Around 80 years after being sunk by enemy troops, a US Navy underwater that sank the most Chinese vessels during World War Two has been discovered in the South China Sea.
The USS Harder was found 3, 000ft (914m ) below water off the Philippines ‘ northern island of Luzon.
The Harder was sunk in war on 29 August 1944, along with its team of 79 people.
According to the US Navy’s History and Heritage Command ( NHHC), it sank three Japanese destroyers in one of its final war patrols and seriously damaged two others in four days.
This caused the Chinese to alter their strategy and put off building their ship force, which contributed to their defeat.
” Harder was lost in the course of success. We must never forget that success has a cost, as does freedom”, said Samuel J. Cox, a withdrew US commander who heads the NHHC.
One of the main Pacific battlefields of World War Two was the Philippines, where the US battled to retake control of its former town from the Japanese Imperial Army.
The archipelago’s waters have been a place of revered World War Two ships ‘ final resting places.
In 2015, US billionaire Paul Allen located the wreck of the Musashi, one of the two largest Japanese warships ever built, in the Philippines’ Sibuyan Sea.
The Harder, which sailed under the tagline of” Hit ‘ em harder’, was found by the Lost 52 project, which aims to find the 52 US submarines lost during World War Two. It was found sitting up on its hull or back, and relatively unchanged, the US Navy said.
Eventually, the submarine and its staff were given the Presidential Unit Citation for their support in the war. The award recognizes unusual heroism in action.
Its captain, Commodore Sam Dealey, was posthumously awarded the US’s highest defense design, the Medal of Honor.