American brothers find submarine in which their father died
Lieutenant Commander Mannert Abele was killed when the USS Grunion went down with all hands on July 30, 1942, after fighting a Japanese freighter in the North Pacific Ocean.
His sons Bruce, 78, Brad, who recently died aged 75, and John Abele, 72, started searching for the wreck after a Japanese war historian pinpointed the area where he believed the Grunion sank.
Yutaka Owasaki told the brothers he had translated the journal of a military officer who commanded the Kano Maru, a Japanese cargo ship that exchanged fire with the Grunion soon before it went down.
"Six torpedoes were fired by the Grunion in the exchange," Bruce Abele told the Telegraph. "They fired back and the Japanese officer said he heard a dull thud and saw dirty brown liquid shoot up in the air and fall back before the submarine disappeared."
Until recently the brothers had no concrete information about what had happened to their father.
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
His sons Bruce, 78, Brad, who recently died aged 75, and John Abele, 72, started searching for the wreck after a Japanese war historian pinpointed the area where he believed the Grunion sank.
Yutaka Owasaki told the brothers he had translated the journal of a military officer who commanded the Kano Maru, a Japanese cargo ship that exchanged fire with the Grunion soon before it went down.
"Six torpedoes were fired by the Grunion in the exchange," Bruce Abele told the Telegraph. "They fired back and the Japanese officer said he heard a dull thud and saw dirty brown liquid shoot up in the air and fall back before the submarine disappeared."
Until recently the brothers had no concrete information about what had happened to their father.