• Divers find sunken German U-boat off Massachusetts coast

    Researchers have discovered a World War II-era German submarine nearly 70 years after it sank under a withering U.S. attack in waters off Nantucket. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    By NBC News staff and wire services

    BOSTON -- Divers have discovered a World War II-era German submarine nearly 70 years after it sank under withering U.S. attack in waters off Nantucket.

    The U-550 was found Monday by a privately funded group organized by New Jersey lawyer Joe Mazraani.

    "They’ve looked for it for over 20 years,” Mazraani, a shipwreck diver, told The Boston Globe. “It’s another World War II mystery solved.”

    In the second trip in two years to the site by the team, the seven-man crew using side-scan sonar located the wreck listing to its side in deep water about 70 miles south of Nantucket.

    Sonar operator Garry Kozak said he spotted the 252-foot submarine during the second of an exhausting two days of searching. Kozak said the team asked him if they'd found it, then erupted in joy without a word from him.

    "They could see it with the grin (on my face) and the look in my eyes," Kozak said.

    The crew had searched 100 square miles of ocean, the Globe reported. Traveling at five knots, the ship scanned the vast expanse for signs of the sunken vessel, a tedious process crew members likened to “mowing the lawn.”

    Mazraani dove down to confirm the discovery with pictures, the Globe said.

    On April 16, 1944, the U-550 torpedoed the gasoline tanker SS Pan Pennsylvania, which had lagged behind its protective convoy as it set out with 140,000 barrels of gasoline for Great Britain, according to the U.S. Coast Guard website and research by Mazraani.

    AP

    This sonar image provided by GK Consulting & AWS Expeditions/Joe Mazraani, shows a World War II-era German submarine U-550, found by a team of explorers Monday on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean 70 miles south of Nantucket Island, Mass.

    The U-boat slipped under the doomed tanker to hide. But one of the tanker's three escorts, the USS Joyce, saw it on sonar and severely damaged it by dropping depth charges.

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    The Germans, forced to surface, manned their deck guns while another escort vessel, the USS Gandy, returned fire and rammed the U-boat. The third escort, the USS Peterson, then hit the U-boat with two more depth charges. The crew abandoned the submarine, but not before setting off explosions to scuttle it. The submarine hadn't been seen again until Monday.

    The U-550 is one of several World War II-era German U-boats that have been discovered off the U.S. coast, but it's the only one that sank in that area, Mazraani said. He said it's been tough to find largely because military positioning of the battle was imprecise, and searchers had only a general idea where the submarine was when it sank. Kozak noted that the site is far offshore and has only limited windows of good weather.

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    The other team members were Steve Gatto, Tom Packer, Brad Sheard, Eric Takakjian and Anthony Tedsechi

    Mazraani is cagey about the vessel's precise location, saying only that it's in deep water. Mazraani's said his best estimate was that the team spent thousands of dollars of its own money on the expedition. He joked that no one on the team, whose members range in age from the mid-20s to mid-50s, stands to make money from the find unless someone writes a book.

    Mazraani said the next step is to contact any sailors or their families from the escort vessels, the tanker and the German U-boat to share the news and show the pictures. Another trip to the site is coming, he said, adding the investigation has just started.

    "The history behind it all is really what drives us," Mazraani said.

    This article includes reporting by The Associated Press.

     

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  • WWII veteran Jack Fletcher graduates from high school 70 years later in Spur, Texas

    After a life filled with both tragedies and triumphs, an 86-year-old World War II veteran receives his high school diploma. KCBD's Tiffany Pelt reports.

    By NBC News and msnbc.com staff

    Jack Fletcher was in his senior year of high school in Spur, Texas, when World War II broke out. Graduation would have to wait -- 70 years, as it turned out.


    Fletcher traveled the world after the war and now lives in Australia, but a special ceremony brought him back as an honorary graduate of the Spur High School Class of 2012, NBC station KCBD of Lubbock reported.

    "I had to look to make sure they put a certificate in there," he laughed after the graduation ceremony. "I was afraid they were kidding me!"

    Born in 1925 in Spur, Fletcher moved with his family to another town. But in 1941, after Fletcher's parents were killed in a car accident, he and his siblings moved back to Spur to live with their grandparents.

    But before Fletcher's senior year was over, World War II erupted.

    "Oh man, me and my three brothers all volunteered as quickly as we could," Fletcher told KCBD. 

    See the original story at KCBD

    "My friend Corbit said I'll go to Europe to win the war, and you go to the Pacific and win it out there, and we'll get back together. God bless him, he was killed in his first mission," Fletcher told KCBD. "We had seven buddies of mine that were killed. I was pulled back to headquarters before they came up the ridge and that's the only reason I'm still here. It bothered me for a long time … I should have been with them, you know."

    Fletcher left the military in 1946 and found his way back to Spur.

    "When I got off the bus at the end of my lane, there sat David," Fletcher said as he began to cry. "That little dog … my grandmother said he waited at the end of the lane each day when I left."

    As quickly as Fletcher returned to Spur, he left once again. He traveled the world working in the agricultural business. Fletcher found himself in Australia and helped to create the Australian Land and Cattle Co.

    "We bought 4.3 million acres of country, a ranch about 11 times the size of Dickens County," he said.

    But at age 86, something was still missing. On May 25, Fletcher came back to Spur to join the Class of 2012 as an honorary graduate.

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    NBC News

    Jack Fletcher is seen during his graduation ceremony May 25 in Spur, Texas.

    "The superintendent assured them I was no slow learner, even though it's taken me 70 years," he said.

    Though age separated Fletcher from the 10 teens graduating, he had no trouble fitting in as he joked around with the group.

    "If you would have waited until you were 86 years old to graduate, you could've had a camera come film you," he joked with one of the grads.

    The first named called, Fletcher walked across the stage in his blue cap and gown and finally received his high school diploma. He ended the day by tossing his cap with the other graduates.

    "Spur will always hold a special place in my heart," he said.

    Msnbc.com staff contributed to this report from NBC station KCBD's Tiffany Pelt.

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  • 474-year-old painting stolen by Nazis given to owner's heirs

    Philip Sears/Reuters

    Corinne Hershkovitch, legal representative of the family of Federico Gentili di Giuseppe, and officials stand next to the painting "Christ Carrying the Cross" by Italian artist Girolamo de' Romani after signing papers to return it to its rightful owners in Tallahassee, Florida.

    By Ian Johnston, msnbc.com

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A painting – nearly five centuries old and worth millions - that was taken by the Nazis in World War II has been returned to the heirs of its original Jewish owner by U.S. officials.

    "Christ Carrying the Cross Dragged By A Rascal" by Italian artist Girolamo de' Romani was stolen during the occupation of France from Frederico Gentili di Giuseppe, an Italian Jew who had lived in Paris, Reuters reported.

    He died of natural causes in 1940, a month before the Nazis invaded, and his children and grandchildren had already fled the country.

    The painting was one of 70 items taken from his collection, Reuters said. It depicts Christ crowned in thorns, carrying a cross and dressed in a copper-colored silk robe, and dates back to circa 1538.

    The former neighbor of a Dutch Holocaust survivor travels to the United States to hand-deliver a dish set the survivor's family left behind before they were sent to Auschwitz, a Nazi death camp. KING-TV's Natalie Swaby reports.

    The collection was sold by the French Vichy government – allowed by the Nazis to run parts of France - in 1941 and Gentili's grandchildren filed suit in 1997 to get it back, according to the news service.

    The painting had found its way to the Pinacoteca di Brera museum in Milan, Italy, which then loaned it to the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science in Tallahassee, Florida.

    'Right a wrong'
    Based on a tip from an employee of Christie's auction house in June 2011, Interpol investigators last summer alerted U.S. officials that the painting may have been stolen, Reuters reported.

    Last September, U.S. Attorney Pamela Marsh ordered the Brogan museum to hold the painting instead of returning it to Italy, saying the federal government believed it rightfully belonged to the man's family, according to The Associated Press. It had been under the protection of the U.S. government since November.

    "Seventy years is a very long time … But it shows that it is never too late to right a wrong,” U.S. Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Susan McCormick told reporters Wednesday.

    The piece is one of hundreds of thousands of works of art stolen from Jewish families throughout Europe by the Nazis. It is among nearly 2,500 works of art and antiquities that Homeland Security Investigations officials have repatriated to 23 countries since 2007.

    Gentili's grandson, Lionel Salem, told reporters by telephone on Wednesday that the six heirs plan to sell the work, which he said was due to be auctioned at Christie's in New York on June 6. The painting has been insured for $2.5 million.

    Former Ohio resident John Demjanjuk is found guilty for his involvement in thousands of deaths at a Nazi death camp during World War II.

    "For a cake, it is relatively easy cutting it into six, not totally easy but quite easily," Salem said of the family's decision to sell. "But for a painting, you see, it is more difficult."

    Marsh hailed the outcome of the investigations.

    "This result happened only because people were courageous and willing to step up and do what they knew was right and good," she said, according to The Associated Press.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Tuskegee airman buried in Arlington National Cemetery

    Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

    Jacqueline Weathers is presented with the U.S. flag that was draped over the casket of her husband, Air Force Lt. Col. Luke Weathers, Jr., one of the original Tuskegee airmen, during his burial ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery Jan. 20. A Congressional Gold Medal recipient, Weathers earned a Distinguished Flying Cross piloting P-51 and P-39 fighters while serving with the 332nd Fighter Group, a squadron known as the Red Tails, from 1942 to 1945.

    Air Force

    In 2004 a portrait of Luke Weathers Jr. was nade to honor his actions in World War II.

    By Jon Sweeney, NBC News

    A Tuskegee airman who shot down two German fighter planes while escorting a damaged bomber to its base now lies in Arlington National Cemetery after a burial with special honors.

    Luke Weathers Jr.'s burial comes as Hollywood is flooding U.S. theaters Friday with the action film "Red Tails," based on the Tuskegee Airmen and their struggles for equal treatment. They were the first black aviators in U.S. military history and are among World War II's most respected fighter squadrons.

    Weathers died Oct. 15, 2011 in Tucson, Ariz. at 90, but he lived much of his life in Memphis, Tenn.

    More than 900 Tuskegee Airmen were U.S. pilots and an estimated 250 to 300 are still alive today.

    In March 1945, Toni Frissell, world renowned American photographer, took more than 280 photographs of the Tuskegee Airmen. During World War II, Frissell worked and volunteered her services to the American Red Cross, Eighth Army Air Force, and the Women's Air Corp. Her images of military women, African American fighter pilots and orphaned children were used to muster support for the military. Below is a collection of her photographs of the Tuskegee Airmen, and many more can be found on the library of Congress website.

    Related links:

    Toni Frissell via Library of Congress

    Tuskegee airmen photographed by Toni Frissell in Ramitelli, Italy in March 1945. Front row: an unidentified airman, Jimmie D. Wheeler, Emile G. Clifton. Standing: Ronald W. Reeves, Hiram Mann, Joseph L.

    Toni Frissell via Library of Congress

    Marcellus G. Smith and Roscoe C. Brown in Ramitelli, Italy,March 1945.

    Toni Frissell via Library of Congress

    Walter M. "Mo" Downs and William S. "Bill Bubblehead" Price playing cards in Ramitelli, Italy, March 1945.

    Toni Frissell via Library of Congress

    A portrait of Tuskegee airman Edward M. Thomas in Ramitelli, Italy, March 1945.

    Sixty-seven years later, members of the Tuskegee Airmen pose before the camera's lens again. This time, Associated Press photographer Carlo Allegri captures their portraits during a press junket for George Lucas's film.

    Carlo Allegri / AP

    Tuskegee airmen Floyd Carter Sr., Shade Lee and Dr. Roscoe Brown pose for portraits.

    This kind of attention to the Tuskegee Airmen is what Weathers wanted throughout his life, said his daughter, Trina Weathers Boyce. He wasn't vain, but he wanted to share the lessons of the airmen's courage in war, their struggles for equality and their victory over a wartime enemy and over racism, she said.

    -- The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Based on the true story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots to fly in a combat air squadron during WWII. Opens Jan. 20.

  • WWII vet's dog tags returned after 66 years

    By Elizabeth Chuck, msnbc.com

    A Marine Corps vet who fought in World War II received an unexpected gift at his retirement home this weekend: a military identification tag he had lost more than six decades ago.

    Richard Urie lost the dog tag when he was stationed on the island of Saipan in 1945, reported The Boston Globe on Wednesday. A Saipan resident had found the tag in 1981 in a yam field, reported The Globe, but it was only a few months ago that Urie, an Internet-savvy 86-year-old, found out via his Facebook account that a piece of his military history had been uncovered.

    Urie was at home in his Peabody, Mass. senior living community with his four daughters, two sons-in-law, and a friend on Sunday when an assistant U.S. attorney came to deliver the tag.

    “It’s quite exciting. There’s been a lot of publicity up here. At 86 years old, you don’t expect something like this,” Urie told msnbc.com.

    Saipan is the biggest of the Northern Mariana Islands in the western Pacific. Urie didn't remember losing his tag, but estimated it was probably about seven months before he was discharged in 1946, reported The Saipan Tribune.

    U.S. soldiers in the field wear two identification tags at all times. If they are killed, one tag is collected, and the the other stays with the body. Urie held onto his remaining tag, but had no idea that a man named Mike Villagomez, who grew up on Saipan, had found the other tag while clearing rocks in his family's dagu - or white yam - farm when he was 13 years old in 1981, reported The Saipan Tribune.

    War artifacts
    As a youth, Villagomez frequently found war artifacts, such as grenades and canteens, he told the paper. Once he even found human remains.

    "I would imagine what had happened in that particular place I was exploring," the now 43-year-old gym teacher said.

    Villagomez had forgotten about Urie's dog tag until years later when his wife, Erlinda, came across it in a pencil case, reported The Saipan Tribune. Erlinda Villagomez works at the US Attorney's Office in Saipan and in November, she mentioned the dog tag to special investigator deputy marshal Randy Kruid after noticing he had dog tags of his own framed in his office, said The Saipan Tribune.

    Kruid found Urie after a quick Internet search.

    Urie joined the Marine Corps in 1943 at 19, and became a PFC radio operator stationed in Saipan, said The Globe. Kruid wasn't sure if he would still be alive.

    "I thought I was talking to a family member," Kruid told the Saipan Tribune of corresponding via email with the 86-year-old war vet. "It was an amazing experience."

    Urie felt the same.

    “I’ve become very friendly with them and the people over there,” he told msnbc.com. “We correspond quite regularly. I’m on the Internet anyways; that’s the way I live my life,” he said, adding that in addition to Facebook and email, he also uses Skype to talk with his four daughters, who live in various places across the country.

    Urie's wife died nearly three years ago, but finding the dog tag has brought back memories that he looks forward to sharing with his seven grandchildren, he said.

    “We never talked too much about [the war],” he told msnbc.com, “but this is kind of exciting for them.” 

     

    For more on this story:

    Visit The Boston Globe
    Visit The Saipan Tribune

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