- Companion TV documentary to the National Geographic Magazine article "The Last Dive of I-52" - October 1999 issue. Original NBC / National Geographic TV broadcast: September 11, 1999. When it sank in the deep Atlantic near the end of World War II, the Japanese submarine I-52 went to the bottom with over 100 lives - and a cargo that included two tons of gold and other secrets. Now, a military veteran-turned-adventurer bucks the odds on a long-shot mission to solve a tantalizing mystery over 50 years old, as he embarks on a deep-sea search for the lost submarine and its cargo of gold. Plunge three miles to the ocean floor and explore the sub's twisted remains in an effort to locate the shipment of gold. Be privy to declassified intelligence reports that reveal how WWII code breakers helped track down the I-52 submarine. Be there as U.S. Navy veterans retell stories of their mission to hunt down and sink this Top Secret Japanese war machine.
- For decades, the World War II Japanese submarine I-52 was presumed lost forever on a Top Secret mission. A crew of over 100, little more than fading memories. The sub's discovery & subsequent exploration are posing more questions than they are answering - particularly about possible Nazi movement of atomic weapons technology into Japan.
Longer than a football field, its conning tower four-stories high, the I-52 was crossing the Atlantic on a classified cargo mission - carrying two tons of gold and other war materials to Nazi occupied Lorient, France. On a moonless night in June 1944, the I-52 rendezvoused with a German U-boat while being tracked by the Allies. Although the U-boat escaped, the I-52 was intercepted by an American Naval task force and torpedoed in a night-long Avenger bombing raid that sent the submarine to an icy grave more than three miles down.
In 1995, Paul Tidwell, a decorated Vietnam war veteran turned maritime researcher, used advanced underwater search technology to find the submarine. In November 1998, he returned with a group of experts for the first close-up inspection - the deepest commercial salvage expedition on record.
Resting nearly 3.2 miles down on the mid-Atlantic Ocean floor, the I-52 is some 1,200 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands. To reach the wreck site, the expedition team hired the Russian research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh and its two deep diving MIR (meaning Peace) submersibles - made famous in "James Cameron's Titanic" feature film. The MIRs are two of only five deep sea submersibles in the world that can make extended dives to a maximum depth of 6,000 meters (nearly 20,000 feet). The expedition sent the two submersibles down to the I-52 seven times to survey the wreck and learn its secrets.
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