A team of Finnish and Sweden nationals have discovered a Soviet submarine that sank in 1942 after being rammed by a Finnish submarine, a spokesman said Tuesday, according to dpa. The wreck of the 57-metre-long submarine, identified as SC305, was located in Swedish territorial waters between mainland Sweden and the self-ruling Finnish Aland Islands. A member of the eight-strong team of amateurs scoured Finnish military records and came across a report of the sinking. "That set off our search," spokesman Bjorn Rosenlof told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. Last autumn, the team located the submarine but due to winter storms they were unable to fully identify the wreck until June this year, Rosenlof said, adding that the team was a not-for-profit group and funded the search out of their own pockets. The submarine was found 136 metres below the sea surface with its nose partly submerged. The team used a side-sweeping radar in its search. The team also used a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) to establish the identity of the submarine. "We could identify brass letters on the submarine conning tower," Rosenlof said. The SC305 was deployed during World War II to attack Finnish naval transports as well as ore shipments from ports in neutral Sweden to Germany. The 38-strong crew went down with the submarine that was hit by Finnish cannon fire and rammed while surfaced by the Finnish submarine Vetehinen on November 5, 1942. The wreck was in "pretty good condition," considering the circumstances and age, and had a "big hole in the hull" after the ramming, Rosenlof said. The wreck is considered a war grave and in order to prevent possible plundering the team has decided only to give details of its exact location to the Swedish Defence Ministry. The team has documented its findings on the website www.subsc305.com. Two other Soviet submarines remain missing in the waters around the Aland Islands, but Rosenlof declined to comment on whether his team is actively involved in trying to find them.
