The U.S. Navy confirmed that the wreck near Japan’s Hokkaido island is indeed the USS Albacore, a highly successful submarine during World War II.
It’s believed the submarine sank on November 7, 1944, possibly after hitting a naval mine, as Japanese ships reported an underwater explosion in the area.
The Albacore was on a wartime mission then, and all 85 crew members onboard perished when it went down. A sonar image displays the wreck lying on the seabed, about 820 feet underwater, roughly five miles east of Hakodate city on Hokkaido.
A team of Japanese researchers, working for a non-profit organization, discovered the wreck last year. Tamaki Ura, a professor emeritus of engineering at the University of Tokyo and director of the La Plongée Society for Deep Sea Engineering, mentioned that the primary motivation behind the search was the loss of so many lives in its sinking.
USS Albacore (Via Devin Baker/Shutterstock)
The research began in 2019, but due to COVID-19 restrictions, the initial survey planned for 2020 had to be postponed until 2022, as per Ura.
Based on U.S. Navy records, USS Albacore (SS-218) was a highly successful American submarine during World War II. It sank 10 enemy ships officially and possibly three more. Among the 10 confirmed sinkings, six were enemy combat ships. The submarine earned nine battle stars and four Presidential Unit Citations for its bravery.
One of Albacore’s achievements was sinking the aircraft carrier Taiho in June 1944. Taiho was the newest and largest carrier of Japan at that time. This happened near Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, which were under Japanese control then but are now part of the U.S. commonwealth.
