Original subtitles

narrator: Tonight on "The Bermuda Triangle:

Into Cursed Waters."

- It's something big down there.

- This is adventure, man.

[laughs]

narrator: Two identical ships simply vanish.

- And still to this day, nobody knows what happened.

[dramatic music]

narrator: Were they victims of a hidden Bermuda

Triangle threat?

- I always thought tsunamis were caused by earthquakes.

♪ ♪

narrator: A massive new wreck may hold the answers.

- Yeah, yeah. - Yes, holy [bleep]!

That's the wreck. That's the hull.

- Yeah. - That's the hull.

♪ ♪

- Holy crap.

♪ ♪

narrator: There is a place that evokes

fear and fascination.

Bounded by Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico,

the Bermuda Triangle has swallowed countless ships,

planes, and people.

Now, an elite team is on the hunt...

- Dive, dive, dive.

narrator: And making big finds.

- We've discovered "Challenger."

narrator: Their secret weapon...

a wreck map decades in the making.

- These are dangerous dives.

- Ah!

- Any sane person would not be doing this.

narrator: Their mission, solve the mystery of the Bermuda

Triangle, one wreck at a time.

- Dude, are you seeing this?

- Mother Nature is going to take these wrecks away.

The clock is ticking.

♪ ♪

- We like discovering history,

being the first ones to know a wreck name.

There's, like, three main pillars of this.

It's research, skill, and luck.

Basically, you have to be a Swiss Army knife

to do this at the level we're doing it.

narrator: Today, wreck hunters Mike Barnette

and Jimmy Gadomski are heading 5 miles

off the Florida coast,

going after a mystery wreck at the tip of the Bermuda

Triangle on Mike's map.

The wreck is called Big 650, because of its depth

and rumors of its large size.

- The reason we know about this wreck

is because fishermen know about this wreck.

- They've been fishing it for a long time.

So it's been down there quite a bit.

narrator: Big 650 has never been explored.

Its ID remains a mystery.

But there are clues.

- Based on the size, the attributes of the wreck,

the position, we're fairly certain this

is a World War II shipwreck.

narrator: And that means it could

be the key to an 80-year-old Bermuda Triangle mystery...

the disappearance of two Canadian sister ships

named "Proteus" and "Nereus."

♪ ♪

- These were large ships, each of them 520 feet long,

and they're identical.

- And still to this day, nobody knows what happened.

♪ ♪

narrator: November 23, 1941,

the first ship, the SS "Proteus,"

sets sail from the Caribbean

and heads north back towards Canada.

But this is far from a routine run.

World War II is raging.

- One of the important things is that in 1941,

Canada was at war.

- They had declared war on Germany, just a week

after Great Britain did.

narrator: The seas are no longer

safe for Canadian ships.

A passenger liner bound for Canada

had already been sunk by a Nazi torpedo.

- You bet that set off alarm bells.

narrator: "Proteus" has made this run

twice before without incident.

But this time, under clear skies and calm seas,

she vanishes.

- Really, the most sad part of the story

is the fact that 58 men went missing that day.

And there's some even as young as 16 and 17

on board "Proteus" when she went missing.

♪ ♪

narrator: And then the story gets even stranger.

Just two weeks later, on December 10,

the SS "Nereus," a second ship identical to the "Proteus,"

embarks on the exact same journey.

And then she vanishes as well.

- Two sister ships doing the same route,

you know, just weeks apart, go missing without a trace.

- No one ever hears from them again.

- How do you lose two 500-foot-plus

ships without an SOS call?

No distress at all.

♪ ♪

narrator: The Big 650 wreck has

both the size and the location

to match the missing ships.

- In times of peace, you would have taken a straight route.

But this is time of war.

narrator: Seeking safety, ships would often

hug the coast, a route that lines

up with the Big 650 wreck.

♪ ♪

- Two minutes to target.

Two minutes to target.

♪ ♪

narrator: At 650 feet, this wreck

is too deep to safely dive, even for Mike and Jimmy.

So the team has brought in Captain Dave Nielson

with the RV "Pricus,"

a former U.S. Navy ship.

- "Pricus" was originally "MHS-3."

MHS stands for Mine Hunter SWATH.

Most of the work these boats have done has been classified.

♪ ♪

narrator: The "Pricus" comes loaded with all the tech

needed to hunt big wrecks.

♪ ♪

First, multibeam sonar, which images

large swaths of seafloor searching for the wreck.

♪ ♪

Then comes phase two.

A second sonar, known as a side scan,

will build a detailed model of the site.

[beeping]

♪ ♪

Then, the most critical stage...

the ROV, an underwater robot equipped with a 4K camera that

will allow the team to be the first people to lay eyes

on this wreck since it sank.

♪ ♪

- All right, we're in business.

♪ ♪

narrator: They begin phase one, the broad multibeam.

♪ ♪

In the sonar room, Rachel Bobich scans the target

area for any signs of Big 650.

- Coming up on something.

- There we go, yeah.

- Little debris.

- Oh, oh! - Nice structure, yeah.

- There we go, there we go. All right.

- [laughs] - We got a wreck.

- Whoo-hoo!

- Oh, wow.

narrator: The wreck is massive,

matching both "Proteus" and "Nereus."

- Oh, wow, look at that. - That's big.

- So this wreck looks to be about

400 to 500 feet in length, so it's a big wreck.

♪ ♪

narrator: With the target confirmed,

it's time for phase two.

- The side scan will make a huge difference.

- Between this and the side scan,

we'll have a pretty good roadmap of how

to navigate around the wreck.

- Yep.

♪ ♪

- OK, she's in the water.

So I've got to put the lifeline up.

♪ ♪

narrator: The side scan's umbilical

is a high-strength steel tether that anchors

the sonar unit to the boat.

- It's like basically towing a water skier behind the boat.

♪ ♪

narrator: But something immediately seems off.

- We're apparently at 50 meters of depth,

but this one is saying, like, 30 meters.

- What is it? - What?

Something's not right.

♪ ♪

- Hey, what's happening?

- I don't know.

It could be a multitude of things.

♪ ♪

She's not doing so great.

narrator: The side scan seems to be snagged on something.

- We're not sure if we grabbed onto either a trap line,

anchor line, something.

♪ ♪

- So now we're swinging the boat

around, trying to maneuver it in order

to free the side scan.

[metal creaking]

♪ ♪

narrator: Anchored by the steel tether,

the "Pricus" and her crew are caught in a tug of war.

♪ ♪

Under this much strain, the cable could snap

and whip across a deck full of crew.

- We've got a lot of tension on the line right now.

- Yeah.

♪ ♪

- All right. Are we still going out?

- I want to get her off the bottom, if she'll come.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

narrator: 5 miles off the Florida coast,

the RV "Pricus" is trapped in a tug of war

with a tangled sonar unit.

♪ ♪

- We're going to get an angle grinder,

in case we have to cut the cable.

We'll get a buoy if we have to abandon it.

[sighs]

♪ ♪

[metal clatters]

That sounded good. Keep going.

Go, go, go. - Yeah, yeah.

- I think it might have popped loose.

I just felt it pop.

[metal clatters]

♪ ♪

narrator: Finally, the side scan is free.

♪ ♪

- I'm not taking my eyes off it.

I will shout at you the minute I see it.

♪ ♪

All right, I've got a visual.

♪ ♪

Yeah.

♪ ♪

narrator: But phase two of their search

has to be scratched.

- We've found some damage on the side scan,

and that's why we're not receiving any data.

Now we need to repair it, so we're going to call

it and come back another day.

narrator: Despite a near catastrophe,

they have made promising first steps.

♪ ♪

While Mike stays at the dock to supervise repairs,

Jimmy reviews the sonar data with the rest of the team.

- This looks like it's a pretty substantial structure.

Any idea about the size?

- So this could potentially be 450 to 600 feet.

- Really? - Like, this is a big wreck.

narrator: The size of the wreck is not the only detail

that matches the missing ships.

There also appears to be some kind of structure on the deck.

- We could potentially have something

on the deck that is sticking up from the deck,

so it could be a crane.

♪ ♪

narrator: The "Nereus" did have seven tall crane towers.

However, "Proteus" had none.

Her cranes had been removed six months earlier.

At the other end of the ship, a second clue hinting at what

took her down.

- It really gets broken up.

So this may be another part of the wreck that got blown off.

- Remember, this is a world at war.

This is 1941.

♪ ♪

[gunfire]

OK, the Americans are not in the war yet.

- The "Nereus" and the "Proteus"

were Canadian ships at the time.

narrator: By war's end, 40 Canadian cargo

ships, all civilians, would be destroyed by Nazi torpedoes.

Could "Proteus" and "Nereus" have met with a similar fate?

- I found something in the archives,

and it's actually the report on the "Nereus"

and the "Proteus."

narrator: The report was written

just after the ships went missing

and offers the first theory.

- So basically what they're saying is the "Proteus"

or the "Nereus" were hit by a German torpedo from a U-boat.

narrator: But not everything about the theory adds up.

♪ ♪

U-boat captains kept meticulous records,

yet none claimed the kill of either "Proteus" or "Nereus."

It's possible the U-boat responsible was itself sunk

before it reported in, but Dave will need

to dig deeper to know more.

- I can dive into the archives now

with the benefit of hindsight and see what we can find.

♪ ♪

narrator: Meanwhile, the team needs

to consider other possibilities,

and Wayne has his own theory about what

took down the ships.

A scourge rumored to prowl the Bermuda Triangle...

monster waves.

And one variety may threaten the coastal waters

that hold the Big 650.

- I came across a story not long ago...

and it's wild... that Florida was struck by what

they call a meteotsunami.

- [shouting]

narrator: December 2018, Sanibel Island, Florida,

out of nowhere, a series of devastating waves

known as a meteotsunami destroys homes

and sends residents fleeing.

- The interesting thing about this tsunami

is that it's not caused by earthquakes.

- Really?

- They say it's caused by weather patterns.

♪ ♪

narrator: Once a meteotsunami wave hits the shallow shores,

its height soars.

Could the ship's decision to hug the coastline

have actually put them in harm's way?

- So some of this wreck looks like it could

be potentially broken up.

It could maybe be a tsunami.

- Until we solve it, nothing's off the table, boys.

Nothing.

♪ ♪

narrator: The team splits up.

♪ ♪

While Mike and the "Pricus" crew

attempt to repair the side scan,

Wayne heads out to dig deeper into reports of meteotsunamis

in the Triangle with Dr. Charles Tilburg,

an oceanographer who has spent

decades studying these waves.

♪ ♪

- I always thought, you know, tsunamis

were caused by earthquakes.

- What generates a meteotsunami,

something completely different, and it's a storm

or a low-pressure system that generates

a change in sea level.

♪ ♪

narrator: A low-pressure front can sometimes push

a wave across the open ocean, slowly making it stronger...

♪ ♪

Until...

- Once you get into the continental shelf,

it's much, much shallower.

All that energy moves into the vertical.

narrator: And it's not just a single wave.

- Typically, there are multiple waves.

And so it's a repeated destruction.

narrator: And there is at least one case

of them destroying a vessel the size

of "Proteus" and "Nereus."

♪ ♪

August 29, 1916,

the USS "Memphis," a 504-foot armored cruiser,

is moored on the edges of the Bermuda Triangle.

♪ ♪

Suddenly, crewmen see 70-foot walls

of water racing towards them.

♪ ♪

Wave after wave smashes into the "Memphis."

♪ ♪

43 sailors lose their lives.

Could the same have happened to the "Proteus" and "Nereus?"

♪ ♪

Tilburg has found a startling clue in weather records

from the time the twin ships vanished.

- So you can see, here's a low-pressure zone moving in.

So this is November 23, 1941.

So this right here has the right conditions

to generate a meteotsunami.

- Wow.

♪ ♪

narrator: The evidence of a meteotsunami strike

may even still be visible.

- What would happen to the ship

if one of these meteotsunamis sank it?

- So my guess is that the ship is

going to be laying on its side in the continental shelf.

♪ ♪

- Look for a ship that's on its side.

- Look for a ship that's on its side.

That's key information to pass on to the dive team.

narrator: 80 years ago, the "Proteus" and the "Nereus,"

two giant sister ships, disappeared

under identical circumstances just weeks apart.

World War II authorities thought a Nazi U-boat

could be to blame.

[dramatic music]

But military historian David O'Keefe suspects

there's more to the story.

♪ ♪

He's in Florida to meet with Bill Toti,

former submarine commander and expert

on World War II naval combat.

♪ ♪

- One was the "Proteus." One was the "Nereus."

Both of them disappear within just about ten days

of each other in late 1941.

- It does look suspicious on the timing aspect, doesn't it?

♪ ♪

narrator: But no U-boat ever claimed the kills,

and Toti is not convinced.

- So U-boats, during the entire course of the war, sunk

over 3,500 merchant ships.

Off the coast of Florida, it was something like 40 ships.

- Yeah.

- The issue, though, is that we have no evidence that

the Germans were stationing U-boats

off the Atlantic Coast before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

♪ ♪

narrator: Toti's research indicates Hitler's U-boats

wouldn't arrive in the Triangle until September 1942,

months after "Proteus" and "Nereus" disappeared.

♪ ♪

However, he knows of a different threat that

was active at the right time...

Nazi pirates.

- The Germans operated these modified merchant ships that

were weaponized and disguised, and they

called them Hilfskreuzers.

They would take these merchants,

and they would beef them up with weapons

behind false bulkheads, false hull plating,

to make them look like things that they were not.

♪ ♪

narrator: These Hilfskreuzers were armed with naval guns

and torpedoes, and in 1941 had recently attacked a merchant

ship off the Bahamas suspiciously

close to where "Proteus" and "Nereus" vanished.

But Toti wonders if the Nazis may not have been trying

to sink the twin ships, but steal them.

♪ ♪

- I came across these documents here,

which prove that these ships were carrying bauxite.

♪ ♪

narrator: Bauxite was used to make aircraft-grade aluminum.

The Nazis lacked easy access

to natural deposits of bauxite.

♪ ♪

- Each of these ships were carrying

6,000 tons of bauxite.

But you also have a merchant ship, one more

than you had before you did this.

So there's two benefits to doing something like that.

narrator: Could the Nazis have resisted capturing

such tempting targets?

♪ ♪

- Bill Toti actually mentioned that there

was a possibility that they could

have been taken in prize.

But now, you'd have to think that there's paperwork

somewhere for these ships ending up in German hands,

and right now we haven't found that.

♪ ♪

narrator: Two days later, 5 miles off Florida,

Mike Barnette and Jimmy Gadomski are headed

back to the Big 650 wreck.

- Watch this line. - Yeah.

narrator: The side scan remains out of commission.

But the team has decided to push

forward with phase three...

the underwater robot camera known as an ROV.

♪ ♪

Meanwhile, David teams up with Wayne

to investigate the theory that "Proteus" and "Nereus" were

kidnapped by Nazi pirates.

- How are you? - Good, good.

narrator: They've tracked down family of a sailor who was

stationed on the "Proteus."

- How did you first hear about your uncle Herbert?

- Well, the family was immensely proud of him.

You know, it was a big deal to have

an officer in the Canadian Merchant

Marine as a family member.

♪ ♪

When word came that the "Proteus" had gone missing,

the family was really distraught.

♪ ♪

The theory was that a German surface

naval vessel had captured it and taken the crew

and the cargo to Europe.

- That's fascinating.

But where did this idea come from,

that these men may have been basically

held in captivity somewhere?

- Well, that's an interesting story.

A sister of one of the crew members

was reading a newspaper.

In the paper, there was a photograph

of Canadian prisoners in a German POW camp.

- Ah.

- And she looked at it, and she was

convinced that one of the captives in the picture

was her brother.

- Really? - This was in 1942.

narrator: If true, it means this "Proteus" crew member

was photographed nearly a year after the ship had

gone missing.

♪ ♪

- It's incredible to hear this story that they didn't die

at sea and the "Proteus" crew were taken by the Germans,

were in POW camps.

narrator: It's a compelling theory,

but the evidence is thin.

For one thing, no member of the "Proteus"

returned home after the war.

That means the Big 650 wreck could still

be either the "Proteus" or the "Nereus" or a different

ship entirely.

And whatever ship it is, there's still

the mystery of how it sank...

a meteotsunami or something else?

- It's going to take a lot of research to look into this one

and see if we can unbutton this mystery.

♪ ♪

narrator: Back out at the Big 650 wreck...

- Hold position.

narrator: The dive team are deploying the ROV.

- You are clear to deploy.

Come down on the winch.

- Going down.

- Just keep coming down until I say stop.

♪ ♪

narrator: Pilot Peter Schubert cautiously guides

the ROV down.

♪ ♪

- Keep going, nice and easy.

About 1 meter a second, maybe half that.

♪ ♪

OK. All stop there, Ricky.

- All stop. We're on the bottom.

♪ ♪

narrator: At this depth, the ROV

is in a hostile environment, maneuvering

in near-total darkness against a raging current.

♪ ♪

- Current's really dragging me around.

We're doing everything we can to fight it here.

♪ ♪

narrator: But Mike can still see a route to the wreck.

♪ ♪

- We're starting to see some stuff.

- Right there. - OK.

- See on that side? - And right here.

- And off the right...yeah, we're starting to see...

- I'm just going to pan... all right, I'm panning.

- Oh. - There you go.

- There you go. - Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Wreckage, that's the wreck. That's the hull.

That's the hull. - All right.

- Down the right. - We are right under it.

- [laughs]

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

narrator: Mike Barnette and Jimmy Gadomski

are aboard the RV "Pricus,"

where an underwater camera

known as an ROV is revealing the first-ever images

of the Big 650 wreck.

♪ ♪

- Looks like she's just listing on her starboard side.

Not completely on the side, but might be upright.

narrator: The team had previously

learned that if a meteotsunami hit this ship,

it would have tipped her over.

But the wreck sits upright.

A killer wave isn't what sank this ship.

♪ ♪

Something else took her down.

♪ ♪

- Well, it's... we're on the deck.

- Oh. - What is...

- What's that?

♪ ♪

narrator: Their previous sonar scans indicated

there were structures on the ship's deck,

but this isn't what they expected.

- See the railing? - Oh, yeah.

- That's a railing. There's a railing.

narrator: It's an odd clue.

"Nereus" had seven 50-foot-tall crane towers.

♪ ♪

But this looks different.

- That looks like it's sticking up above midship.

That's kind of weird. - Wow.

This is not what I was expecting.

narrator: But before the team can figure out

what the structure is, a hidden danger

demands their attention.

- Is that your tether, or is that...no.

- Negative. That's fishing line.

♪ ♪

narrator: Decades of fishermen have left behind a spiderweb

of monofilament.

♪ ♪

Pushed by the intense current, the ROV's cables

have gotten tangled.

- I'm going to back away.

I don't want that in the thrusters.

♪ ♪

- You might want to try to winch up

and get out of that situation.

- Yeah.

- Can you bring it up another 5 feet, like, real easy?

♪ ♪

narrator: Even as the ROV backs off,

the Triangle's current hits it even harder,

trying to smash it against the wreck.

- Making sure I don't hit anything I'm not supposed to.

Oops, like that. - Like that.

Oh.

[static buzzing]

- That's not good.

narrator: Big 650 already took out the side scan.

Now it's immobilized the ROV.

- Dave, we're coming back to deck.

♪ ♪

narrator: Back on deck, their worst fears are confirmed.

♪ ♪

- While the synthetic line is the newer stuff,

which is really strong, we got some sucked into the thruster

here, which, that is really dangerous because that

can immobilize the ROV.

You can't maneuver.

It would make a bad situation even worse.

♪ ♪

narrator: The team heads back to shore to clean up the ROV.

Mike stays with the "Pricus" crew

to strategize their next attempt.

♪ ♪

Meanwhile, Jimmy shares their latest findings with the team.

- We got eyes on it.

♪ ♪

- That's in great condition.

- We didn't get that far back on the wreck.

narrator: Some details aren't as they expected.

- So the "Nereus" had cargo cranes all over the deck.

We don't see those cargo cranes,

on the deck of this shipwreck.

♪ ♪

narrator: It means this is probably not the "Nereus."

The "Proteus" is still on the table,

but the new data shows something's

off about the wreck's size.

♪ ♪

- It's still hard to say, but I want to say

this wreck is probably right around 400 feet long.

♪ ♪

narrator: The missing ships were 100 feet longer.

Another large piece of the wreck

might be resting nearby...

♪ ♪

But with the discrepancy in size,

they must consider other suspects.

- OK, but you're telling me that this

- OK, but you're telling me that this

is still from the same period.

- World War II era, yeah.

- There is another possibility.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

narrator: The team is investigating

a massive shipwreck in 650 feet of water.

It may be one of two legendary leviathans

lost to the Bermuda Triangle, the "Proteus" or "Nereus."

♪ ♪

But now, David O'Keefe wants to add

other suspects to the list.

♪ ♪

- So we're talking roughly, off of Florida,

maybe about 40 ships.

40 ships that were sunk just during the second World War.

So you're getting a lot of sinkings in this area.

♪ ♪

narrator: "Proteus" and "Nereus" went missing in 1941.

But what if the Big 650 wreck sank in 1942?

- Starting in 1942, I mean, the United States

becomes one of the most active places on Earth

when it comes to naval warfare.

You've got the U-boats, which have come across.

They're lighting up Allied shipping.

narrator: Now American ships are also coming under fire.

♪ ♪

And Dave's research has unearthed a potential clue.

- I found something in the archives.

♪ ♪

narrator: Few of the World War II era U-boat victims match

this wreck's size and design, except for one

possible contender.

♪ ♪

- There was a ship called the "Ohioan,"

which was a cargo vessel.

♪ ♪

narrator: Completed in 1920, she's

almost as large as the "Proteus" and "Nereus"

and has a midship pilot house, which

could account for the raised areas of the Big 650 wreck.

December 8, 1941,

the day after Pearl Harbor,

she departs New York.

♪ ♪

- The "Ohioan" headed off towards Bombay, India,

to pick up some manganese ore.

♪ ♪

And by the time she started steaming back to the United

States, the war had changed dramatically

off the Eastern seaboard.

♪ ♪

narrator: The "Ohioan" is ordered by the Navy

to hug the coast, a route that takes her directly

over the Big 650 wreck.

♪ ♪

It was supposed to protect her from prowling U-boats.

♪ ♪

It did not.

♪ ♪

She sinks in just two minutes and is never seen again.

15 American sailors are killed in the attack.

- We are dealing with a broken-down structure towards

the bow section of the ship.

Maybe that's where it was torpedoed.

We have not seen it yet, though.

We need to lay eyes on the rest of this.

♪ ♪

narrator: The next day, the team

sets out for one last look at the Big 650 wreck.

♪ ♪

So far, the ship seems relatively intact.

But as the ROV flies down the port side,

the team sees catastrophic destruction.

- This is not what I was expecting at all.

It's, like, just chaos right here.

It's broken. Just torn apart.

♪ ♪

narrator: Is this the work of a U-boat torpedo?

♪ ♪

- That looks like it's been ripped off the wreck

and laid out.

- Yeah.

- I mean, I'm starting to wonder now.

This is not what you would expect

from something that had a single hole in it,

went down quick.

And this is not, obviously, decay you see

from natural just collapse.

- Right. - This is, like, ripped off.

So we got a little mystery here.

♪ ♪

narrator: Bizarrely, this does not look

like torpedo damage, though it's

possible such evidence is elsewhere, buried in silt.

♪ ♪

- Just to our right is where the name would be.

♪ ♪

- Is that lettering on the side right there?

- Is that lettering on the side right there?

- Yeah. - Yes.

Holy [bleep]!

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

narrator: 5 miles off the east coast of Florida...

♪ ♪

Divers Mike Barnette and Jimmy Gadomski believe they've

found a wreck hunter's dream...

intact lettering on the hull.

- Is that lettering on the side right there?

- Yeah. - Yes.

Holy [bleep]!

♪ ♪

Oh, my God.

Yes, there's an O, A... no, it's I-O-A-N.

- Yeah, I-O-A-N.

- I-O-A-N.

There it is, the other O. - There's the other O.

- That's the... - O-H-I-O.

- There it is, yes. - Yep.

- Nailed it.

♪ ♪

narrator: At last, this mysterious wreck has a name...

the SS "Ohioan."

♪ ♪

- Want me to continue to starboard down the...

- Hey, man, it's all gravy now.

It's all gravy now.

♪ ♪

You won't believe it, because we didn't believe it

when we first saw it.

- OK.

♪ ♪

Oh, boy.

Holy crap.

♪ ♪

You got to be kidding me.

- It doesn't get any better than that.

- Yeah. - My God.

This is great. So you got the "Ohioan."

♪ ♪

narrator: The same team that discovered

a piece of the space shuttle "Challenger"

outside the Triangle...

♪ ♪

narrator: Has finally put a name

to an 80-year-old mystery...

♪ ♪

And identified one of the largest

wrecks ever lost off Florida.

♪ ♪

The final resting place of "Proteus" and "Nereus"

is still out there waiting to be found...

♪ ♪

But this wreck can now be identified

as an American war grave.

- There were men on board that lost their lives.

We can tell the stories of the guys

and maybe bring a little dignity,

you know, back to their memory with all this.

♪ ♪

narrator: Historical investigator Wayne Abbott

delivers the news to someone who holds

this ship close to heart.

♪ ♪

Talbot Goodyear's family was part

of the citizen rescue operation to save

the "Ohioan's" few survivors.

- They look out, and they see smoke

coming up from the horizon.

I think my grandfather had probably the most

instantaneous reaction.

♪ ♪

narrator: The Goodyear family rushes

to the scene in their private boat.

♪ ♪

But the ship has already sunk.

- When they got there, it was carnage.

You know, bodies floating around

and guys clinging to wreckage, a huge oil slick.

My grandmother was horrified at what she saw.

- Wow.

♪ ♪

narrator: 15 American sailors died when the Nazi torpedo

hit the "Ohioan."

Talbot's family rescued nine others.

- I have something to show you.

♪ ♪

- That's the "Ohioan."

- This is the SS "Ohioan." - Amazing.

♪ ♪

- What do you think that your grandmother

and grandfather would say if they

were able to see this footage?

- [laughs] My grandmother would be...

her jaw would be dropping.

I mean, she would be quite emotional about it, I think.

It's pretty amazing.

♪ ♪

- It's always nice, as shipwreck hunters,

to give closure to a family.

This is a very, very special story

with an incredible ending.

♪ ♪

- But the "Nereus" and "Proteus"

are still out there somewhere.

♪ ♪

narrator: While the missing freighters

go back on Mike's map, one wreck can now be taken off.

- To actually document it positively,

having a name on the bow, that is just...

doesn't get better than that.

♪ ♪