Ghostly wreck of Nazi-hunting ship that ‘helped capture Hitler’s spy boat’ finally found
THE WRECK of a US ship that hunted Nazi spies and sailed the seas for 88 years has been found.
The shipwreck of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear has been found in Canadian waters after an extensive search that has spanned decades.
The Bear was originally a commercial ship in 1874 before being purchased by the US government to do rescue work in the Arctic.
It also acted as a relief ship during the Spanish flu pandemic from 1918 to 1919.
Among many things it was a museum, a film set and was used by the US Navy during both world wars.
It even helped capture a Norwegian trawler that was telling the Nazi's the weather conditions in the North Atlantic.
It was decommissioned in 1944 but sank during a storm in 1963 as it was being towed to its intended destination of Philadelphia.
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People have been searching for its whereabouts for decades.
A more recent sonar mapping of 62 square miles of the seafloor helped identify two suspicious objects in Canadian waters,
Video has since confirmed that they are pieces of the ship about 167km from Nova Scotia's Cape Sable.
The exact location is being kept private for now.
Nets from fishing trawlers are said to have badly damaged the wooden hull.
The Bear has been a steamship and a diesel powered ship.
It helped save Arctic explorers and commercial boats in its time.
According to , Brad Barr, the mission coordinator for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Maritime Heritage Program, led the search for several years.
He said: "The Bear has had such an incredible history, and it's so important in many ways in American and global maritime heritage because of its travels."
He has detailed his findings about the ship on .
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