Shipwreck found in Gulf of Maine more than 80 years after WWII sinking
The SS Cornwallis was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time when it was sunk by a German U-boat in the Gulf of Maine in December 1944, claiming 43 lives.
As for the shipwreck’s discovery off Mount Desert Rock this summer, the timing was impeccable.
Eight divers based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire — the Nomad Exploration Team — located the Canadian vessel nearly 400 feet below the surface in July and announced their find Tuesday.
The team began its search for the Cornwallis in 2019, seeking to locate one of the largest unfound shipwrecks left in New England and bring renewed attention to an eight-decade-old tragedy.
They were moments away from missing it completely.
It’s not the team’s first major discovery — it found the William H. Machen off the coast of Portsmouth in 2017 and the USS Eagle 56 off Cape Elizabeth a year later — but members told the Portland Press Herald this month that locating the Cornwallis required some of their most daunting dives to date.
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And equally as compelling as the New Brunswick-bound vessel’s story, the divers said, is that of the submarine that sank it, which is also forever tied to Maine.
DEC. 3, 1944
The 1944 sinking of the Cornwallis was actually the ship’s second encounter with a U-boat’s torpedo: It had been hit off the coast of Barbados two years prior.
Refloated, the 400-foot freighter — originally built in 1921 — was on its way from Barbados to St. John, New Brunswick, before its fateful encounter with the U-1230 on Dec. 3, 1944.
A story on U-boat sinkings in the Aug. 30, 1945, edition of the Portland Evening Express highlights the sinking of the SS Cornwallis. (Portland Evening Express/Newspapers.com)
The steam merchant ship was carrying sugar, molasses and 48 people, including seven armed guards, when it was struck by a torpedo at about 6 a.m.
It sank in minutes, according to contemporaneous newspaper reports, and the five survivors were rescued by the Portland fishing trawler Notre Dame and taken to Rockland.
More than one-third of the 43 who perished were from Nova Scotia. For dive team member Danny Allan, that made the mission personal.
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“One of the crew members grew up 10 miles from the house I grew up in,” he said.
But the Cornwallis was not the prime objective of the U-1230.
“The U-boat wasn’t looking for them,” said Don Ferrara, another member of the team. “They were just there.”
Operation Elster (or “Magpie” in English) is a story some Mainers may be more familiar with.
Days before sinking the Cornwallis, the U-1230 was at the crux of a Nazi intelligence operation when it dropped off two spies in the town of Hancock. The precise location — a beach on Crabtree Neck — was recognized by the National Register of Historic Places in 2003, dubbed the “Nazi Spy Landing Site.”
The two spies took a taxi to Bangor, caught a train to Portland and made their way to New York City. Their mission (to gain information about American industry and technology) was ultimately unfruitful.
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While the spies headed south, the U-1230 stayed off the Maine coast until they got clear, said dive team member Jeff Goodreau.
“Here comes the Cornwallis, and fate is made,” he said.
THE SEARCH
Between the beginning of its quest in 2019 and the climactic moment this July, the dive team undertook several expeditions looking for the Cornwallis. For every hour spent on the water, Allan said, there were at least 10 hours of groundwork.
Along with Allan, Ferrara and Goodreau, the other members of the discovery team are Mark Bowers, Josh Cummings, Bob Foster, Nate Garrett and Ryan King; the crew also enlisted the help of Ross Baxter, an experienced boat captain.
They knew its approximate location — roughly 10 miles southwest of Mount Desert Rock — but that still leaves a lot of ocean to scan.
One of the first steps was to gather as much knowledge as possible on the vessel and determine where it was most likely to have been at the moment it sank. That included digging into the history, pulling the ship’s archived blueprints, and talking with authors and historians.
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The team also came to lean on the knowledge of local fishermen. In wrecks as violent as those caused by a torpedo, there tends to be a lot of evidence left behind, and conversations with fishermen can reveal some clues.
Allan explained there were three potential locations: where the survivors were found, where debris was located, and where a mariner claimed to have pulled up the Cornwallis’ compass housing.
The Nomad Exploration Team on an expedition for the SS Cornwallis in the Gulf of Maine. (Photo courtesy of Nomad Exploration Team)
Then, there’s the Gulf of Maine to grapple with, which includes research into its topography, tide charts and weather reports.
“There are big tides up off of the Mount Desert area,” Goodreau said. “A lot of weather, a lot of fog. … Any way you look at it, the challenge is just getting there, whether it’s a five-hour run from Portsmouth or trailering a boat up there.”
JULY 11, 2026
The Nomad crew located the Cornwallis early on the second day of its July expedition and almost missed it — twice.
As the team began to scan the first grid of the ocean planned for July 11, it passed the Cornwallis on the boat’s port side, Allan said.
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“We’re looking at the side-scan sonar, and it was within 300 feet of our boat, and we did not recognize it,” Allan said.
Then came the second pass.
“We were in the last 100 yards of the last track,” Goodreau said. “We were reprogramming the GPS when it popped up.”
A sonar scan of the SS Cornwallis. (Image courtesy of Nomad Exploration Team)
And there it was, prompting a rush of excitement — and some expletives, the team members admitted.
“We were over the moon,” Ferrara said.
Then, they realized how close they came to missing it.
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“We would’ve written off that whole section as ‘we already looked there’ and wouldn’t have found it,” Allan said.
“We’d still be up there burning fuel and wasting time,” added Goodreau.
But a sonar scan matching the vessel’s design still leaves a little room for doubt. To be 100% certain, Allan said, “you go down, and you actually touch it.”
400 FEET TO GO
Along with the jubilation of finding a shipwreck comes solemnity, the team members said, and both grow stronger the closer you get.
“You’re the first person to see and touch this wreck literally in 80 years, so you’re ecstatic,” Allan said. “But it’s also extremely sobering because this is a grave. Forty-three souls lost their lives on this wreck.”
Nomad Exploration Team Members, from left, Jeff Goodreau, Don Ferrara and Bob Foster search for the SS Cornwallis. (Photo courtesy of Nomad Exploration Team)
Though they have decades of experience diving off New England’s coast, the Down East descents pushed them to their limits.
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“It’s very deep, it’s very cold, a lot of current,” Goodreau said. “Pretty much the worst-case scenario as far as diving goes.”
The first dive was the worst, Ferrara said, because his light died. He was essentially diving blind.
“It’s possibly the scariest dive I’ve ever done,” Ferrara said.
The maximum depth for recreational diving is 130 feet below the surface. Despite his experience as a technical diver, Allan said the nearly 400-foot dives to the Cornwallis tested his comfort zone.
“I’ve been stuck inside a U-boat while diving; I’ve been stuck in the back of caves. These were by far the hardest dives I’ve ever done,” Allan said, adding, “It’s at the limit, quite honestly, of what I am willing to do.”
Nomad Exploration Team members, from left, Bob Foster, Danny Allan and Don Ferrara. (Photo courtesy of Nomad Exploration Team)
And they’ll do it again: Allan said the team plans to explore the wreck at least once a year to document the Cornwallis’ state and rate of deterioration.
But the major payoff has already come, the team said.
“There are 43 families that lost brothers and sons and husbands. … It’s closure for their families,” Allan said.
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Tagged: Gulf of Maine, history, maine history, world war ii
Drew is the night reporter for the Portland Press Herald. He previously covered South Portland, Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth for the Sentry, Leader and Southern Forecaster. Though he is from Massachusetts,. More by Drew Johnson
