Falalop,
Ulithi Federated States of Micronesia (BusinessWire)
- April 9, 2001-- On April 6, 2001 at 12:10 pm (local time) in Ulithi
Lagoon, an independent team of three divers from the San Francisco Bay
Area located and were the first to dive on the wreck of the 553-foot
USS Mississinewa AO-59, the only American naval ship sunk by a kaiten,
a one-man Japanese suicide submarine.
Since WWII, the ship's exact position has been in question,
despite numerous prior attempts by both American and Japanese dive groups
to find the wreck. James P. Delgado, Director of the Vancouver, B. C.,
Maritime Museum, and an expert on Japanese midget submarines, has described
the lost USS Mississinewa as "the last great unsolved WWII Pacific
sinking."
The dive team consisted of Lewis "Chip" Lambert,
his wife, Pam Lambert, both of Fremont, California, and Pat Scannon from San Francisco, California. Chip Lambert, the team leader, working
with Mike Mair, the ship's historian and author of the USS Mississinewa
story (in progress), obtained photographs, taken by Sid Harris, Cherry
Hill, NJ, from the rescue tug ATF-107 Munsee at the time of the sinking
on November 20, 1944. Using observations from the photographs, Chip
Lambert narrowed the search area from almost 200 square miles to 5 square
miles. After seven straight days of searching in a small dive boat using
a portable sonar unit, the team, working with Ulithians, located the
tanker on a sandy bottom in 120 feet of water.
Chip Lambert, describing his first view of the ship,
stated, "While descending, we saw the sea reluctantly releasing
the USS Mississinewa from its grasp. I was finally convinced we were
no longer looking at a photograph, a chart plot, or a detector signal,
but a grave for fifty war heroes, a memorial for the surviving crewmembers
and families and a symbol of honor for the people of Ulithi."
The USS Mississinewa was at berth at this key WWII
US Navy installation when the kaiten, probably released by Japanese
mother sub I-36 just outside Ulithi Lagoon, crept into the harbor and
struck the tanker on the starboard bow, taking the lives of 50 American
officers and sailors. The bow section with the forward crew berthing,
where it is believed the greatest loss of lives occurred, lies on its
port side with hatches open. The submarine's site of impact just aft
of the bow and a secondary explosion created a huge opening in the hull.
Today, the lifeless twisted metal is home for large schools of fish
and other sea life. The remainder of the ship lies upside down with
the twin screws and rudder angled toward the surface. The bottom blends
with the surrounding sand, making the ship difficult to see from the
surface. Mr. Lambert photographed only the ship's exterior. The dive
team, respecting the ship as a gravesite, elected not to enter the ship.
The team coordinated its efforts with the people of
Ulithi, first gaining permission to search for the ship from both Chief
Pisente Talugyar, the hereditary owner of these waters, and Senator
Anthony M. Tareg, local representative for Ulithi in the Fifth Legislature
of Yap State. The islands' Chief Administrator, John Rulmal, critiqued
the team's observations and ensured logistical support. At one point
he ordered release of the atoll's remaining gasoline reserves to support
the search efforts. Immediately after the search team radioed news of
the find to shore, Mr. Rulmal contacted Senator Tareg by radio in Yap,
100 miles to the southwest, as Ulithi has no other means of communication
with the outside world. Others involved with the search and discovery
included Ulithians, Faustino Yalomai, manager of Ulithi Divers dive
shop, Kenneth Wur, Mario Suk and Trip-N-Tour representative, Lisa Wallner.
With the discovery of the exact location of the Mississinewa,
and in recognition that the ship is a gravesite, Ulithian leaders have
met and closed the site to all sport diving, pending discussions and
coordination with the US Navy. The California team, working with key
Ulithians, is in the process of notifying the US Department of Navy
of their findings.
In the United States, forty-eight surviving crewmembers
have stayed in close contact with each other through the USS Mississinewa
AO-59 Reunion Group. The California team hopes to present documentation
of the Mississinewa's final resting place at their next reunion meeting.
Lewis "Chip" Lambert, MA, an owner of Pacific
Offshore Divers, Inc. (PODI), is the Director of Medical Microbiology
at XOMA, Ltd., Berkeley, CA. Pam Lambert, MS, also an owner of PODI,
is Director of Project Management at Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA. Patrick
J. Scannon, MD, PhD, is founder and Chief Scientific and Medical Officer
of XOMA, Ltd, Berkeley, CA. All three are members of the Explorers Club
and have individually and together researched, located and documented
other ships and aircraft lost during WWII in Palau and other parts of
Micronesia. In 1993, they were part of the dive team that found the
armed Japanese trawler sunk in July 1944 in northern Palau by then Ensign
George Herbert Walker Bush.
