In 1918, a German torpedo sank a Coast Guard cutter in three minutes and took 131 Americans with it.
For 108 years, nobody knew where they went.
Last week, six volunteers found the answer — and what they saw on the seafloor will stay with you.
How German U-Boat UB-91 Took the USCGC Tampa in Three Minutes
On September 26, 1918, six weeks before the Armistice ended World War I, a German submarine commander spotted the silhouette of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Tampa in the Bristol Channel and fired one torpedo.
Three minutes later, all 131 people aboard were gone — 111 Coast Guardsmen, four U.S. Navy personnel, and 16 British naval personnel and civilians.
It was the single largest American naval combat loss of the entire war.
The Tampa had spent 11 months doing dangerous, grinding work — escorting 18 convoys from Gibraltar to Great Britain through submarine-infested Atlantic waters, protecting more than 400 Allied ships.
Her crew had earned a reputation for selfless service.
An electrician once jumped overboard in open ocean to rescue a drowning British officer.
Two medical officers rowed to a neighboring vessel to treat an injured sailor who wasn't even their responsibility.
The crew even lent out their ice cream freezer without permission — and got in trouble for it.
Then Captain Charles Satterlee made a fateful request.
Running low on coal, he asked permission to break from the convoy and refuel.
The first request was denied — daylight sailing alone was too dangerous.
The second was approved at 4 p.m.
Hours later, traveling through a moonless night with all lights extinguished, UB-91 found her anyway.
Just 131 telegrams, delivered to families across America.
The Purple Heart That 49 Families Never Received
The Purple Heart didn't exist in 1918.
The medal wasn't awarded to the Tampa's crew until 1999 — 81 years after the torpedo hit.
Since then, the Coast Guard has been running a quiet campaign to track down the families of every man aboard and personally deliver the honor.
As of 2019, 49 Purple Hearts were still unclaimed.
The families knew their sons and husbands had died on a ship called the Tampa.
They just didn't know where the ship was.
That changed on April 26, 2026.
How the Gasperados Dive Team Found the Wreck on Their Tenth Attempt
Steve Mortimer and five fellow divers from the British volunteer team Gasperados had spent three years hunting the wreck.
They contacted the Coast Guard Historian's Office in 2023, who provided archival photos, blueprint schematics, deck fitting records, and images of the ship's wheel, bell, and weaponry.
The Gasperados identified ten possible sites and dove on every one.
Nine were wrong — fishing vessels, other wrecks, dead ends.
On the tenth dive, Mortimer descended past 300 feet into darkness off the coast of Cornwall.
At the bottom, a warship took shape.
Portholes by the hundreds, still intact after a century because they were cast in brass.
Ammunition blanketing the seafloor.
Bridge gear described as "most immaculate."
An anchor matching the archival photographs exactly.
A plate stamped with the words "Trenton, New Jersey."
Diver Dominic Robinson surfaced two and a half hours later and said, still removing his gear: "On the balance of probability, I think that is probably the Tampa."
One hundred and eight years after UB-91 fired that torpedo, the Tampa was found.
A War Grave 300 Feet Down and the Families Who Finally Know
Six unpaid volunteers did in three years what nobody else had managed in a century.
They got equipment failures, low visibility, nine consecutive dead ends, and conditions that made the search look impossible.
They kept going because, as team leader Steve Mortimer put it: "Their final resting places need to be known, and their stories need to be told."
Since the announcement, families of the Tampa's crew have been reaching out directly to the divers.
Some had carried the story for generations — knowing their grandfather or great-uncle died on a ship called the Tampa, never knowing where it rested.
The youngest sailor lost was 15-year-old Irving Slicklen — tall for his age, he'd enlisted after school one day without telling his family.
His great-grandmother ran to the recruiting office in her bed slippers when she found out.
She was too late.
Now at least his family knows where he is.
The Coast Guard is planning robotic exploration of the site, which will be designated a war grave.
Coast Guard Commandant Kevin Lunday said: "When the Tampa was lost with all hands in 1918, it left an enduring grief in our service. Locating the wreck connects us to their sacrifice and reminds us that devotion to duty endures."
One hundred and thirty-one Americans served, protected, and died.
It took six volunteers and three years to give them the only thing left to give — a place on the map.
Sources:
- Andrea Margolis, "Wreck of deadliest US naval loss of World War I found after more than a century," Fox News, May 10, 2026.
- "WWI Coast Guard Cutter Tampa wreck found by divers 106 years after sinking," Fox News, April 30, 2026.
- "Wreckage of Coast Guard cutter Tampa, sunk by a U-boat in WWI, found off England," WUSF Public Media, May 6, 2026.
- "Recent World War I shipwreck discovery the latest chapter in the legacy of Goffstown's Fred Wesley Wyman," Union Leader, May 2026.
- "Coast Guard Cutter Tampa Wreck Discovered Off Cornwall," Tampa Bay Business and Wealth Magazine, April 30, 2026.
- U.S. Coast Guard, "USS Tampa Purple Heart Medal Campaign," Coast Guard Historian's Office.