The Search for Fallen Heroes, Lake Garda, Italy

As Allied troops rushed north through Italy into southern Europe, an amphibious 2½ ton truck, one of the ubiquitous DUKWs, was lost on Lake Garda, 60 miles east of Milan. One of three such vehicles in the advance north, the DUKW was loaded with a field artillery piece and 26 infantry when it was launched from Torbole on the northeastern corner of the lake. During the crossing, in a storm and at midnight, with strong winds and waves and horribly overloaded, the vehicle swamped taking both artillery and men to the bottom, deep below. All the servicemen who were aboard are still listed as missing in action. Cpl. Thomas Hough was the lone survivor, an Ohio lifeguard. In 2004 ProMare, a non-profit underwater archaeology foundation, initiated an expedition to Lake Garda, Italy to locate the remains of the DUKW and the 25 US Servicemen lost on the Lake, but it was only in 2012, after many hours of sonar exploration in an area larger than 7 square kilometers that the vehicle was located at a depth of 276 meters by a local volunteer group, Gruppo Volontari del Garda. In 2018, ProMare teamed up with ICTINEU Submarins, a European builder and operator of small manned submersibles to film and document the DUKW on the lake bottom. The French-flagged three-man mini submarine ICTINEU 3 rated for 1000m depth was used to descend to the sunken craft. During the expedition the ICTINEU 3 submersible made five dives to the wreck. The last dive on this mission was an emotive tribute to the 25 servicemen while the Italian and the American flags were deployed on the DUKW. Over the years, several relatives of the victims of this tragedy have been located by the Association Benàch, a local history society. This project is an important documentation of the heroic efforts made by these servicemen to free Italy and will also be used to assist the local authorities in their efforts to monitor and preserve this important military grave site.