Found Beneath Philippines Sea, WWII U.S. Warship is the Deepest Shipwreck Ever Located

Seventy-eight years after its loss during World War II, the U.S. Navy confirmed June 25, 2022, the location of USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE 413).

Underwater explorer Victor Vescovo, and a team from the undersea technology company Caladan Oceanic located the destroyer escort ship, Samuel B. Roberts (DE 413) more than four miles beneath the surface in the Philippine Sea.

Vescovo tweeted, “With sonar specialist Jeremie Morizet, I piloted the submersible Limiting Factor to the wreck of the Samuel B. Roberts (DE 413). Resting at 6,895 meters, it is now the deepest shipwreck ever located and surveyed. It was indeed the ‘destroyer escort that fought like a battleship."

Commissioned April 28, 1944, the destroyer escort was lost that same year during the Battle off Samar when it, along with several other U.S. warships, engaged Japanese forces off the Philippine coast to protect U.S. invasion forces in Leyte Gulf.

Now that USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE 413) has been positively identified, the wrecksite is considered a Department of the Navy sunken military craft protected from unauthorized disturbance by the Sunken Military Craft Act (SMCA). Violations of the SMCA can carry penalties of up to $100,000 a day, confiscation of the vessel used to disturb the sunken military craft, and liability for damages caused, a U.S. Navy release said.
Permission to disturb U.S. Navy sunken military craft for archaeological, historical, or educational purposes is sought from the Naval History and Heritage Command. There are no plans to disturb USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE 413).