The SS Cornwallis had already been sunk once before. In September 1942, the 400-foot-long (120-meter-long), 5,458-ton merchant steamer had been torpedoed near Barbados. But there was a war on, and so, after refloating and repairs, the Cornwallis once again departed Barbados bound north, ferrying bags of sugar and barrels of molasses—until a German U-boat sank the unlucky cargo ship for the second and final time.

The final resting place of the SS Cornwallis, as well as the bodies of the 43 crew members who lost their lives in this fatal December 3, 1944 torpedo strike, had remained a mystery for over 80 years. All that was known for sure was that the merchant vessel had been sunk somewhere off the coast of Maine. But, after seven years of searching, self-funded technical divers with the volunteer Nomad Exploration Team say they have discovered the World War II-era wreck about 400 feet (122 m) under the Atlantic, near Maine’s lonely lighthouse island, Mount Desert Rock, roughly 25 miles (40 kilometers) off the mainland.

“Very quickly we discovered why it had not been found,” one of the discovery team’s divers, Danny Allan, explained in a YouTube video update. “First of all, freezing water. I think we were diving up there earlier this year and I think the warmest I saw was 42 degrees [Fahrenheit, or about 6 degrees Celsius] on the bottom.”

“Secondly, the currents are ripping up there,” Allan continued. “It’s just outside the Bay of Fundy … [which] has tides that go 30 to 50 feet—and actually, during the tidal pull the current is running at about 10 knots.

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