The USA's National Marine Sanctuary has begun an exploration of the seafloor off the Outer Banks of North Carolina to search for undiscovered shipwrecks and investigate an underwater battlefield site from World War Two: the Battle of Convoy KS-520.
The general location of the battle is known from historical accounts and records, but the wreckage of the German U-boat, U-576, and the Nicaraguan tanker, Bluefields, have yet to be found. With this expedition researchers are to search for these two vessels using state of the art technology. The National Marine Sanctuary carried out explorations of other WWII 'Battle of the Atlantic' sites in 2008, 2009, and 2010 and this summer these will be also revisited. These follow-up surveys along with the new ground broken investigating the U-576 and the Bluefields will help demonstrate what happened off North Carolina's coast during the war.
The expedition began on June 1 will continue until July 8, pausing for just under a month and resuming again from August 2 - 16. To view pictures, updates and blog posts visit the website here