In August of 2006, with information supplied by Yutaka Iwasaki, the Abele brothers set out on the crab fisherman, Aquila bound for the waters off Kiska. They had met with Bob Ballard of deep ocean fame who told them that side-scanning sonar was what was needed to find their father's ship. After obtaining it, they would need an ROV to gather specific information. They obtained the necessary sonar and traveled from their home in the Boston area to Seattle where the leased Aquila was waiting for them. On board were the sonar technicians from Williamson Associates.

They put to sea with an experienced crew who had sailed the treacherous waters of the Aleutians for years. Reaching the area of search they began a pattern of side scanning search to cover about a 100 square mile sector. The sonar apparatus was made up a descender vane to which was attached a long tow line with the sonar sled at the end. All was dependent on the Kano Maru's celestial fix. On August 6, 2006 the sonar picked up a long object and luckily it proved to be the Grunion. It was located 158 degrees true, 12 kilometers from Segura Island.

Another year went by during which the next phase of the search was organized. In August of 2007 the Aquila set sail for Kiska with the ROV aboard and the exact location of Grunion known. The mission was to determine the cause of the boat's demise.

The boat had slid down a 30 degree embankment to a shelf and now lies on a 14 degree bow down angle. It has about a ten degree port list and is over a mile down.

The ROV did its work over a period of a few weeks taking continuous high definition video of the boat's exterior. After viewing the video Jim Christley made a detailed drawing of the boat as she lay on the bottom. Here is what the video showed:

1. The bow is parted at about the forward torpedo loading hatch. The section of bow forward of that is missing. The hull departure point is dished in on the upper-starboard side and ripped rearward on the port side.

2. Just forward of the conning tower fairwater is a pressure hull depression and complete lack of superstructure. This extends forward to a few feet aft of the parted bow. The section has been crushed and partially separated.

3. Both periscopes are raised and the number one scope has a dent that looks as though it could have been hit by machine gun fire.

4. The conning tower fairwater and shears are warped and torn. The bridge hatch to the conning tower is open and intact, but it is twisted on its hinge.

5. The after battery hatch is open, the internal dogging wheel is bent and the dogs have sheared in their mounts. The o-ring gasket has been dislodged from its track.

6. The superstructure aft of the bridge is missing. The after engine hatch is warped and open, but still on its hinge. The after torpedo room hatch is missing.

7. The stern planes are at full dive.

Those are the observations of the boat in 2007. You who are familiar with the Fleet Type submarine can contemplate the fait of the Grunion knowing the defects of the Mr. 14 torpedo in 1942,. The history of the event as seen from the Kano Maru includes the skipper's observation that, "after firing at the submarine, a dirty, brown splash arose and a pole shot into the air, then came back down into the sea." This was confirmed by another party, a Mr. Fokuma.

Two scenarios appear:

1. The shot fired by the Kano Maru penetrated the conning tower and allowed water to fill the conning tower and control room. This resulted in a loss of depth control.

Speculative questions include the pole that shot into the air. (Both periscopes were intact on the sunken submarine.) and the gush of dirty, brown water. While an old slick was found by the Japanese on the following day of the event, a hit on the conning tower would not have ruptured a fuel ballast tank. There is no clear testimony as to the immediacy of the "hit" observation and the firing of the gun.

Did the Kano Maru sink the Grunion?

2. The Mark 14 torpedo was defective in several aspects in 1942. The contact exploder pin was prone to warp on impact, the magnetic exploder failed more often than it worked, the gyro system often failed resulting in circular runs and the depth keeping settings were erroneously shallow resulting deep running torpedoes.

Keeping in mind that the upper conning tower hatch was on its hinge, but was badly warped and the conning tower fairwater was severely damaged, was the damage more likely caused by a round from an 8 cm gun or a circular torpedo run?

Ancillary questions include the cause of the missing bow and hull destruction forward of the sail. Was this caused by implosion of water pressure or was either or both of these caused by the boat being hit by a torpedo? If a circular run was the culprit, did it hit the bow or was it a dud that hit the conning tower fairwater?

There are other possibilities and you are invited to offer your opinion. Email SRC at subres@cablespeed.com. We'll print your view in a subsequent bulletin.