SS ARMENIA ELUDES SEARCH CREW
By Sandra Jontz
Stars and Stripes
Sept 18 2008
DC
USNS Pathfinder probe discovers 2 other vessels
They didn’t find the SS Armenia, but U.S. and Ukrainian oceanographers
and scientists did come across two other vessels submerged in the
deep and murky waters of the Black Sea.
The oceanographic survey ship USNS Pathfinder, under Military Sealift
Command, started searching Sept. 7 for the Soviet-flagged hospital
ship SS Armenia, sunk in 1941 by the German Luftwaffe, officials said.
Using a remotely operated vehicle equipped with underwater video
capabilities, teams instead managed to identify the German coastal
submarine U-18, and the RUS Prut, a Russian minelayer sunk in 1914
during World War I, U.S. officials said.
At the request of Ukrainian officials, civilian surveyors from the
U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office, Ukrainian sailors, surveyors and
historians, and a team of civilian oceanographers from the U.S.-based
Institute for Exploration searched waters at depths ranging from about
300 feet to 3,300 feet for the hospital ship, sunk during World War
II with 7,000 people on board.
"The sea floor is a resting place for brave sailors, regardless of the
country they come from," Serge Gulyar, head of Underwater Physiology
Department at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, said in
a statement released by the U.S. Navy.
But the high-tech, 328.5-foot-long Pathfinder had only three weeks to
conduct the search, and has ended the quest because of rules spelled
out in the Montreux Convention, a treaty that restricts the time
vessels foreign to the nations that rim the Black Seat can spend there.
"I am happy with the amount of work that we were able to accomplish
during this survey," IFE chief scientist Katy Croff said in a
statement. "During this exploration we discovered many sonar targets
that we hope to investigate and identify during future projects."
The ship finished its mission Tuesday.