Promise Kept: Searching for a Lost WWII Ship (Video)

It all started with a promise kept. A promise from archaeologist John Henry Phillips to the now greyed World War II veteran, Patrick Thomas. Thomas served in the British navy during the war to end all wars. The two met each other by happenstance as a series of unpredictable events forced their paths to cross. Thomas just happened to be in the right place at the right time to ironically help out Phillips. Phillips was on his way to a WWII celebration event in England when the arrangements for Phillip's accommodations came unraveled.

The two men quickly became friends. During the friendship, Patrick revealed his story to John. After participating in the D-Day landings on Sword Beach, Patrick went back aboard his ship to provide communications for the ground forces. Almost 3 weeks later, Patrick's ship would be struck by an acoustic mine, sinking the ship. Patrick was knocked unconscious. When he regained consciousness, Patrick found himself floating among the debris in the water as his ship dropped to the bottom of the English Channel. With no memorial and the veterans of the unforgettable day in history passing on, there may not be anything to remember the sacrifice of the brave sailors who braved U-Boat infested waters off the European coast.While visiting Sword Beach, the idea happened upon John: Patrick's story should be told and the ship ought to be memorialized. When he told Patrick of his idea, he was all for it, despite not knowing exactly where the ship was or where a permanent memorial would be placed for the ship and his fallen shipmates.

The team began shooting and diving, searching for the wreck in the summer of 2017 and plan on having the memorial finalized with Patrick performing the ribbon cutting on the new memorial as early as June 2018. The movie detailing the entire search, No Roses on a Sailor's Grave, is currently being worked on and will hopefully be released soon.

When genocide and war took Europe by a death grip, ordinary men stepped up and delivered the world from this evil. May they be forever immortalized in our memories and memorials. We look forward to seeing more about this endeavor about a promise kept between two friends, separated by generations, brought together by fate.