Crew of Research Vessel Nautilus Find a Wrecked Japanese WWII Destroyer

 

The privately-held research vessel Nautilus has discovered the wreck of the WWII Japanese Navy destroyer Teruzuki, which was torpedoed and sunk by a PT boat off Guadalcanal.

Teruzuki was a 2,700-tonne destroyer, the second of a class designed and built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the opening years of the war. She was delivered on August 31, 1942, and survived for two and a half months. 

Teruzuki first saw action during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands that October, then joined a Japanese task force to attack U.S. forces at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. The first attempt at this mission began on November 12; it was thwarted by U.S. forces in a fierce and costly nighttime battle. In the exchange of fire, Teruzuki managed to cripple the destroyer USS Sterett and may have contributed to the sinkings of the destroyers USS Monssen and USS Laffey. Teruzuki was assigned to a second attempt on November 14-15, but did not play a major role during the engagement. Neither attempt at striking Henderson Field succeeded, but both resulted in heavy losses for the U.S. Navy.

On December 11, Teruzuki returned to Guadalcanal as part of a resupply task force with four other destroyers. Their mission was to drop off floating drums of supplies for the Japanese troops pinned down on the island. After the food drums were dropped off and Teruzuki was headed for home, she was attacked by several U.S. Navy PT boats and took two torpedo hits. The damage left her disabled and ablaze, and after three hours, the fire likely set off a depth charge magazine. The resulting explosion blew off her stern and caused her to rapidly sink. Luckily for her crew, the Teruzuki was close enough to Guadalcanal that 156 of her sailors were able to swim to shore. All but nine personnel survived the sinking. 

This month, the crew of Ocean Exploration Trust's Nautilus discovered the final resting place of Teruzuki in Iron Bottom Sound, an infamous stretch of water off Guadalcanal that saw repeated and deadly fighting during the war. The Nautilus crew first picked up the wreck site using an unmanned surface vessel conducting a sonar survey. "We didn't know what it was. It hadn't been identified before," survey expert Dr. Larry Mayer of the University of New Hampshire told Newsweek. They confirmed the find with an ROV inspection, and Hiroshi Ishii, a specialist from Kyoto University, identified the wreck as Teruzuki. The destroyer's stern was missing, and it was found about 200 meters away. 

Many more finds may be coming. Only a dozen of the WWII wrecks in the sound have been identified, but Mayer's team believes that there could be as many as 100 in total - enough to keep the search going for many years to come.