Wrecks & Archaeology

The goal of the Laboratory of Maritime Archeology is to position Montenegro on the international scientific map of maritime and underwater archaeology and to investigate and document the shipwrecks, navigation routes, harbours, anchorages and other remnants of human activity along the Montenegrin coast.

Maritime archaeological finds within the Montenegrin basin, although insufficiently explored, are very diverse.

According to an exclusive report by National Geographic (link opens in new tab), a team of shipwreck hunters has discovered an extraordinary sunken vessel off the East Coast of the United States: the wreck of a World War I German U-boat sunk by U.S.

The British merchant steamship SS Mesaba sent a warning radio message to the Titanic on April 15, 1912 while crossing the Atlantic. The message was received by the Titanic – which was advertised as unsinkable – but did not reach the main control centre of the vessel.

Later that night, the supposedly unsinkable Titanic hit an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage, taking 1,500 lives and becoming the world’s most infamous shipwreck.

The plane crashed upon take-off when the engine failed on 4 September 1943. The aircraft made a slow turn and barrel-rolled into Gander Lake, Newfoundland. The four-crew members did not survive.

At the time of the crash in 1943, military hardhat divers found the aircraft “Liberator 589D” on a ledge in Gander Lake. They attempted to attach cables to the fuselage to salvage the plane. They were also recovering the body of Squadron Leader John G. MacKenzie.

The 60m-long, former tanker Hephaestus, which was scuttled at Xatt l-Aħmar just 30m off Gozo’s south-east coast on 29 August had run aground on rocks in St Paul’s Bay in Malta three and half years ago and subsequently written off.

The wreck sat stranded there for six months before being towed to the port of Valletta. Eventually, the tanker was thoroughly cleaned and prepared for sinking before being towed to be sunk off Gozo. Here the wreck now lies upright at a depth of 40m, close to three other artificial reefs: The Karwela, Xlendi and Cominoland.

Interview and text by Mimo Moqvist
Translation edited by G. Symes

“Yes, it is actually a slightly special story. We were really looking for a completely different wreck, from the 16th century. As early as 2005, I got in touch with a man whose father had found a wreck outside Dyngö when he was fishing for trout,” said von Arbin.

The father who found the wreck was no longer alive, but the son tipped off von Arbin about the find and told him that he had material that von Arbin and his team could see.

The USS Jacob Jones was the first American destroyer ever to be sunk by enemy fire. After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Jacob Jones was sent overseas. On 6 December, Jacob Jones was steaming independently from Brest, France, for Queenstown, when she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-53 with the loss of 66 men out of a crew of 150. The vessel sank in eight minutes without issuing a distress call.