On July 15, 1942, a convoy of 19 merchant ships escorted by ships from the Navy and Coast Guard were sailing to Key West, Florida, from Norfolk, Virginia, to deliver war cargo when the U-576 attacked them.
Alerted to the U-boat's presence, a Coast Guard cutter dropped depth charges but the German sub was able to get off four torpedoes, striking the Bluefields and severely damaging two other ships.
The Bluefields sank.
The U-576 was evidently surfaced at one point as it was struck by gunfire from an armed merchant ship and then it was straddled by depth charges dropped by escort aircraft.
The Bluefields and U-576 rest on the seabed less than 240 yards apart.
All 45 men aboard the U-576 died and the convoy had four dead.
The discovery of the two ships was because of a 2008 partnership between the NOAA and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to survey vessels lost during World War II off North Carolina. The two vessels were located this past August by a NOAA research ship.
--GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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