The sunken vessel has been identified as the World War II submarine USS Flier (SS 25) and was found by the Canadian film crew in the Balabac Straight area of the Philippines last Spring during filming of Submarine Graveyard, an episode of the upcoming television documentary adventure series  DIVE DETECTIVES, which airs on History Television in Canada and around the world on National Geographic.

Submarine Graveyard, telling the story of the discovery of the USS Flier, will air on History Television in Canada on Wednesday, April 7 at 6:00 pm ET/PT (repeated at 11:00 pm ET/PT). It is directed by Michael Morrow.

“We’re obviously both excited and honoured to have found this missing sub,” says Halpern, “and we hope this discovery will provide some closure to the families of the 78 crewmen lost when Flier struck a mine in 1944.”

The discovery was confirmed by US Navy Commander, Submarine Forces Pacific Fleet (COMSUBPAC), Rear Adm. Douglas McAneny. “With video evidence and information from yap films and assistance from the US Naval History and Heritage Command, USS Flier has been located,” said McAneny. 

USS Flier, a 1525-ton Gato class submarine built at Groton, Connecticut, was commissioned in mid-October 1943. In early August 1944 Flier left Fremantle, Australia, for her second war patrol. On 13 August, while transiting shallow water to enter the South China Sea, she struck a mine and quickly sank. Fourteen of 86 crewmen escaped, but only eight survived the subsequent long swim to reach shore. After making their way by raft to Palawan and being protected by local people and a group of guerrillas, at the end of the month they were evacuated by the submarine USS Redfin (SS-272).

The last surviving crew member of Flier, Ens. Al Jacobson, never gave up the search for his lost shipmates.  Sadly, Jacobson passed away in 2008, but his family was determined to continue the search.  The family provided notes and research to yap films, which was investigating the nautical mystery as part of its new TV documentary series DIVE DETECTIVES, and Jacobson’s son Steve and grandson Nelson participated in the search.

“After my father retired in 1990, he became very active in the quest to understand more of what happened,” said Steve Jacobson.  “He put together as much information as he could from naval records of the investigation and put together charts of where he believed Flier was.  We provided yap films with everything my father had collected.”  

In the spring of 2009, with the aid of the Jacobson family, the team from yap films located wreckage of a submarine in the area that USS Flier was lost.  Father-and-son divers Mike and Warren Fletcher, who star in the TV series, captured the first views of the sunken submarine in more than 64 years.  Yap provided the Naval History and Heritage Command with footage taken in the Balabac Strait to aid in the identification. 

"The Flier discovery presented us with one of our most challenging dives,” said  DIVE DETECTIVES’ underwater explorer Warren Fletcher.  “At a depth of 330 feet there is little margin for error.  As my father and I descended into the dark blue water, the unmistakable shape of a Gato-class submarine came into view.  That moment made all of the hard work and danger pale in comparison with the feeling of pride it gave me to know that the Flier and her crew would not be forgotten."

With the information provided by yap films, COMSUBPAC and the Naval History and Heritage Command examined the evidence and historical records and determined that the submarine found at the reported position could only be USS Flier. The gun mount and radar antenna clearly identifiable in the video matched historical photographs of USS Flier.  Additional identifiable characteristics of the hull indicated that the wreck is indeed a Gato-class submarine.  These factors taken together led COMSUBPAC and the Naval History and Heritage Center to conclude that the wreck found by yap could only be that of USS Flier. 

"The Flier was found because all the right people came together for all the right reasons,” said Mike Fletcher.  “But mostly the Flier was found because of the love a family has for their dad."

“It was a pretty emotional experience,” said Jacobson.  “Although I was really confident of the position, you still don’t know.  Literally, it was exactly at the coordinates he said it would be.  It is tremendous closure and I wish that my dad could have experienced this.”

By the end of World War II, US submarines had made more than 1,600 war patrols. Pacific Fleet submarines like Flier accounted for more than half of all enemy shipping sunk during the war.  The cost of this success was heavy: 52 U.S. Pacific Fleet submarines were lost, and more than 3,500 submariners remain on “eternal patrol.”

The exciting new yap films television series  DIVE DETECTIVES launches on History Television in Canada on Wednesday, March 31 at 6:00 pm ET/PT (repeated at 11:00 pm ET/PT) with the episode The Edmund Fitzgerald. The premiere episode reveals new evidence that dramatically changes the accepted version of events relating to the sinking of the US freighter on Lake Superior in 1975 – a saga made famous in Gordon Lightfoot’s iconic song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. 

In DIVE DETECTIVES, father-and-son professional divers and explorers Mike and Warren Fletcher are on a quest to unravel mysteries that lie beneath the waves, from missing ships to missing treasure…

In the series, shot in stunning HD, the Fletchers scour the world’s oceans and seas.  They investigate the iconic sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald (immortalized in song by Gordon Lightfoot) on Lake Superior; hunt for missing American submarines lost in the Balabac Strait area of the Philippines; and search the deadly Mekong River in Laos for looted royal treasure.  They seek the identity of a mysterious modern “Ghost Ship” in a part of the Caribbean famous for smuggling; dive the South Pacific for discarded WWII atom bombs; and join a major expedition to get inside two of the best preserved wooden ship wrecks in the world for the first time since they sank.

In  DIVE DETECTIVES, cold cases are re-opened, ships found, and loved ones finally laid to rest, in a dramatic, action-packed series.

Mike and Warren Fletcher have located previously undiscovered shipwrecks around the world. Their travels have taken them to more than 30 different countries and many remote locations. Diving as deep as 330 feet, they have worked closely with the Canadian, U.S. and Chilean navies and have collaborated with marine archaeologists in Canada, the U.S., Germany, Estonia, Poland, Bermuda, Finland and Japan. They have performed many of their dives on highly sensitive and archeologically significant wreck sites.

Executive producers of  DIVE DETECTIVES are Pauline Duffy and Elliott Halpern. The Dive Detectives are Michael and Warren Fletcher. Series director is Jeff Vanderwal. Directors are Michael Morrow (episodes Submarine Graveyard, Lost A-Bombs, and River Buddha), Victor Kushmaniuk (episodes The Edmund Fitzgerald and Ghost Ship), and Jeff Vanderwal (episode Warships Down);  Editors are Jason Gatt, Michael Matheson, Mark Stokes and Mike Fuller;  Narrator is Hamish McEwan;  Production Manager is Mary Petryshyn; Directors of Photography are Russell Gienapp and Ken Ng; Underwater Photography by Warren and Michael Fletcher; Sound by Peter Sawade, Stuart French and Mike Kennedy; Composers are Alex Khaskin and David Krystal; Titles and Graphics are by Acme Pictures Inc. For Canwest: Production Executive Nick Crowe and V-P, Factual Content, Michael Kot.

DIVE DETECTIVES is produced by yap films in association with Canwest and National Geographic Channel, with the participation of the Canadian Television Fund created by the Government of Canada and the Canadian Cable Industry, the Rogers Cable Network Fund, and with the assistance of the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit.

In presenting its filmed investigation into the fate of the EDMUND FITZGERALD, yap films wanted to use Gordon Lightfoot’s classic song about the mysterious sinking of the ship in 1975 on Lake Superior. After all, Lightfoot’s iconic song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is famous across Canada and around the world, and poignantly captures all the drama and emotion of the terrible night the ship went down with all hands on board. In 1976, the song reached #2 on the Billboard chart and remains the second highest-rated single (after “Sundown”) Mr. Lightfoot has ever released. 

Since then, Mr. Lightfoot has stayed in touch with many of the families of the ship’s crew who perished, and knows the anguish they felt not only at losing their loved ones but as a consequence of the official investigation’s suggestion that crew were responsible for the sinking by not securing the ship’s hatches. 

Over the years, Mr. Lightfoot has rarely granted requests from film & television producers to use his song, despite many requests. Mr. Lightfoot graciously agreed to screen yap’s film and, moved by what he saw, immediately granted permission for his song to be used in the film. 

But beyond that, Mr. Lightfoot has said that he intends to change the lyrics to "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" as a result of the new findings revealed in the film, which exonerates the crew from blame for the ship's tragic sinking. The film demonstrates that there is little evidence that an alleged failure of the crew to secure the ship's hatches caused the sinking.

Mr. Lightfoot said, “I’m sincerely grateful to yap films and their program THE DIVE DETECTIVES for not only making a terrific film about the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald but particularly for putting together compelling evidence that the tragedy was not a result of crew error. This finally vindicates, and honours, not only all of the crew who lost their lives, but also the family members who survived them. As a result, I was pleased to grant them permission to use my song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” in the program, one of the rare instances in which I’ve allowed this, despite numerous requests over the years.”

The specific line under review is: “…at 7PM the main hatchway gave in”. Mr. Lightfoot intends to rewrite it for future performances of the song because the documentary demonstrates that hatch failure was not the cause of the sinking. On hearing the news that Lightfoot intended to alter the lyrics, Elliott Halpern said "this may be the first time that new evidence uncovered in a documentary resulted in a change to the lyrics of an iconic song."

The exciting new yap films television series, DIVE DETECTIVES, launches on History Television in Canada on Wednesday, March 31 at 6:00 pm ET/PT (repeated at 11:00 pm ET/PT) with the episode The Edmund Fitzgerald. This premiere episode reveals new evidence that dramatically changes the accepted version of events relating to the sinking of the US freighter on Lake Superior in 1975 – a saga made famous in Gordon Lightfoot’s iconic song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. 

DIVE DETECTIVES follows father-and-son professional divers and explorers Mike and Warren Fletcher on their quest to unravel mysteries that lie beneath the waves, from missing ships to missing treasure…

In the series, shot in stunning HD, the Fletchers scour the world’s oceans and seas. They investigate the iconic sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior (immortalized in song by Gordon Lightfoot); hunt for missing American submarines lost near the Philippines; and search the deadly Mekong River in Laos for looted royal treasure.  They seek the identity of a mysterious modern “Ghost Ship” in a part of the Caribbean famous for smuggling; dive the South Pacific for discarded WWII atom bombs; and join a major expedition to get inside two of the best preserved wooden ship wrecks in the world for the first time since they sank two hundred years ago.

In DIVE DETECTIVES, cold cases are re-opened, ships found, and loved ones finally laid to rest, in a dramatic, action-packed series.

Mike and Warren Fletcher have located previously undiscovered shipwrecks around the world. Their travels have taken them to more than 30 different countries and many remote locations. Diving as deep as 330 feet, they have worked closely with the Canadian, U.S. and Chilean navies and have collaborated with marine archaeologists in Canada, the U.S., Germany, Estonia, Poland, Bermuda, Finland and Japan. They have performed many of their dives on highly sensitive and archeologically significant wreck sites.

Executive producers of DIVE DETECTIVES are Pauline Duffy and Elliott Halpern. The Dive Detectives are Michael and Warren Fletcher. Series director is Jeff Vanderwal. Directors are Michael Morrow (episodes Submarine Graveyard, Lost A-Bombs, and River Buddha), Victor Kushmaniuk (episodes The Edmund Fitzgerald and Ghost Ship), and Jeff Vanderwal (episode Warships Down);  Editors are Jason Gatt, Michael Matheson, Mark Stokes and Mike Fuller;  Narrator is Hamish McEwan;  Production Manager is Mary Petryshyn; Directors of Photography are Russell Gienapp and Ken Ng; Underwater Photography by Warren and Michael Fletcher; Sound by Peter Sawade, Stuart French and Mike Kennedy; Composers are Alex Khaskin and David Krystal; Titles and Graphics are by Acme Pictures Inc. For Canwest: Production Executive Nick Crowe and V-P, Factual Content, Michael Kot.

DIVE DETECTIVES is produced by yap films in association with Canwest and National Geographic Channel, with the participation of the Canadian Television Fund created by the Government of Canada and the Canadian Cable Industry, the Rogers Cable Network Fund, and with the assistance of the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit.