On February 27, 1944, the USS Greyback, one of the Pacific Fleet’s most successful submarines, vanished without a trace in the East China Sea.
All 80 crew members were lost—no distress call, no survivors, no wreckage. For 75 years, the U.S. Navy believed it knew where the submarine had gone down, relying on Japanese wartime records and logged coordinates. Multiple search expeditions spent millions scanning the seafloor, but found nothing except endless sand and black water.
The mystery endured until a Japanese researcher, re-examining original wartime documents, made a simple but crucial discovery: one digit in the coordinates had been mistranslated.
That single error shifted the search area by a hundred miles. When an advanced underwater drone finally descended to the corrected location—1,400 feet down in the midnight zone—the cameras revealed the Greyback, sitting upright on the ocean floor. But what they recorded challenged everything historians thought they knew about submarine warfare.
The Greyback wasn’t just another submarine. By 1944, it was a legend, having sunk over 63,000 tons of Japanese shipping in less than two years. Its commander, John Moore, was trusted implicitly by his crew, who represented a mix of seasoned veterans and young sailors.
Submarine service was unforgiving, and the men aboard the Greyback were among the Navy’s best. Their final mission was standard: hunt Japanese supply lines, sink enemy ships, and return home. But the waters they patrolled were some of the most dangerous in the Pacific, within range of Japanese air bases and heavily trafficked by enemy vessels.
After the Greyback failed to return, the Navy declared it lost. Families received terse telegrams—no bodies, no answers, only the knowledge that their loved ones had disappeared into the deep.
For decades, searchers relied on the original coordinates, but the ocean yielded nothing. Theories proliferated: mutiny, secret weapons, supernatural explanations. But the truth was far simpler—a translation error had sent every search to the wrong place.
In 2018, Japanese engineer Utaka Iwasaki discovered the mistake. The longitude in the original Japanese report was 128°, not 127° as recorded by the Americans. With this correction, the Lost 52 Project launched a new search. In 2019, using the latest autonomous underwater vehicles and remotely operated cameras, the team found the Greyback at last.
The discovery was emotional. The submarine was intact, sitting upright, its deck gun still in firing position. This indicated the crew had tried to fight back against the attacking Japanese aircraft.
The conning tower showed a massive hole—evidence of the direct hit from a 500-pound bomb. The outer hatch was open, suggesting men were still trying to get below when the bomb struck. The submarine had been diving when it was hit, and water would have flooded the control room instantly.
Inside, the cameras revealed something haunting: the crew were still at their stations. In the engine room, the torpedo room, and the control room, remains were found where the men had been performing their duties.
Unlike victims of surface ship sinkings, who often scramble for escape, submarine crews have no such option. Their only chance of survival is for everyone to do their job until the last moment. The cold, dark water preserved a snapshot of their final minutes—a “Pompeii of the Pacific.”
The site is now classified as a war grave. Salvage and artifact removal are forbidden. After documenting the wreck, the expedition held a ceremony, reading the names of all 80 sailors and lowering a wreath into the water above the site.
The families of the Greyback finally had closure—a location, a story, and the knowledge that their loved ones died doing their duty.
The discovery of the Greyback is a reminder of the fallibility of history. A single mistranslated digit hid the submarine for 75 years. Now, as researchers continue to search for the 41 other missing U.S. submarines from World War II, they know that answers may be hidden in forgotten files and overlooked details. The ocean is vast, but not infinite. For those still missing, the search goes on.
