COVENTRY, Conn. — Most of us learn about history on the surface level, through books and museums; however, one man from Coventry is submerging himself in stories of the seas. Commercial diver Richard Simon is making waves and national headlines after discovering the wreckage of an experimental submarine built in the early 1900s.
"I’ve always grown up liking history and being involved in diving off the Connecticut coast. There’s so much life and so much commerce that happened, so naturally, you have shipwrecks that happened,” said Richard, vice president of Shoreline Diving. "Most people don't realize World War II battles happened right off our coast. We have a German U-boat right off Block Island."
Simon has been to several of those shipwrecks, both local ones and ones around the world.
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“I’ve been able to dive Britannic, Titanic’s sister ship. Lusitania. Andrea Doria,” said Richard. “There’s no money in shipwreck exploration if you will. We go out there. We do it for fun. We dive for a living. We have a work boat, so we're able to use that to go out to fuel our passion for shipwrecks and history."
Like most passions, Richard’s interest in shipwrecks runs in the family. His father, Eric Simon, is also a commercial diver.
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"My father was a commercial diver and dove every weekend for fun, and I was the little kid who wanted to go on the boat and do what dad did,” said Richard.
“He’s gotten a lot further than I got in my personal diving, scuba diving, so that makes me proud right there,” said Eric.
A father’s pride reached new depths last year. In April, Richard and his team found the wreckage of an experimental submarine called the Defender, built in 1907.
"This is a sub that was pretty revolutionary for its day and it was a little too revolutionary for the Navy so they didn't want it so they never bought it and then it sank in the Connecticut River and then it was scuttled somewhere in the Long Island Sound,” said Richard.
The submarine, originally named the Lake, was built by millionaire Simon Lake and his Bridgeport-based Lake Torpedo Boat Company in hopes of winning a competition for a U.S. Navy contract, according to NavSource Online, a website dedicated to preserving naval history.
Richard said it was an experimental vessel with wheels to move along the sea bottom and a door that allowed divers to be released underwater.
The company lost that competition, and Lake then tried refitting the boat for minesweeping, salvage, and rescue work, renaming it the Defender. But he never found a buyer. It was a well-known sub and was even visited by aviator Amelia Earhart in 1929.
But the submarine spent many years unused, docked in New London before eventually being abandoned on a mud flat near Old Saybrook. It was scuttled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1946, but the corps never disclosed where, according to Richard.
“It was legitimately hiding in plain sight,” he said. “It’s on the charts. It’s known about in Long Island Sound, just no one knew what it was.”
The maritime mystery was solved after years of research and underwater mapping. Richard and his team discovered the Defender lying on the bottom, more than 170 feet beneath the water’s surface, off the coast of Old Saybrook.
"You read about something in a textbook, and then you can go live it and share it. That's why we do these expeditions, is to share it with the world,” said Richard.
Some of what Richard shares are artifacts from the shipwreck sites.
"These are shipwrecks friends of mine own, so it's legal to take things,” said Richard. “This would be a coffee cup from the wreck of the Andrea Doria, a famous Italian luxury liner. Last year, we got together with a bunch of Andrea Doria survivors, and we were able to give them some of their old forks and silverware back, and to them, it meant the world. And it's also to show a kid, ‘Hey, this is what happened. This is from that site.’”
As for what’s next: “[Richard] mentioned treasure ships. There are other ships that have never been found. Boats that haven't been found,” said Eric.
“There’s a lot of things out there still to discover, and again, I’m just a kid from Coventry, Connecticut,” said Richard.
Richard said he’s not yet ready to give the exact location of the Defender discovery. He told FOX61 he’s working with the state on getting some protection for it and making sure it stays a historic preserve people can learn from.
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Angelo Bavaro is an anchor and reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at abavaro@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook and X.
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