Lost 52 Project


The Lost 52 Project is a private organization founded by Tim Taylor to do research on the 52 U.S. Navy submarines lost on patrol during the Second World War, performing discovery, exploration, and underwater archeology where possible.
Found, so far:
SubmarinesDate lostCircumstances of lossDate found
USS S-3621 January 1942Scuttled after striking Taka Bakang reef near Sulawesi13 May 2001
4 May 1945Depth charged by Japanese escort ships while attacking a convoy in the Gulf of ThailandMay 2005
30 July 1942Sank after torpedo and dive plane malfunction near KiskaAugust 2006
11 October 1943Sunk after combined aerial bombing and surface depth charging in the La Pérouse Strait31 October 2006
3 March 1942Depth charged on 1 March, partially repaired, then scuttled after being fired upon on the surface to prevent falling into enemy hands near Surabaya23 November 2006
13 August 1944Struck a mine and sunk in the Balabac Strait1 February 2009
12 June 1943Sank due to flooding from unknown causes in forward battery compartment near Key West25 May 2011
24 January 1942Sank after collision with Sub chaser PC-460 in the Gulf of PanamaSeptember 2014
4 July 1944Sank under unknown circumstances near Oahu20 September 2017
26 July 1944Presumed to have struck a Japanese mine near Palawan IslandMay 2019
29 May 1958Sank after collision with during training near HawaiiAugust 2019
27 February 1944Sunk by aerial bomb from Japanese B5N torpedo bomber in the East China Sea10 November 2019
4 April 1946Used as a target ship and sunk by torpedo fire4 August 2020
24 August 1944Depth charged by Japanese escort ships while attacking them near Dasol BayMay 2024

The organization has not limited itself to discovery of submarines. It has also located other Navy ships:
ShipDate LostCircumstances of lossDate found
12 April 1945Struck by kamikaze plane and Japanese flying suicide bomb during the Battle of OkinawaDecember 2022