A merchant ship lost off the coast of Maine during World War II has finally been located. The Nomad Exploration Team, a diving group based in New Hampshire, said this week that it found the wreck of the SS Cornwallis resting close to 400 feet below the surface.

The team pinpointed the ship in July using side scan sonar. Later dives in cold water and strong currents confirmed it was the Cornwallis.

Team member Danny Allan said the find capped years of stubborn effort. He added that it also puts a spotlight back on a tragedy that most people have forgotten.

A deadly December morning

The Cornwallis was a 400-foot Canadian steamship built in Vancouver in 1921. It first sailed as the Canadian Transporter before taking its new name. In 1942 a German submarine torpedoed it while it was anchored in Barbados. The ship settled in shallow water and was repaired.

In late 1944 it headed north from Barbados loaded with sugar and molasses for St. John, New Brunswick. On Dec. 3, while it moved along the Maine coast, the German submarine U-1230 fired a torpedo that hit near the bow. The Cornwallis went down in under 10 minutes.

Of the 48 people aboard, only six reached life rafts and one of them died of hypothermia. Fishing boats picked up the five survivors and handed them to a Navy ship that carried them to Rockland, Maine. The guns mounted on the Cornwallis were never fired.

The spy connection

The sinking drew extra attention because of what the same U-boat had done days earlier. On Nov. 29, 1944, U-1230 slipped two German agents ashore near Hancock, Maine. One was Erich Gimpel. The other was William Colepaugh, an American who had gone to Germany to train as a spy.

The pair made it to New York City without being caught. Investigators later learned that people in Hancock had noticed strangers around the time of the sinking. The plot fell apart when Colepaugh confessed to a friend who called the FBI. Gimpel was arrested days later.

A military court sentenced both men to death. Their sentences were later reduced to life in prison. U-1230, commanded by Hans Hilbig, survived the war before it was scuttled in 1945.

A time capsule underwater

For decades nobody knew exactly where the Cornwallis came to rest. The divers say the ship no longer looks like the vessel that sailed north with its sweet cargo. They describe it instead as an underwater time capsule from one of the strangest chapters of the war along the Maine shoreline.