WASHINGTON: The sunken wreckage of a US submarine lost with all hands during World War II has been located off an island in the Aleutian chain, the US Navy said on Friday.

The USS Grunion disappeared July 30, 1942 with 70 crew members after conducting operations against Japanese forces who had seized the Aleutian island of Kiska.

Acting on a tip, sons of the submarine’s commander, Lieutenant Commander Mannert Abele, mounted two expeditions to find the missing submarine and located it at a depth of 3,200 feet off Kiska.

“It’s like we won the lottery 10 times in a row,” Bruce Abele, eldest son of Grunion’s commanding officer, was quoted as saying. “It is so dramatic to see the underwater photo and be certain it was in fact Grunion.” Side scan sonar experts first detected a target on the first expedition in August 2006, and the following year obtained images of the wreckage using a high definition camera on a robot.

Rear Admiral Douglas McAneny, commander of the US submarine fleet in the Pacific, said the navy was able to positively identify the wreckage as the Grunion using images provided by the Abeles.

“We hope this announcement will help to give closure to the families of the 70 crewmen of Grunion,” he said in a statement.—AFP