To find “missing submarine”: RV Petrel back in Ormoc Bay

ORMOC CITY, Philippines — The research vessel, RV Petrel, is back in Ormoc Bay to find a submarine said to have been sunk in the area in World War II which they did not find in their December expedition.

Expedition leader Robert Kraft said Ormoc Bay is a sunken graveyard for many historic warships. They are now on the hunt for a Japanese submarine that was reportedly sunk in the bay, but which they could not locate based on historical accounts.

He said that the ship could be likely off target, like the USS Cooper which they found two kilometers away from what was reported.

Among the historic ships sunk during the war in Ormoc Bay is the USS Ward, the first ship to fire the first shot in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, after crewmen spotted an invading Japanese submarine. Interestingly, USS Ward would sink in Ormoc Bay at exactly the same day, three years later.

Another is the USS Cooper and a Japanese destroyer, the IJN-Shimakaze. IJN stands for the Imperial Japanese Army. Shimakaze, said Kraft, is also a historic ship being one of its kind.

“It was unique because she had torpedo launchers,” said Kraft. It was the only one in WWII that could fire 15 torpedoes at one time. The RV Petrel, through sonar imaging, was able to find one of the ship’s 5-headed launchers still in good order.

The RV Petrel has also found the remains of what they believe are two more destroyers, but these remain unidentified.

Kraft explained that they are able to find these ships underwater using sonar imaging, which scans for “what should not be there.” When they find something, they crisscross over it many times to get a “good image” that is reconstructed by their powerful computers.

Then they correlate it with historical accounts and the plans of the boats that they have pulled from the archives. “We are sure that these are the ships because of their configuration. Every ship’s configuration is unique,” Kraft said.

The RV Petrel is in Ormoc Bay to conduct the sonar imaging on the request of the National Museum of the Philippines, which was requested in turn by Mayor Richard Gomez to come up with documentation of the Battle of Ormoc Bay.

The mayor is developing the Ormoc Museum, and wants the “forgotten” Battle of Ormoc Bay to be in the spotlight once more, due to its importance in ending the war in the country.

Kraft agrees with Mayor Gomez. He said that had the Battle in Ormoc Bay not been won by the Americans, the war in the country could have gone on for a few more months.

American historian Irwin J. Kappes has written that “In the end, it was the rather amorphous Battle of Ormoc Bay that finally brought Leyte and the entire Gulf area under firm Allied control. From 11 November 1944 until 21 December, the combined efforts of Third Fleet carrier planes, Marine fighter-bomber groups, a pincer movement by the Army’s 77th Division and the First Division plus a motley assortment of destroyers, amphibious ships and PT boats trounced the now semi-isolated Japanese in a series of skirmishes and night raids. And because of poor weather conditions air support for most of these surface actions was almost non-existent.”