Navy warship sunk by German sub in WWII finally located

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Navy warship sunk by German sub in WWII finally located

2019-07-19 06:15 Last Updated At：06:20

A private dive team has located the last U.S. Navy warship to be sunk by a German submarine in World War II, just a few miles (kilometers) off the coast of Maine.

The sinking of the USS Eagle PE-56 on April 23, 1945, was originally blamed on a boiler explosion. But the Navy determined in 2001 that it had been sunk by a German submarine.

The patrol boat's precise location remained a mystery — until now.

Garry Kozak, a specialist in undersea searches, announced this week that diver Ryan King, of Brentwood, New Hampshire, confirmed in June 2018 that an object Kozak previously discovered on sonar is the vessel 300 feet (90 meters) down.

King's team, which later began working with the Smithsonian Channel, extensively explored the ship on the ocean floor, 5 miles (8 kilometers) off Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

"With the deck guns, there was no mistaking it for what it was," said Paul Lawton, a Massachusetts attorney whose research helped to convince the Navy how the ship was sunk.

The patrol boat was equipped with depth charges, explosives used to battle enemy submarines. But it was towing a practice target for bombers from a nearby Brunswick Naval Air Station when it sank. Only 13 of the 62 crew members survived; they were plucked from the water by a nearby Navy destroyer.

The underwater video, which will be aired in the fall on the Smithsonian Channel's "Hunt for Eagle 56," backs up the story of sailors who said an explosion broke the ship into two pieces, said Kozak, of Derry, New Hampshire.

The two hull segments, about 350 feet (105 meters) apart, blended with the uneven, craggy ocean floor, making it difficult to locate them with sonar, Kozak said. Underwater video clearly shows the deck gun on the bow; farther away, depth charges are clearly visible on the stern, Kozak.

The divers' research is expected to offer definitive proof that the sub was indeed destroyed by a German submarine, which itself was sunk days later off Block Island, Rhode Island, Kozak said. The video shows the ship's boilers are intact, he said.

The Eagle's sinking was once a mystery.

The World War I-era patrol boat was ripped by a blast, and several survivors reported seeing a submarine conning tower featuring a painted red horse on a yellow shield.

The sinking was ruled a boiler explosion at the time, but Lawton helped connect the dots to show it was sunk by a German submarine with the same markings.

The day before Germany signed a surrender on May 7, 1945, U.S. Navy destroyers sank the submarine, U-853, south of New London, Connecticut, after it attacked a cargo ship.

The submarine is a popular attraction for divers because it's accessible in 130 feet (40 meters) of water.

But the Eagle sits 300 feet down, far beyond the reach of recreational divers.

The Navy is convinced that the vessel located by the divers is the Eagle and is appreciative of dive team's respectful research of the site, said Robert Neyland, who leads the underwater archaeology branch of the Naval History and Heritage Command.

Both sunken vessels are considered war graves, and federal law prevents divers from tampering with them. The remains of one of the German sailors were retrieved by a diver in 1960, sparking outage; the sailor was buried with military honors in Newport, Rhode Island.

Online:

https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/eagle56

Follow David Sharp on Twitter at https://twitter.com/David_Sharp_AP

Venice launches experiment to charge day-trippers an access fee in bid to combat over-tourism

2024-04-25 12:09 Last Updated At：13:42

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Under the gaze of the world’s media, the fragile lagoon city of Venice launches a pilot program Thursday to charge day-trippers a 5-euro (around $5.35) entry fee that authorities hope will discourage visitors from arriving on peak days and make the city more livable for its dwindling residents.

Signs advising arriving visitors of the new requirement for a test phase of 29 days through July have been erected outside the main train station and other points of arrival.

Some 200 stewards have been trained to politely walk anyone unaware of the fee through the process of downloading a QR code. A kiosk has been set up for those not equipped with a smartphone. Once past designated entry ports, officials will carry out random checks for QR codes that show the day-tripper tax has been paid or that the bearer is exempt.

Transgressors face fines 50 euros to 300 euros. The requirement applies only for people arriving between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Outside of those hours, access is free.

“We need to find a new balance between the tourists and residents,’’ said the city’s top tourism official, Simone Venturini. “We need to safeguard the spaces of the residents, of course, and we need to discourage the arrival of day-trippers on some particular days.”

Venice has long suffered under the pressure of over-tourism, but officials say that pre-pandemic estimates ranging from 25 million to 30 million visitors a year — including day-trippers — are not reliable and that the pilot project also aims to come up with more exact figures to help better manage the phenomenon.

By contrast, registered visitors spending the night last year numbered 4.6 million, according to city figures, down 16% from pre-pandemic highs.

Venturini said the city is strained when the number of day-trippers reaches 30,000 to 40,000. Its narrow alleyways are clogged with people and water taxis packed, making it difficult for residents to go about their business.

Not all residents, however, are persuaded of the efficacy of the new system in dissuading mass tourism, and say more attention needs to be paid to boosting the resident population and services they need.

Venice last year passed a telling milestone when the number of tourist beds exceeded for the first time the number of official residents, which is now below 50,000 in the historic center with its picturesque canals.

“Putting a ticket to enter a city will not decrease not even by one single unit the number of visitors that are coming,’’ said Tommaso Cacciari, an activist who organized a protest Thursday against the measure.

“You pay a ticket to take the metro, to go to a museum, an amusement park; you don’t pay a ticket to enter a city. This is the last symbolic step of a project of an idea of this municipal administration to kick residents out of Venice,” he said.

Venturini said about 6,000 people had already paid to download the QR code, and officials expect paid day-tripper arrivals Thursday to reach some 10,000.

More than 70,000 others have downloaded a QR code denoting an exemption, including to work in Venice or as a resident of the Veneto region. People staying in hotels in Venice, including in mainland districts like Marghera or Mestre, should also get a QR code attesting to their stay, which includes a hotel tax.

The tourist official says interest in Venice's pilot program has been keen from other places suffering from mass tourism, including other Italian art cities and cities abroad such as Barcelona and Amsterdam.