The sunken wreck of a 252-foot-long German U-boat from WWII.

Nearly 70 years ago, the SS Pan Pennsylvania left the United States carrying 140,000 gallons of gasoline bound for Great Britain.  It had trouble keeping up with its protective convoy, and that difficulty caught up to the Pan Pennsylvania some 70 miles southeast of Nantucket, off the coast of Massachusetts.   On April 16, 1944, a German U-550 submarine torpedoed and sank the Pan Pennsylvania, but before the ship could get away it was damaged with depth charges, forced to the surface, and sunk by US ships in a serious naval battle.  The wreck of the sunk U-550 has been discovered by a group of explorers after decades of searching.

The discovery was funded by a New Jersey lawyer named Joe Mazraani.  A private expedition, the crew has spent their own money in the process of discovering the lost U-boat, and stand to gain absolutely nothing from their discovery, aside from the joy of having finally found the shipwreck they’ve been seeking for many years.  The next step is to contact the survivors or any living sailors from the support convoy, the Pennsylvania, or the U-boat to share images and get confirmation.  The crew plan to make several more missions to the site to conduct more investigations.  While there’s not much chance for profit unless they convert the u-boat into a drug submarine or harvest the engine for hybrid technology, there’s a joy in simply solving mysteries that money cannot buy.

“The history behind it all is really what drives us,” admits Mazraani.

Tags: nantucket, ww-ii, world war 2, u-boat, u-550, german u-boat discovered off the coast of Massachusetts, Joe Mazraani, sunk u-boat found, unusual discoveries, ss pan pennsylvania, world war 2 uboat discovered, atlantic ocean, missing ships, shipwrecks, sunken u-boat discovered

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