USS Eagle 56

USS Eagle 56 (PE-56) was a United States Navy World War I-era patrol boat that remained in service through World War II. On 23 April 1945, while towing targets for US Navy bomber exercises off the coast of Maine, Eagle 56 was sunk by the German submarine U-853. Only 13 of the 67 crew survived. The loss was classified as a boiler explosion until 2001 when historical evidence convinced the US Navy to reclassify the sinking as a combat loss due to enemy action. The story of the struggle to get the real narrative in the naval records and the crew is captured in the book “Due to Enemy Action”. Brockton, MA attorney and diver Paul Lawton was the driving force behind the effort.

The PE-56 was only 5 miles off the coast of Portland Maine at the time of the sinking, and ships arrived on site within 20 minutes making the approximate location accurate.  However the torpedo blew the ship in half with each half floating for up to 15 minutes, and the bottom topography is extreme in the immediate area making searches for the remains very difficult.

Numerous searches had been conducted for over 20 years prior to the summer of 2018.  Enlisting the help of sidescan expert Garry Kozak, who had conducted many scans of the area himself, we asked him once again to examine his data and pick potential targets for us to dive one by one over the course of the summer if needed.  As luck would have it, Garry's first target turned out to be the bow section of the ship in approximately 250 FSW.  Once the bow location was known, Garry made quick work of locating the stern, approximately 350ft. up current from the bow.

Both sections are in very rough shape.  The bow section is comprised of the bow (detached) and the section of the ship back to and including the bridge.  The bridge however has fallen aft into a large debris field.  The only section really still intact contains the chart room and not much else.  The bow section sits on a flat bottom but the debris field rests at the foot of a rock ledge.  The stern section slid down a ledge and came to rest at a 40 degree list to starboard with the prop in 250 FSW and the break and debris field in about 200 FSW.  At least one of the boilers can be found in the debris field.  As with the bow section, very little of the stern remains intact.  Racks at the stern hold 2 rows of Mark 9 depth charges, and open hatches attests to the effort of the crew to escape.

The two intact boilers were finally located in the spring of 2019, proving without a doubt that the sinking of the Eagle 56 was not the result of an internal explosion but rather the result of an external explosion consistent with a torpedo attack.

This video captures the entire wreck, as well as pictures of the crew from family members.