The Search for the Grunion Blog

Donovan

Well, the search for the USS Grunion is now in the can.

We’re on our way back to Adak, after a long and grinding day of searching yesterday. We began yesterday (Sunday, 8/26) in a search at the second site for the Japanese Destroyer Arare, which, once again, eluded our discovery. Though we worked slowly and methodically, we were never able to identify the vessel. After several hours of scouring the sea floor at the second potential site, we finally cried “Uncle” and had to move on by late morning. The plan was to depart Kiska yesterday evening, so the day’s clock was ticking.

Just before lunch, we returned to the USS Grunion site, finding the vessel almost immediately. After an hour or so in a thorough exam of the vessel in search of the builder’s plate on the vessel’s aft turtle and also triple-checking the area of the missing bow, we flew over the entire ship in one long scan, then quickly turned our (and Max Rover’s) interests to the slide trail that the Grunion followed down the volcanic mountainside after it was debilitated back in 1942.

For most of the slide trail’s 700-800-meter length, it was remarkably easy to follow: almost like a toboggan run. Along the way, we found numerous lengths of iron (probably the Grunion’s outer skin, which was peeled away as it slid downhill) though we never saw evidence of the bow itself, even in pieces. We thoroughly scoured the impact zone, as well, finding a few large chunks of iron that were clearly from a vessel, but never finding much in the way of evidence that would conclusively tell us what series of events befell the Grunion in its last minutes. We look forward to working with engineering professionals to see if we can ascertain a concrete series of events.

The search was called at 10:05 PM (Aleutian time; 3:05 AM EDT). By midnight, we had the Mx Rover and its weighted telemetry clump back aboard, and had lifted the bathometric pole from its deployed position. Then, about 12:20 AM (Aleutian time) everyone aboard met for a single sip of port and a few words in the wheelhouse, and we got underway for Adak.

The trip–even with its success–has had its bittersweet moments. But, as Dave Gallo pointed out, we got what we came for; no more and no less. That’s what the sea was willing to give us. And, fittingly, by the time we were underway, the winds and seas–which grew remarkably flat calm each time we were working on the Grunion site–roared up, meaning last night’s passage was a rocky one, the Aquila pitching and rolling all night.

While we will be spending the coming weeks and months piecing together events of the last minutes of the USS Grunion, the mystery that has yoked it to 70 different families and numerous followers around the United States for 65 years has finally been solved.