An American M4 Sherman tank sat entombed at the bottom of the Barents Sea after the SS Thomas Donaldson was struck by a torpedo from German U-boat U-968. The cargo ship was part of Arctic convoy JW-65 and sank near the shores of Kildin Island on March 20, 1945.
The convoy had 26 ships, and the SS Thomas Donaldson was the only one that never made it to the Russian port in the Kola Inlet. They were just twenty miles from their destination when the Nazis struck, hitting the ship with a single torpedo that destroyed the engines and killed three crew members.
With engines destroyed and the threat of flammable ammunition onboard, the captain ordered all officers, crewmen, and 27 armed guards into lifeboats, while he himself remained behind. He hoped to wait for a rescue ship to tow them to port, but the Thomas Donaldson sank stern-first, just half a mile from shore.
The ship had been carrying 7,679 tons of cargo, including tanks, 6,000 tons of ammunition, and assorted vehicles. They were Lend-Lease Shermans destined for Russia.
Nearly 70 years later, a rusty but well-preserved WWII tank was finally recovered from the wreck in 2014. Before that, two more tanks and several artillery pieces had also been retrieved, including a very rare US 90mm anti-aircraft gun.
Historians argue these ships should be treated as war graves and not pulled apart. “These are shared heritage war graves. People died in the shared pursuit of defeating fascism,” says MAST archaeologist Giles Richardson.
