An ongoing effort to locate undiscovered World War II shipwrecks continues off the Outer Banks this summer, as researchers try to find the remains of a German submarine that attacked a 1942 convoy that left Hampton Roads in Virginia.

The ships were involved in the Battle of Convoy KS-520. From July 14 through July 19, 1942, Allied vessels and patrol aircraft came into direct contact with a German U-boat that was patrolling the waters off the North Carolina coast. Action from Allied and Axis forces resulted in the sinking of the Bluefields, U-576, J.A. Mowinckel, Chilore and a Navy tug, the Keshena.

Lauren Heeseman, research coordinator for the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, one of many partners working on the project known as the 2011 Battle of the Atlantic Expedition, said the focus of the project could change.

“The focus of this year is the Battle of Convoy KS-520. Two of those vessels that sank during that event, the U-576 and the Bluefields, have never been found. So, we would love to find the final resting place of those vessels,” she said. “However, there are other ships that sank during that event as well, and their location is known. So, we can go back and actually visit those ships that were involved and still meet our focus for this year. If we don’t find the U-576 and the Bluefields, we will focus on the known sites where ships were lost during the battle and the vessels that we have visited in the past.”

The Battle of the Atlantic Expedition has had a variety of focuses over the years.

“ In 2008, we focused on German U-Boats and Axis vessels, 2009 we focused on Allied vessels and in 2010 we focused on merchant ships that were lost during the Battle of the Atlantic,” she said.

That is only a small part of the bigger picture, Heeseman said.

“There are thousands of shipwrecks off the coast of eastern North Carolina. From the Battle of the Atlantic, there are roughly 280 vessels that were lost between Nova Scotia and the Gulf of Mexico. There was a vessel that washed up on the coast of North Carolina last year that could be possibly from the 1600s,” she said.

Heeseman said the technology being used in the 2011 Battle of the Atlantic Expedition is cutting-edge and comes from a variety of sources.

“We are going to be using autonomous underwater vehicles and remotely operated vehicles. We also have a multi-beamed sonar system and a side-looking sonar system. We are using a magnetometer which is actually towed behind the boat and helps to locate items on the sea floor that are made out of iron. We also are using 3-D high-definition videos cameras. Some of this technology only exists in a few places in the world,” Heeseman said.

Funding for the project comes from multiple organizations, with the majority of it grant funding.

Other organizations are taking a more direct role.

An autonomous underwater vehicle from the University of Texas’ Advanced Research Laboratory and personnel will be used in the first phase of the project. Advanced Underwater Surveys Ltd. will operate a multi-beamed sonar system. SRI International will provide an autonomous underwater vehicle. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will provide a modified, remotely operated vehicle system that is fitted with high-definition 3-D cameras.

Heeseman explained some project specifics.

“In an ideal world, they will go out for stay three days at a time, and on the ship they will have a captain and three additional crew to make sure the boat and everything runs smoothly,” she said. “Then there are marine archaeologists on board, and the rest of the people are in charge of the technology. In August, they will be scuba diving to gather videos and photos of these shipwrecks.”
East Carolina University and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will provide maritime archeologists.

Heeseman said that she hopes the project will provide people with a better sense of history.

“A lot of people don’t realize how close World War II came to the coast of North Carolina,” she said. “What we are hoping to do is to use the data that we collect during this project, whether it is in the form of videos or photos or any sort of outreach product, to help get those stories out. We have also started to collect oral histories of people who were witnesses to the Battle of the Atlantic off the coast of North Carolina, using those human stories and using those vessel stories to help share with the public what happened during that time.”

Heeseman said there is a good possibility her organization will collaborate with the Mariners Museum in Newport News, Va., and the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Cape Hatteras to create an exhibit about the Battle of the Atlantic.

The National Marine Sanctuaries has conducted maritime research projects across the United States. The organization has been to Hawaii, where it found a whaling ship, The Two Brothers. It has worked in the Stalwagon Bank area off the coast of Boston and the Thunder Bay area on the Great Lakes.