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Remains of the "Sammy B.": The US warship sank in World War II.
Photo: HANDOUT/AFP
Victor Vescovo has climbed the highest mountains on all continents and measured the deepest points of the world's oceans - and now the US investor and retired naval officer has apparently set a new record: He found a shipwreck in the Philippine Sea at a depth of 6895 meters.
Never before has a wreck been identified at such a depth.
The deepest wreck ever identified and examined was the USS Johnston at a depth of 6469 meters - Vescovo had also discovered this wreck.
The ship now discovered is the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts, known as "Sammy B.".
The ship sank on October 25, 1944 in a World War II battle off Samar Island in the Philippines.
The heroism of the captain of the "Sammy B." and his crew is legendary in the Navy, Vescovo told the US news channel CNN.
"It was a great honor to find her final resting place."
The crew fought three Japanese battleships, including the Yamato, which, along with her sister ship Musashi, is believed to be the largest and most heavily armed battleship ever built.
The Americans were far inferior to their opponents, Vescovo said in an interview with the British BBC.
“But even after they ran out of ammunition, they still fired smoke grenades and flares to set the Japanese ships on fire.
On both sides these men fought to the death.”
The US ship had 224 crew members on board, 89 of whom were killed.
The survivors had to hold out in life rafts for 50 hours until help arrived.
Vescovo said he hoped that finding the wreck would help the families of the dead to draw a line and that unknown details about the battle would now come to light: "Steel doesn't lie."
Vescovo and a team of specialists had made six dives in eight days to search for the Sammy B and another US ship, the Gambier Bay.
First they found a torpedo launcher from the "Sammy B." - and then on the last day the wreck.
»It is an indescribable experience to come to a place where nobody has been before.
You get addicted to it," Vescovo told SPIEGEL in 2021.
All the data and knowledge he collects on his expeditions are publicly accessible.
»99 percent of my expeditions are self-financed.
I use my resources for the community, for human advancement.
That is my life's work.«
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