On about 1 May 1942, the SS Alcoa Puritan sailed from Port of Spain, Trinidad, alone and unarmed, to Mobile, Alabama loaded with bauxite.

A submarine surfaced a few moments later, 2 nautical miles (4 km) off, and fired a warning shell that passed overhead and landed in the water ahead of the ship.

The shelling laid open the ship's superstructure, perforated the funnel, broke all the windows and instrument faces, set fire to parts of the interior, and finally disabled the steering mechanism at the stern.

In an hour or less, a United States Navy patrol aircraft - summoned by the Puritan's radio operator during the shelling - spotted the survivors, and at about 4:05 pm the United States Coast Guard cutter Boutwell arrived on the scene and rescued all the passengers and crew - some of them badly injured.

Visual inspections by Sonsub's ROV vessel HOS Dominator found the hull mostly intact, with moderate superstructure damage.

The C&C work formed part of a larger project concerning archaeological and biological analysis of World War II shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico, and particularly their artificial reef effect in deep water.

Other vessels included in the study were the oil tankers Virginia, Halo, and Gulfpenn; the German U-boat U-166; the steamer Robert E. Lee; and the Anona (a steam yacht, repurposed as a freighter).