Mystery at Sea (page 6 of 6)

Guarded Secret

The Max Rover approached the vessel's port side, the cameras recording more smashed and imploded metal. In some places, the hull had been crushed and cracked along weld seams.

"There they are!" shouted Richard Graham, the expedition's navigator.

As the ROV came to stern, the submarine's prop guards appeared on-screen. They were draped in flotsam and dust, but they were also configured just as they'd been in the old photos of the Grunion.

"I've been seeing those prop guards every night in my dreams for a year," Graham said. After a lifetime of waiting and two years of searching, the USS Grunion had been found.

"It's so … mangled," John Abele whispered. The five-year-old boy who'd lost his father in 1942 was now learning what had happened.

Further investigation would show that the conning tower had sustained some kind of blow (perhaps from the Japanese artillery shell) and that, just behind the tower, one hatch had been opened, maybe so the crew could fire the deck gun in their doomed, final assault on the Kano Maru.

The submarine's bow section was either missing or so badly smashed that it appeared nonexistent -- that's why it had looked 20 feet shorter on the sonar. It may have sheared away as the sub struck the tilting seafloor. Or maybe the torpedo that had missed the Kano Maru circled back and exploded against the submarine's bow.

Back home in Maryland, Nancy Stark sat glued to her computer, watching the drama unfold on the Grunion website. "It was disorienting," she says. "I'd been so excited and hopeful. Then, when the sub was found, well, I cried a lot, just sitting there at the computer.

"But over time, the sadness was replaced by a kind of gratitude, an acceptance and a sense of peace. My life of not knowing was over."

John Abele agrees, adding that finding his father's sub was "a humbling experience. And humbling experiences are often the most rewarding."

Then he smiled. Kiska had finally given up its most guarded secret.

From Reader's Digest - January 2008

 

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• Military

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• Decades later, two pilots discover the bond they always shared.
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• The Navajos WWII Unbreakable Code
• The Navajos who helped turn the tide of World War II with their unbreakable code.
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• The Mental Anguish of War
• Sometimes the battle takes a greater toll on the mind than the body.
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• Four Soldiers Answer America's
• Part warrior, part cop, today's soldiers are living a life they never imagined.
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