A team of scientists and explorers aboard the Ocean Exploration Trust’s EV Nautilus has discovered the wreck of the World War II Japanese Navy destroyer Teruzuki on the seabed, beyond 800-m depth in the Solomon Islands.

Using ROVs to investigate a target found during seafloor mapping operations by the University of New Hampshire’s USV DriX, the team found the ship resting in Iron Bottom Sound.

Teruzuki was sunk in WWII’s battles off Guadalcanal. Using historical references, experts confirmed the identity of the ship. The expedition team gathered survey details of the wreck, including a 19-m-long severed segment of Teruzuki’s stern littered with depth charges, which disproves a long-held theory that it was depth charge explosions that sealed the ship’s fate. Severed by torpedo strikes, Teruzuki’s stern was found more than 200 m from the hull and located by high-resolution ROV sonar scans. The ship was found with its forward artillery turrets pointing skyward. 

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