Batch 12 Mechanical Technology graduate Daryl Majarocon takes part of the expedition team who discovered the wreckage site of US Navy destroyer escort named USS Samuel B. Roberts aka “Sammy B.” which sank during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944. One of the 15 members the Filipino crew, Majarocon works as a fitter, motorman, machinist and pressure drop operator.
“I would like to inspire fellow CITE graduates to excel and keep on reaching their goals in life. We do ordinary things extraordinarily well,” he writes in the FB message sent to our official account.
Majarocon also sent a souvenir photo of a styrocup with a CITE logo that shrank after reaching 10,939 meters of the Mariana trench.
Touted as the deepest shipwreck to be discovered, Sammy B was found broken into two pieces on a slope 22,916 feet deep in the Philippine Sea. Led by Victor Vescovo and his underwater technology company Caladan Oceanic and EYOS Expeditions, the search took place from June 17-June 24, 2022.
According to records, the destroyer escort was reported to have disabled a Japanese heavy cruiser with a torpedo and significantly damaged another while battling the group led by the command battleship Yamato. After having spent virtually all its ammunition, it was critically hit by the battleship Kongo and sank. Of a 224-man crew, 89 died and 120 were saved, including the captain, Lieutenant Commander Robert Copeland.
The site is now a hallowed war grave and serves to remind all of us of great cost born by previous generations for the freedom we now take for granted.
For more information: https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/sammy-b-becomes…/