Original subtitles

narrator: Tonight on "The Bermuda Triangle:

Into Cursed Waters"...

- We're on the ragged edge of what is considered a sane dive.

narrator: The team tackles

one of its most dangerous dives ever.

- Nobody's going this far offshore

to do a dive on a wreck like this.

This is unknown territory.

narrator: Do these remote and dangerous waters

hold a legendary Bermuda Triangle mystery?

- This is something significant.

narrator: How did the Triangle

swallow this massive ship?

- He would point to the ocean, and he said,

she's so beautiful, but she's a killer.

narrator: The team pushes themselves

to the limit to find out.

- If something goes wrong, it's not worth your life.

- It was a death trap,

period.

- We gotta go.

[dramatic music]

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.

- Oh!

- 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 gonna take these wrecks away.

The clock is ticking.

♪ ♪

- We've done a lot of deep dives.

We've done a lot of dives that are far offshore.

This is the combination of both of them.

It is basically a pretty crazy dive

to be trying to accomplish.

narrator: Wreck hunters Mike Barnette

and Jimmy Gadomski

are preparing for one of the most difficult

and remote dives they've ever attempted.

- This is a no-joke dive.

If something goes wrong, we're nowhere near shore.

narrator: Today's target: a wreck on the outskirts

of a busy shipping route that feeds

into the Bermuda Triangle.

It's nicknamed the Phosphate Carrier,

suggesting it holds some kind of chemical cargo.

- We got intel from fishermen that we have massive structure

on the bottom, lots of fish, lots of life.

And it's not a small boat.

This is something significant.

narrator: At over 400 feet, it's dangerously deep.

But even worse is its location...

at the edge of the Florida straits,

150 miles from civilization.

♪ ♪

It's an area known for nasty storms

that appear out of nowhere.

A typical dive boat would need 24 hours to get to the site.

Mike and Jimmy will use speedboats

to do it in seven, to hit it and get out

before bad weather starts.

- That's a lot of horses hanging off there.

- I know.

♪ ♪

- All right, guys, you got a few seconds.

narrator: For such a complicated dive,

they'll need extra personnel, including safety divers

and additional equipment.

- We have a lot of moving parts on this one.

This is a deep dive.

We're taking all the safety precautions that we could do.

We need to bring two boats with us.

If something happens to one vessel,

now the other vessel can come and get us.

narrator: But to Mike and Jimmy,

the extra risk is worth the potential reward,

because they have a strong hunch that this wreck

may actually be one of the most enduring

unsolved Bermuda Triangle area mysteries ever:

the disappearance of the "Marine Sulphur Queen."

- The "Marine Sulphur Queen" was a 500-foot T2 oil tanker

that was converted after naval service

to carry molten sulphur.

It was on a routine trip between Texas and Virginia

when it suddenly disappeared, never to be seen again.

- And it had a highly experienced crew

and an experienced captain.

So why it went missing without a trace

is still one of the biggest mysteries

in the entire Bermuda Triangle.

narrator: February 2, 1963,

the "Marine Sulphur Queen," nicknamed the "MSQ,"

sets out with more than 15,000 tons of molten sulphur,

a critical raw material for everything

from farming to pharmaceuticals.

- It essentially had a football field

of molten sulphur put into it.

That was potentially volatile.

narrator: 24 hours into her trip,

she hits a winter storm with 16-foot swells.

But that's nothing new for the "MSQ."

She's successfully sailed this route dozens of times before.

As she approaches the waters around the Bermuda Triangle,

she transmits one final call reporting nothing is amiss

and is never seen again.

♪ ♪

The only traces ever found

are small pieces of wreckage.

- Pieces of equipment, such as life jackets,

and other things that had the ship's name

actually washed up near the Florida Keys.

♪ ♪

- The coast guard launched a massive

air and sea rescue operation.

But unfortunately, it turned up nothing.

narrator: Authorities determine

the "Marine Sulphur Queen"

and all 39 souls on board were lost.

But the wreck is never located.

- The question is, how does a 500-foot vessel

just go missing,

vanishes with no distress call?

For us, the disappearance of the "Marine Sulphur Queen"

is a Bermuda Triangle mystery that our team

truly wants to solve.

♪ ♪

narrator: Having prepped their boats in daylight,

the dive team regroups at midnight.

♪ ♪

By 2:00 a.m., they are underway,

and the clock is ticking.

No one has ever looked for the "MSQ" where they're going.

60 years ago, the coast guard focused where the debris

washed up in the Florida Keys.

- Debris started washing up, so they started looking

for the "Marine Sulphur Queen" directly off of Key West.

narrator: But Barnette believes

they didn't extend the search for the wreck

far enough back towards the last known position

of the "MSQ."

- Knowing how fast the current is moving there

and how fast you can drift in, say, a day,

which we've gotten much better at now

with computer modeling and satellite technology,

they're definitely looking 100 miles too far east.

♪ ♪

narrator: After seven hours of high-speed travel,

the team reaches their target just as dawn breaks.

[indistinct chatter]

- I don't know much about much,

but I think that's probably our girl.

I don't know what else could be that big, that tall.

♪ ♪

narrator: The sonar is showing something

the size of a skyscraper lying horizontally on the sand.

- You don't get to see a structure like that very often.

- No. [laughter]

- You know what I mean?

God only knows what else is down there, you know.

♪ ♪

- Water's clear.

♪ ♪

narrator: The team drops their shot line.

- All right, good boy. Good boy.

- Throwing.

narrator: It will guide the divers down to the vessel

more than 400 feet below.

♪ ♪

- That is 345 right there.

♪ ♪

Done.

♪ ♪

narrator: The hook is set.

It's go time.

- Captain Steve, it looks like that the spot is holding.

We are going to initiate procedures for dive.

- Copy that.

♪ ♪

narrator: This wreck is almost twice as tall

as the Statue of Liberty.

- Dive, dive, dive.

[water splashing]

♪ ♪

- OK, Mike's in the water.

narrator: Yet the extreme depth

means they have only 15 minutes

to map it out before they have to begin

making their long, slow ascent back to the surface.

♪ ♪

Meanwhile the surface team keeps an eye out

for nasty weather.

- We're monitoring precipitation,

which happens here in Florida every day,

you know, 2:30, 3:00 in the afternoon.

♪ ♪

narrator: As the divers reach 400 feet,

the darkness enfolds them.

They strain to see their target.

[laughs]

narrator: And then...

[laughter]

- Whoo-hoo!

narrator: The team has come face-to-face

with a leviathan.

[dramatic music]

narrator: Wreck hunters Mike Barnette

and Jimmy Gadomski

are more than 400 feet below the surface

in search of a massive Bermuda Triangle mystery...

♪ ♪

The "Marine Sulphur Queen," lost in 1963.

With a wreck this large, their first goal

is to roughly map it out.

- On this dive, we want to see

what kind of wreck we're dealing with.

We try to find clues...

the size, the layout, the type of machinery,

anything we can find to help narrow down

the list of suspects that the vessel could be.

narrator: Jimmy stays below

to survey the debris on the seafloor

while Mike heads toward the bow.

♪ ♪

narrator: Jimmy spies rusted metal and wooden pieces,

likely from the ship's deck...

♪ ♪

But nothing with the ship's name on it.

And to the fish that make their home here,

Jimmy is an unwelcome intruder.

♪ ♪

- The fish that are this deep,

they've probably never seen a person before.

They're not used to people.

♪ ♪

narrator: Up on top of the wreck,

Barnett keeps an eye as the clock winds down.

They have no time to head into the holds.

They will definitely need another dive.

The challenge now is to get Jimmy's attention.

With so much more of the mammoth wreck to discover,

he has headed toward the stern.

- Whoo-hoo!

- I'm always thinking,

can I see a little bit more of this wreck?

Because we could look around the next corner

and make a huge discovery.

narrator: Mike knows they need to go now.

Staying even an extra minute can upend their deco time

necessary to avoid the bends,

a condition which could turn their blood to foam.

- I've been doing this a long time.

And I have been basically lured into the trap

of just a little bit longer, a little bit longer.

You can't get sucked into those traps, those pitfalls,

'cause if something goes wrong,

it's not worth your life or your health.

♪ ♪

narrator: On the surface, the crew is keenly aware

of the elapsed time and their distance from help.

- Each of the boats are equipped with devices

that allow us to communicate with special rescue

and emergency services personnel.

If something did happen bad out here,

they're gonna probably have to come get us.

♪ ♪

We certainly hope nothing like that would occur, but...

♪ ♪

narrator: Out here, a bag or buoy

is a smoke signal of sorts.

It can often serve as a warning

to those on the surface that someone below

needs their immediate attention.

- John, you ready?

narrator: Safety diver John Bumpus

quickly jumps in to see what the dive team

is trying to communicate.

♪ ♪

- There's bubbles here.

- Yeah. - There are bubbles. See them?

♪ ♪

narrator: Thankfully, it's just the grappling hook

that the team sent up.

- That means everything is good.

They were on the wreck.

They did their time on the bottom.

They have sent the grapple up,

so now they are deco-ing on that bag.

♪ ♪

narrator: Mike's rounded up Jimmy,

and they're slowly making their ascent,

adjusting to the changing pressure.

- Did we have that come up? - Yeah, one.

♪ ♪

Here comes another one.

♪ ♪

- [groans]

Whew!

- We came down on a massive wreck...

50 to 60 feet... rising off the seabed,

resting on its side.

- We landed about midship when we jumped in,

and then we made our way toward the bow.

- Again, we only saw about half the ship.

- Yeah. - It's so large.

Bottom time is so limited, so we don't know

if it's still in one piece.

♪ ♪

And then all too soon, it was time

to turn and head for the surface

and had to rodeo off Jimmy.

He was headed for the stern, and I'm like,

dude, it's time to go.

You're going the wrong way.

- I was going the right way in my mind.

- Yeah. Yeah. [laughter]

♪ ♪

narrator: The dive team heads for home

just as a nasty storm moves in over the wreck site.

♪ ♪

Back onshore, the land team is eager to hear

what Mike and Jimmy have found.

- You can see just this massive hull

stretching off into the gloom.

It was phenomenal. - Wow.

This looks like there might be valves.

- Exactly, it's a fingerprint of what kind of vessel it is

and what its purpose is.

It's not a cargo freighter.

- Is there any distinguishing features

that would tell us that this is the "Marine Sulphur Queen"?

♪ ♪

- When you see those valves,

that is a signature for a tanker.

♪ ♪

narrator: The wreck appears to be

a type T2 oil tanker,

just like the "MSQ."

♪ ♪

The T2s were part of the crucial

Allied fuel pipeline during World War II.

♪ ♪

The U.S. churned out nearly 500 of the ships

to ferry oil and gas supplies for the Allied war effort,

which meant every T2 had a target on its back.

- Wars are won and lost on the backbone of logistics.

Without oil, the ships that were actually fighting the war

would not be able to carry on their missions.

narrator: After the war, the "MSQ" was sold

and retrofitted to carry molten sulphur.

One coast guard theory was that the sulphur

caused a fire and explosion that took down the ship.

- When I look at the report, it begins

to raise a little bit of concern

about what could have happened.

narrator: In addition to concerns

about the 15,000 tons of molten sulphur

in its hold, the report also questions

the "MSQ's" hasty construction.

- It took only 70 days to build one of these ships.

- So the question is, were there problems

either with the cargo or the construction?

- That's the big question, and that's the mystery of this.

♪ ♪

narrator: While the dive team preps

for another run at the wreck,

the land team splits up to explore

the coast guard's leading theories.

♪ ♪

David meets up with historical investigator Wayne Abbott.

♪ ♪

[knocking]

- Welcome. - Hi. Hi, I'm David.

- Hi, David.

narrator: Wayne has found one of the few people

familiar with the inner workings of the "MSQ":

Beda Fanning, the daughter of the "MSQ's" captain,

James Fanning.

- So just tell us a bit about your father.

- He was a remarkable man, and he was a true seafarer.

And he worked his way up to a captain of a T2 tanker.

He just loved being at sea.

♪ ♪

- Take us back to February of 1963,

when you first learned about the loss

of the "Marine Sulphur Queen."

- The ship left on February 3rd.

My mother and my father,

their anniversary was February 7th.

He always sent her flowers.

Well, she didn't get any flowers.

She got a phone call from the coast guard

saying that the "Marine Sulphur Queen"

was lost.

narrator: Beda says her father

had a bad feeling before he left.

- She was carrying a tremendous amount

of molten sulphur.

The tanks were only 3 feet below the deck.

So there were several fires aboard.

♪ ♪

He wanted her dry-docked till January.

narrator: The "MSQ" was scheduled

for long-overdue repairs

but had just one more run to make first.

- And so he called my mother back aboard

to give her this for me.

If that wasn't a premonition, I don't know what is.

♪ ♪

- So really, there's one last voyage

for the ship and for your father.

- He accepted death.

I'm very proud of him.

He was a brave, brave soul.

♪ ♪

He would point to the ocean, and he said,

she's so beautiful, but she's a killer.

♪ ♪

narrator: Beda has reinforced

the coast guard's worries about fire.

But she also thinks they were right to question

"MSQ's" construction.

- The T2 tankers that were built in 1944

had a problem in terms of buckling.

They were weak.

narrator: It turns out, these World War II ships

had a history of structural failure.

- If her back broke, that was real fast.

It would let me know that there was

not a thing my father could have done to save his ship.

♪ ♪

- Talking to Beda Fanning is amazing.

- Yeah, it's quite obvious she's been

really researching into this for many, many years.

really researching into this for many, many years.

The only way we're gonna solve this

is to actually see what the wreck reveals to us.

narrator: It's a new day, and the dive team

hurtles back toward the massive wreck site

seven hours from civilization.

[dramatic music]

Called the Phosphate Carrier by locals,

they hope a second dive will allow them to find clues

that will help identify it as the legendary

"Marine Sulphur Queen,"

if they can actually get there.

A storm front is rolling in.

narrator: The team decides to push through,

although it will take additional gas stores

to keep the engines going at top speed.

♪ ♪

Meanwhile Jason is probing the coast guard theory

that the "MSQ" sank after a fire or explosion

caused by its sulphur cargo.

- So I started off in the offshore sulphur mines

when we were actually mining sulphur

in the U.S. back in the '90s. - Oh, wow.

narrator: Jack Cohn is the senior vice president

of sulphur and marine at Savage,

a global shipping and materials company.

He has worked with sulphur for nearly 30 years

and has studied the mystery of the "MSQ."

- Well, one of the theories in that coast guard report

was that there might have been an explosion

on the "Marine Sulphur Queen."

I would love to just get your perspective

on what you think could have potentially happened.

- Sulphur has to be kept at an elevated temperature

during transportation.

To keep the sulphur in a molten form,

they had to put a steam heating system

on that vessel,

very similar to that we have at this terminal.

We like to keep it in the range

of 200 to 275 degrees Fahrenheit.

♪ ♪

narrator: The team now knows the "MSQ"

was in shoddy condition,

and Cohn thinks that could have set the stage

for a chain reaction.

♪ ♪

It starts with H2S,

hydrogen sulfide, a flammable gas.

- Particularly back at that time,

a lot of sulphur was not degassed.

So H2S can evolve from the sulphur

in the vapor space of the tank.

♪ ♪

narrator: Bizarrely, the gas can be ignited

not by molten sulphur

but by a different material found on the "MSQ"

in large quantities:

rust.

- Sulphur particles over time can get trapped under rust

in the top of a sulphur tank.

And over time, a chemical reaction takes place.

It can ignite and cause a fire.

- Oh, wow.

narrator: Beda Fanning, the "MSQ" skipper's daughter,

said the ship was in bad shape and that there had been fires.

♪ ♪

Could the rust, sulphur, and unvented gas

have turned her into a 500-foot time bomb?

♪ ♪

- If they had such an explosion,

it likely would have breached the deck on the ship.

narrator: If the mystery wreck is the "MSQ,"

the divers should see evidence of this explosion,

not to mention the ship's uniquely colored cargo.

- So, Jack, when our divers go back down on this ship,

if they indeed have found the "Marine Sulphur Queen,"

they should see some evidence of sulphur on the ocean floor?

- Definitely.

When sulphur hits water, it's going to solidify.

The sulphur is gonna be in its original state,

in solid form on the seafloor.

♪ ♪

narrator: It's a crucial clue for the dive team to look for.

- One of the things that we learned was that

the chemical reactions that could have taken place

with the "Marine Sulphur Queen"

could have created a catastrophic explosion.

It could have happened so instantaneously

that the crew would have not had an opportunity

to send out a distress call.

narrator: That would track with the known facts

of the "MSQ's" disappearance.

♪ ♪

Mike and Jimmy will soon find out.

- Dive, dive, dive.

[water splashing]

- Gravity check.

♪ ♪

narrator: They'll search for evidence

of a sulphur explosion

or chunks of the yellow material itself.

♪ ♪

Jimmy probes for the best place to enter the wreck.

♪ ♪

The hull up here is mainly intact.

Then...

a gaping hole.

It looks to be fire or explosion damage.

narrator: Unlike the damaged deck,

the cargo holds appear intact.

And there is what looks like a golden hue

on much of the metal and seafloor.

♪ ♪

Could it be remnants of sulphur?

♪ ♪

The divers are tempted to head further into the ship.

But Mike has noticed something about the wreck

that might make that unwise.

- It's collapsed.

Gravity still works underwater,

and the vessel is starting to compress more.

And we're seeing the bow had dropped down

almost to the sand bed.

♪ ♪

narrator: Crucial evidence may rest

only feet away inside the wreck.

only feet away inside the wreck.

With the clock ticking down,

Mike and Jimmy must make a decision...

push on or call the dive.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

narrator: Wreck hunters Mike Barnette

and Jimmy Gadomski are in the holds of a giant wreck.

But there's a problem.

The wreck is on the verge of collapse.

Do they push deeper into the wreck in search of clues

or call the dive?

- The bow had broken off and collapsed

down to the seafloor.

You can see how it's just succumbed to its weight.

♪ ♪

narrator: The divers pull back.

It's too risky to swim deeper into this wreck.

♪ ♪

They turn their attention instead

to the yellow residue covering the metal they can see.

♪ ♪

narrator: But all too soon, time is up.

♪ ♪

Back on land, the rest of the team

investigates the theory raised by both the coast guard report

and Beda Fanning, the daughter of the ship's captain,

that the ship itself was fatally flawed.

- The T2s, they were rushed into mass production

during the Second World War.

There is a possibility, because they were

put together so fast, that there were some corners cut.

- Well, if it was a structural flaw,

we're going to the right place.

narrator: Colonna's Shipyard has had long-standing

contracts with both the navy and the coast guard.

They are familiar with how past and present

military vessels were put together.

♪ ♪

Wayne and Dave meet with welding engineer Andy Greig

in search of clues about the T2's

unique construction, which relied

not on rivets but welding.

- The T2 tankers were the first

all-welded classes of ships.

In the '40s, submerged arc welding was just coming about.

It was 20 times faster than any of the manual techniques.

narrator: And speed was what was called for.

Earlier naval vessels had riveted seams,

often taking years to build.

But the much faster welding process meant

that T2s could be turned around in only months.

[crowd cheering]

The record was 33 days.

Could mistakes have been made?

- The question is, is whether everybody was trained properly

for that kind of work.

narrator: But Andy explains it wasn't an issue

with the quickly trained welders.

It was something else that doomed the T2s:

their steel.

- The steels that they were using to build

riveted ships were not suitable to welding.

They had too much impurities in them.

♪ ♪

narrator: The welded seams of this dirty steel

were prone to becoming brittle.

Over a period of time, microcracks began to appear,

leading to structural failure.

- One of the main failures was a crack

that ran right across the deck.

- This is incredible because, I mean,

the theory we've been working under was maybe

that the guys who were being rushed into this,

maybe they didn't understand the new craft

that they were working on.

But what you're saying now is, right from the start,

they really didn't have much of a chance

when they were getting into this.

- You're right, they didn't know

that the steel was too dirty to be welded.

- Wow.

♪ ♪

- They didn't learn how the welding affected the steel

until you had some of those...

- Incidents that happened at sea?

- Right.

narrator: In 1943, the T2 tanker "Schenectady"

returns from sea trials and splits in half.

February 1945, another T2, the SS "Fort Mercer,"

splits in two off of Cape Cod.

Hours later, the SS "Pendleton,"

yet another T2,

is found nearby, cracked in half.

It was less than a year old.

♪ ♪

But Andy suspects the "MSQ" was doubly weakened.

- In the '50s, these ships were modified to extend their life.

What happened to the "Marine Sulphur Queen,"

they removed all the transverse bulkheads

to fit in a 300-foot-long cigar-shaped tank.

- And so what was the effect of taking out

those bulkheads on the ship?

- To remove all the center stiffeners,

and now it's more bendable.

- That isn't good, is it?

- No.

- That's unbelievable.

In all the years I've been basically hunting shipwrecks,

I've never heard of bulkheads being removed from a ship.

- It was so bad, they never did another conversion

like the "Marine Sulphur Queen."

♪ ♪

- It's kind of shocking, in a way,

when you take a compromised ship

and then compromise it even more by taking out bulkheads.

This has to be the most compromised vessel

that we've ever come across.

- It was a death trap.

It shouldn't have been at sea, period.

[dramatic music]

narrator: With the second dive and decompression complete,

Mike and Jimmy make their seven-hour transit to shore.

♪ ♪

The land team had hoped the divers would find

evidence of the "MSQ":

the missing bulkheads, the massive central tank,

or signs of sulphur.

- Is there any distinguishing features

that would tell us that this is the "Marine Sulphur Queen"?

Because it was gutted completely.

- It would be open.

- Yeah, they put in a chamber

that was almost, like, the size of a football field.

- Yeah.

- This is actually us going into the holds of the ship.

- Wow.

- Remember, everything's on its side.

So walls are now ceilings.

And everything's 90 degrees off.

narrator: But there's no sign

of the massive tank or anything else.

- What we could see in this hold,

it's missing sulphur.

♪ ♪

narrator: Upon closer inspection of the wreck,

the dive team concluded that the yellow hue

on the ship's surfaces was merely rust.

♪ ♪

Although much of the evidence fits the "MSQ"...

her massive size, the fact that she is a tanker,

and the location near her last known coordinates...

it's not adding up.

♪ ♪

Unlike the "MSQ," this wreck's bulkheads are still intact.

♪ ♪

Could there be another massive ship here

that no one has yet identified?

- We still have a huge mystery at hand

because this is not a little wreck.

This is a huge wreck that went down.

narrator: David will need to hit the archives

for additional candidates that the wreck could possibly be.

- I think we dig into the archival information...

- Yup.

- And we get back out on the wreck,

see if we can find anything more revealing on the site.

- I think we got a plan.

♪ ♪

narrator: As the dive team preps

for one last midnight run...

- All these up there? - Yes, sir.

- All right.

narrator: Dave searches for records

of other tankers that went down close to the wreck site.

♪ ♪

And there, in the logs, a cluster of three large ships

sunk not in the 1960s

but in the 1940s.

♪ ♪

May 1942, the U-boat "Menace"

creeps into the Gulf of Mexico.

[cannon booms, explosion]

Nazi U-boats begin taking out unescorted and unarmed

American vessels in rapid succession,

especially tankers.

A German sub named U-507 sneaks into the gulf

and sets its sights on its first victim:

the "Norlindo," a medium-sized freighter.

- The U-507 put a torpedo

right into the side of the "Norlindo,"

right into the starboard side.

narrator: With the Norlindo down,

U-507 turns toward two massive tankers

on the horizon, both almost identical to the "MSQ":

the "Munger T. Ball" and the "Joseph M. Cudahy."

♪ ♪

U-507 fires its torpedoes.

♪ ♪

[explosion]

57 American sailors

are killed in the attack.

- It looks like we have three possible candidates.

And, of course, one we can rule out immediately,

the "Norlindo," that was a freighter,

Which leaves us with two suspects, both tankers,

either the "Joseph M. Cudahy" or the "Munger T. Ball."

One of these two is our wreck.

Both were operating in this area,

and both were victims of U-507.

narrator: Dave forwards the information

to the rest of the team.

♪ ♪

In the cool and dark of the early-morning hours,

the dive team sets out on the water,

hurtling toward the straits for a final time.

♪ ♪

- Dive, dive, dive.

[water splashing]

♪ ♪

narrator: With only 15 minutes allotted

and the dive clock counting down,

they zero in on the bow,

one place where the ship's name is typically painted.

♪ ♪

Everywhere, corrosion and incrustation

are claiming the ship.

Soon it won't be recognizable.

- Diving these wrecks as soon as possible,

it's imperative because it's a race against time.

All too soon, there will be nothing more than just

a rough spot on the seafloor.

narrator: Floating one more time over the bow area,

something catches Barnette's attention.

♪ ♪

narrator: Lettering is faintly visible,

possibly a name.

♪ ♪

narrator: Seven hours from civilization, wreck hunters

Mike Barnette and Jimmy Gadomski

are diving a wreck that is stubbornly refusing

to divulge its secrets.

[dramatic music]

Now, finally, a breakthrough:

the faint outline of text near the bow of the ship.

♪ ♪

narrator: Unable to make out the text,

they document it with their cameras.

And then...

the clock has run out.

♪ ♪

narrator: After a three-hour decompression

and a seven-hour boat ride,

they rejoin the rest of the team

to review the evidence.

♪ ♪

- You guys did another dive. What'd you guys come up with?

- There was a question still of what potential target this is.

- Right.

- We got some footage to show you.

- We have some lettering on the bow.

- Wow.

- Usually on the bow, you have the name of the ship,

usually in brass letters or painted.

In this case, I actually turn the camera down and look at it

to see if I can make out the raised lettering.

And you can see what looks to be the name there.

But it's still partially obscured

from all the growth on the hull.

So it's really hard to make out exactly what it looks like.

♪ ♪

I could see what looked like an E.

- We ruled out that this was the "Marine Sulphur Queen,"

but it opened up the possibility

of two other vessels, both tankers.

narrator: Dave tells the team about the two oil tankers sunk

by Hitler's U-507 in the vicinity of our wreck,

hit by torpedoes within hours of each other:

the "Munger T. Ball" and the "Joseph M. Cudahy."

♪ ♪

Both have an E in their name.

- It's just not enough to give it 100% ID.

narrator: But Dave has something

that might help narrow it down...

- Check this out.

narrator: Footage that eliminates

one of the candidates,

recorded just a few months ago.

The United States Coast Guard was preparing

to remove oil still leaking from a sunken

World War II-era tanker 80 miles northwest

of the Dry Tortugas.

Multibeam sonar scans revealed the size and layout

of the wreck were an exact match

for one of the missing ships,

the "Munger T. Ball."

The coast guard held a ceremony honoring

the "Ball's" crew, who gave their lives

in service on that vessel.

- So that clears up the confusion.

It's definitely not the "Munger T. Ball."

narrator: That leaves only one option left,

the "Joseph M. Cudahy."

- So tell us about the "Cudahy" ship.

narrator: Just after 4:00 a.m. on the morning of May 5, 1942,

the "Joseph M. Cudahy," a 430-foot oil tanker,

heads toward the Straits of Florida

to refuel Allied ships

when they spot danger on the horizon:

the sinking "Munger T. Ball."

Unarmed and unescorted, they turn and attempt to flee,

taking evasive measures to avoid the same fate.

A torpedo blows a large hole in the starboard side.

- We were unprepared for the U-boat threat.

And they took advantage of that.

narrator: Riddled with bullets,

her oil tanks an inferno,

the wreck of the "Cudahy" bizarrely stays afloat,

burning for three long days.

♪ ♪

It explains the odd clue the divers saw on the wreck:

the utterly destroyed top deck.

- So there's our signature, right?

We're looking for one that has extensive fire damage.

- Yeah.

This does seem like it has the hallmarks of a tanker

that was attacked, probably burned.

The whole main deck is just eaten through.

She's lying on her starboard side.

She's probably obscuring any torpedo damage

from the original attack.

♪ ♪

I think we're highly certain that this is the wreck

of the "Joseph M. Cudahy."

♪ ♪

- 80 years ago, 27 American sailors

lost their lives when their ship...

this ship...was attacked.

Now their final resting place can at long last be marked.

The team will notify the U.S. Coast Guard

so the graves can be honored.

Meanwhile the mission continues.

- The "Marine Sulphur Queen" is still out there.

narrator: Mike remains confident in his theory

that the "MSQ" is somewhere in these unsearched waters.

♪ ♪

They are close.

But for now, they will search for new intel and new wrecks

in search of truth in the Bermuda Triangle.

♪ ♪