Nomad Exploration Team locates SS Cornwallis wreck off Maine coast

The wreckage of the SS Cornwallis has been found nearly 400 feet below the ocean surface. The Nomad Exploration Team announced the discovery this week, ending a decades long search for the vessel that sank in 1944.

The team identified the ship using side scan sonar and confirmed its identity with subsequent dives. Members of the group, based in New Hampshire, reported that they had to manage cold water, strong currents, and a remote location to reach the site. The find resolves a mystery that persisted for more than 80 years.

The Cornwallis was a 5,458-ton steam merchant ship built in Vancouver, British Columbia. It launched in 1921 under the name Canadian Transporter before being renamed after transferring to Canadian National Steamships. The vessel carried a cargo of sugar and molasses when it departed Barbados in November 1944. It was bound for St. John, New Brunswick.

The ship traveled with defensive weapons that included a 4-inch gun, a 12-pound gun, and machine guns mounted on the bridge. Nautical historian Eric Wiberg noted that none of these weapons were fired during the final voyage. The vessel moved along the Maine coastline on Dec. 3, 1944.

German submarine U-1230, commanded by Hans Hilbig, spotted the merchant ship. The U-boat fired a torpedo that struck near the bow of the Cornwallis. The vessel plunged beneath the waves in less than 10 minutes. Of the 48 people on board, only six reached life rafts. One person died of hypothermia, leaving five survivors who were rescued by fishing boats and transferred to a U.S. Navy ship in Rockland, Maine.

The sinking occurred four days after the same submarine executed a covert operation. On Nov. 29, 1944, U-1230 dropped two Nazi spies, Erich Gimpel and William Colepaugh, near Hancock, Maine. Their assignment was to gather intelligence in the United States. Colepaugh, an American, had traveled to Germany for espionage training in 1944.

FBI investigators later learned that residents in Hancock had seen strangers roaming the area around the time of the sinking. The agents traveled from Maine to New York City without being detected initially. Colepaugh confessed to a friend, who alerted the FBI. Gimpel was arrested days later. A military court sentenced both men to death, but their sentences were commuted to life in prison.

Danny Allan, a member of the dive team, stated that finding the wreck was the culmination of years of persistence. He added that the discovery brings renewed attention to a largely forgotten tragedy. The Nomad Exploration Team described the Cornwallis as an underwater time capsule from an unusual episode of the war.

U-1230 survived the war and was scuttled in 1945. The Cornwallis had previously survived a torpedo attack in 1942 while anchored in Barbados. That earlier strike caused severe damage, but the ship was repaired and returned to service.