A submarine wreck was discovered in Isla San Telmo, a small island in Panama. This wreck is believed to have belonged to the Japanese, but they denied it when they were asked whether they recognized it. Nonetheless, a study that a German diver conducted indicated that the wreck had indeed been dumped by the Japanese in 1942 in their endeavor to destroy the Panama Canal. However, it is essential to note that the engineer who built the submarine was not Japanese.
San Telmo Island
Isla San Telmo is an island in Panama, named after Saint Erasmus, also known as St. Elmo, a martyr in the 4th century.
The island is clearly visible when sailing towards the port of Balboa. The Isla San Telmo Natural Reserve was set up in 1966 to protect the island.
San Telmo Island is small and one of the 200 or so islands that comprise the Pearl Islands. This island can be found on the southeast side. It has an area of approximately 1.73 square kilometers.
The Submarine Wreck
This masterpiece is among the oldest submarines still in existence and is believed to have been built in 1869.
Locals discovered this submarine, and they believed that the Japanese had sent it to destroy the Panama Canal Pacific entrance.
A marine archeologist named James Delgado was passing through San Telmo Island in 2001 when someone asked him to look out for the wreck of a Japanese submarine used in World War II. Once the tide receded, he saw some rusted metal in the water. When the water was at an even more reasonable level, he saw what looked like a submarine; and it was extremely wet and stained orange and red from corrosion.
A Big Surprise
The submarine did not look like a Japanese undersea warship. Also, it did not resemble any submarine he had ever set his eyes on. However, it shared some resemblance with Holland I and other ships made by John Holland, an Irish-American inventor. He was not the one who had made it though; this submarine was tiny compared to what John Holland used to make. It was also cigar-shaped and had a low coning tower. Typically, submarines have towers with high coning. The sub looked like it had spent quite some time in the water, and the sea salt had eaten it up quite a bit. Delgado could tell that the wreck must have been there a long time. He wondered who it belonged to and why they had dumped it there.
There definitely had to be a story behind this submarine. He jumped into the ocean and made his way towards the wreck. When he got to it, he saw that it was lying firmly on the sand. He didn’t stop there; he went inside. It was in terrible shape. Protruding metals had been destroyed by the water, and the submarine was also quite old.
The Age of the Artifact
The hull of the sub appeared to be from the 1900s. However, the iron bars told a different story; they looked like they were from the 1850s. The vessels had a small and narrow conning tower, and Delgado could hardly fit inside. The hull also had too many holes. Using one hand to support himself, he proceeded into the hatch while holding his camera with the other. He expected the water inside to be chest high, but luckily, it was only waist high. He realized that he was stepping on sand, so he used the light of his camera to see what was going on.
At that point, Delgado noticed that there was too much sand inside the submarine, making it a possible habitat for dangerous sea snakes. At that point, he got scared and left the wreck. Nonetheless, he could not let this out-of-the-ordinary ship go and was most definitely going to research it.
Sub Marine Explorer
He spent the next two years trying to identify the wreck without success. However, after those two years, he received a blueprint from a colleague, Richard Wills. It was from a scientific journal published in 1902. The blueprint perfectly matched the shape of the submarine. According to the journal, the submarine was known as “Sub Marine Explorer,” and its chief engineer was Julius H, Kroehl. His signature was on the blueprint, which contained other important information about him as well. Delgado then realized that the Explorer was probably a lifetime discovery.
"Iron Coffin"
Over time, Delgado’s research revealed that the submarine probably contributed to the death of its very own inventor. Despite the technological advances of the craft, humankind still didn’t know enough about decompression sickness, or what is referred to as “the bends.” Eventually, the Explorer was acquired by the Pacific Pearl Company, and a New York Times article reported that divers had collected 10.5 tons of oysters and pearls over 11 days in August 1869, but afterward, all of the divers died.
Putting aside the sub’s tragic history, there is no denying that Delgado’s expedition would produce insights about the earliest submarines.