Last week Paul Tidwell, an American maritime researcher, disclosed that he had used recently declassified military documents, computerized sonar and a state-of-the-art Russian ship to locate the 1-52 in May. The surprisingly intact hull is more than 3.2 miles beneath the Atlantic’s surface, about 1,100 miles off the Cape Verde Islands. “Finding it was my Mount Everest,” says Tidwell. “I’ve reached the peak.” If he manages to pull up the treasure someday, Tidwell will have completed the deepest commercial salvage on record. (French researchers found the Titanic under 2.5 miles of water in 1985. Salvagers recovered 1,800 artifacts scattered near the deteriorated ship–which was left as a memorial.)
Until the 1980s, only the military had the technology to reach shipwrecks in the deep sea. During the cold war the U.S. and Soviet navies scrambled to track each other’s sunken high-tech vessels. After the thaw between East and West, the Russian government dumped some of its sophisticated paraphernalia onto the commercial market. Tidwell joined the field in 1990. His treasure hunt began in the National Archives in Washington. There he found newly declassified notes on the position of the 1-52 when it sank.
Tidwell quickly raised $1 million from investors and put together a team for the hunt. His contractor, Sound Ocean Systems, hired the Yuzhmorgeologiya, a Russian research ship outfitted with cables that hold sonar devices and submersible cameras. He also brought in Meridian Sciences Inc., a U.S. Navy contractor that uses computers to calculate the paths of nuclear subs. Relying on 50-year-old naval logs, the team pin-pointed the 1-52’s position. Using sonar and cameras, Tidwell found the sub half a mile from the Meridian estimate.
Though the sub is resting in international waters, the Japanese government said last week that it might object to a salvage effort. But with the gold valued at $25 million, Tidwell figures there is plenty to go around.
Using info from a broken Axis code, an Ameircan bomber pilot sinks the sub 1,100 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands
After a rendezvous with a German U0boat, the sub heads for Lorient, in Nazi-held France
In March 1944, a 357-foot sub leaves Kure, Japan, carrying 4,409 lbs. of gold and a crew of 109
It picks up other raw materials in Singapore.
