WHAT LURKS BENEATH

Divers Solve Chilling Nazi Shipwreck Mystery After 80 Years

The SS Cornwallis was sunk after being targeted by a German submarine.

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Divers have located the wreck of a steamship that was sunk by the Nazis off the coast of Maine during World War II. The Nomad Exploration Team has solved an eight-decade mystery about the final resting place of the SS Cornwallis, which was struck by a torpedo fired by a German U-boat on Dec. 3, 1944. The 5,458-ton steam merchant ship, carrying sugar and barrels of molasses to Canada, sank in less than 10 minutes. Just five members of the 48-man crew survived, and the ship was never located. After multiple searches off the Maine coast over several years, the team finally found the wreckage of Cornwallis lying at the bottom of around 400 feet of water. “The Cornwallis is no longer the ship that sailed north with sugar and molasses,” the Nomad Exploration Team wrote. “She is an underwater time capsule from one of the most unusual episodes of the war along the Maine coast.” The German submarine that sank the Canadian steamship was just off the coast of the U.S. after it covertly dropped off two Nazi spies in Maine. Both spies were later captured and sentenced to death, though the sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment.