up by the Japanese and sent to Prisoner of War camps, where six members of the Perch crew died as POWs, but the remaining 53 did manage to survive and were liberated at the War's end.

Over sixty years later, an international team of divers and photographers were on a regular dive charter in the waters north of Surabaya City, Java when the vessels sonar revealed a long slender object on the sea floor that merited investigation.

Vidar Skoglie and dive team members Kevin Denlay, Dieter Kops, Mike Gadd, and Craig Challen soon found a wreck at a depth of approximately 190 feet. Although the divers immediately knew that the wreck was a submarine, they were unsure of its identity until they discovered a plaque on its conning tower.

Even under a layer of more than a half-century of marine growth, the large lettering of the plaque could be read: USS PERCH SUBMARINE

For more, including photos, click on the link http://www.oneternalpatrol.com/uss-perch-announcement.htm