As part of MV Trident's discovery of the lost WW2 submarine USS Lagarto and subsequent identification dives together with the US Navy, our teams of divers recorded detailed information on the condition of the sub. Underwater footage and data gathered has contributed to a film documentary.

'Lost and Found' investigates the loss of the USS Lagarto, focusing on the submarine's history and crew, events leading up to her sinking, and heart-felt memories and perspectives of family members.

"We are delighted to announce that on Saturday night, 7 November 2009, the documentary, "Lost and Found", about the submarine USS Lagarto was awarded three Emmys. It picked up up 5 nominations, including one for outstanding cinematography, and went home with 3 awards. We are proud to have been involved in such a spectacular and significant film and could not even have imagined that our underwater footage could have helped to bring about such acclaim."

Images: Norma, Chuck and Harvey on the Podium for the Emmy Award presentation

The film picked up the awards for the categories of Historical Documentary, Musical Composition/Arrangement and Writing in the Regional Emmy's for Chicago, Midwest Region.

Here's a trailer for the Emmy winning documentary - if you're interested in getting hold of a copy visit http://www.wisconsinmaritime.org/uss-lagarto.html#dvd

Following a technical diving accident in the Gulf of Thailand, MV Trident featured in an article published by DAN - the Divers Alert Network. Here's the article, written by Richie Kohler:

I’ve just returned from speaking at the 2009 Subvets WW2 Assoc. convention at Green Bay Wisconsin.

Took a few days to get there and the mornings were frosty already in late August. I gave a presentation to the submariners about their Japanese victims in our area, and an update on USS Lagarto.

I had some free time to dive in Lake Michigan, three 100 year old wooden wrecks between 50-65m, in clear water 4 degrees above freezing. The wrecks were beautiful, one had a cargo of Christmas trees, green and complete with needles.

I can see the point of trying to preserve such sites.

Glad I practiced with a dry suit before i went, I can’t imagine a wetsuit dive here.

Image: Dry suit diving in Lake Michigan

Image: USS Lagarto presentation to the Subvets Association

We have finally taken the plunge and bought a CCR unit. We went for a Classic Inspiration and then had Roger Smith of Aquanauts teach us to use it , and also his Evolution.

It seemed silly to have everything we need for Closed Circuirt diving but stay on O/C ourselves.

Now we’ll be getting some hours up and pestering our regular CCR divers for advice.

Here’s an account of the training

Recently we’ve attracted some bad press about the  above trips, it’s quite good reading and hopefully we’ll get some exposure out of it. I especally like the bits about lots of divers paying big money to dive with us.

The issue of artifact recovery has been around for ages and there’s no right or wrong. For example I understand exactly that  wrecks in the Great Lakes are well preserved and should be protected, but a wreck in warm salt water doesn’t last long - a lot of our wrecks will only be piles of steel plates in the next few years, and also a lot of our wrecks are non-descript 20 year freighters, hardly historical.

The one subject that has been mentioned that is clearly incorrect is our treatment of the USS Lagarto. Anyone that has been on one of our very special Lagarto trips know that artifact recovery is forbidden, and do you know what? no-one has ever expressed an interest in doing so.

Feel free to leave comments.

Comments:

ravenmouth | May 8th, 2008 | 11:45 pm

Hmm I’d say it is advanced ‘Project AWARE’

But don;t bother since in the next couple of years everything will be gone due to warm waters and currents as well the storms.

I didn’t know that the scrap yard next door is also a ‘historical heritage site’ . Maybe during the rain season when it is flooded and under water it will become such a site since you would need to dive to get rusty, dirty scrap from the floor ..

Bill336204077 | June 4th, 2008 | 7:05 pm

jamie | June 5th, 2008 | 9:11 pm

Bill, didn’t censor you, nothng came up!

The last time the Trident went to yard we were bored stupid, then when she came back the weather was horrible for another month.

This season, around November/December we plan to use our down time more constructively and do some cave training and hopefully see some of the caves we have in the south of Thailand.

Apparently these caves are impressive and rarely dived, a bit like our wrecks.

We’ve just come back from our exploratory trip.

The lake is huge and the water 90m at it’s deepest. this could be a great alternative to Trident live-aboards when the weather is bad . There’s apparently a temple and school in about 50m which could be interesting. We've had a dive in the area recently and found clear cold water at depth so this will be an interesting search, never found a temple before.

The caves we saw were very pretty, maximum depth was about 30m but these are proper caves and need cave certification to dive. I was expecting terrible visibility and crawling around tiny spaces but his wasn’t the case, the water was clear and the caves at least as big as a maru’s hold!

If you’re cave certified we could organise a quick trip before or after a Trident trip, if you’re not certified we can organise training too.

We found our first new wreck in  March 2008, the Seacrest Drilling ship sunk in 1989.  We thought we had found this one   last year but it’s a nearly identical sister ship . see our wrecks page for details. The ‘real’ Seacreast is a great dive, she lies upside down in 74m but easily penetrated through the moon pool at 50m . The other wreck is on her port side in 48m.

In 2009 we’ll be looking for the Arosan Maru, pictured above. she was a ‘2A Class Japanese Cargo Ship’, one of 131 built badly in as little as 35 days and easy prey for Allied submarines

This one was torpedoed by USS Hardhead, another Manitwoc submarine, in April 1945.

We’ve got several very promising marks  that line up nicely with the Hardhead’s. At 6886 tons and  140m x 18m she’ll be a great new dive in  50-70m.

We found this one in Feb 2009 in 55m, a big , big wreck badly broken up by Hardhead.

On our April 08 search for the Araosan we found two new wrecks, the Akela and a wreck nicknamed the SS Carrie. both nice big virgin wrecks but not WW2 marus

We still haven’t dived the Kinrei Maru, a   fleet tanker sunk by USS Hammerhead, although we have a mark less than a mile from the submarine’s co-ordinate - we’ll get round to it this year hopefully

We have over 90,000 square miles of water in the Gulf, all less than 80m so it’ll be a while before we run out of new wrecks, I’m sure.

A long term project is to find the I-351 Japanese submarine, sunk by USS Bluefish, and thoroughly researched buy our very own US historian, Jim Kilcullen. She’s a long way out and a long way down but perhaps one day we can put an expedition together, any CCR divers want to try?

WMM245 | November 30th, 2007 | 11:31 am

Love the video! Sounds like you guys have some pretty exciting things coming up next year! Can’t wait to hear the results!

Check out the original Trident promo!

In June the MV Trident rendezvoused with the USN ship USS Salvor above the site. This was the first time the USN have ever dived a WW2 wreck , let alone a 86 man submarine wargrave.

The Salvor is one of four USN Rescue and Salvage ships worldwide, she has a crew of 106. The crew of MV Trident was invited aboard to help brief and then observe the first dive.

The Navy dived surface supplied Heliox with in/water and chamber decompression.

Jamie spoke at the USS Lagarto memorial in Manitwoc, Wisconsin in May 2006. The event was attended by three hundred family members , WW2 Submarine Veterans and USN officers from Pearl Harbor.

Admiral Cassias, Commander Submarine Force US Pacific Fleet, thanked the MV Trident team for locating the submarine, and at last an acknowledgment that it was probably the USS Lagarto.

The story was told on National TV on Memorial weekend, see CBS News

John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, the Deep Sea Detectives, have done it! They came and did 4 days of hard core CCR dives with us on the USS Lagarto. And they loved it!

Look out for our documentary with them as the front men and the camera crew from the US under the direction of Harvey Moshman and Chuck Coppola.

See the preview on youtube

We are expecting both of them back very soon and we look forward to it. Model customers and a bunch of great guys!

Comments:

Allan | March 23rd, 2007 | 4:14 am

Great news…you might get to be famous on Koh Tao now!

WMM245 | March 26th, 2007 | 11:09 am

J, Webiste is looking good!

There is this a good enough message for you!?

K

trident | March 26th, 2007 | 8:35 pm

it’ s a fine message, Karen, Thanks!

I know you museum types have some problems with new technology

WMM245 | March 27th, 2007 | 2:30 pm

Ha-Ha! Very funny! That’s the last time I do you a favor!