Divers Discover the Shipwreck of a World War I-Era Coast Guard Cutter, Which Vanished With 131 Sailors on Board in 1918 The wreckage of the “Tampa,” which was torpedoed by a German submarine, was found 50 miles off the coast of Cornwall, England. The disaster was the largest single American naval combat loss of life during the war During World War I, the  Tampa  protected convoys from submarine attacks. U.S. Coast Guard Steve Mortimer tempered his expectations before he slipped beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. As he dove, the light from above faded, and the readings on his depth gauge crept past 300 feet. “It gets darker and darker,” he recalls. “Eventually, out of the gloom, the seabed appears—or, if you’ve done it right, the shipwreck appears.” Mortimer, the leader of the British technical diving team Gasperados , was searching for the Tampa , a United States Coast Guard cutter that sank in 1918.…