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Maritime archaeologists tracking the victims of Nazi U-boats during World War II have explored a Navy patrol boat that has been untouched since it sank off the Outer Banks in 1942.

The converted trawler YP-389 was found about 18 miles off Hatteras Inlet last month by an expedition led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration studying shipwrecks left from the WWII battle for control of East Coast shipping lanes, maritime archaeologist Joe Hoyt said.

Finding a World War II-era vessel is rare, researcher Richard Lawrence said. Of the 137 Allied, German and merchant vessels lost off North Carolina during World War II, about 40 have been located, said Lawrence, head of the state Department of Cultural Resources' North Carolina Archaeology Branch.

Lawrence said the expedition team compared video sent by an underwater robot sent down to find the vessel with old photos of the ship.

Footage of the wreck shows a ship's skeleton with light fixtures, batteries, fire extinguishers and port holes scattered around it, The Virginian-Pilot reported. The metal sides of the hull had fallen to the side.

The patrol boat originally was detected in the 1970s by a team searching for the Civil War-era warship Monitor. The remains of as many as five men may be inside the 102-foot vessel resting under 325 feet of water, said David Alberg, superintendent of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary.

YP-389 lost a 90-minute surface battle with the German U-701, which was sunk two weeks later by Army aircraft about 10 miles north.

In accounts told by survivors, the YP-389 used .30-caliber machine guns and depth charges to attack the Germans, who returned fire with 20 mm flak guns and 88 mm deck guns.

from The Richmond Times Dispatch