Divers from Mobile Underwater Diving Salvage Unit (MUDSU) 1 based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, will soon descend into a Pacific lagoon to stop a recent oil leak and assess the material condition of a World War II Navy oil tanker that sank in 1944. USS Mississinewa (AO 59), a 553-foot auxiliary oiler, was commissioned May 18, 1944, and supported the ships of the 3rd Fleet in the Central and South Pacific. The huge lagoon at Ulithi Atoll was an anchorage for hundreds of Pacific Fleet ships and major staging area for campaigns at Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Mississinewa was anchored in Ulithi's lagoon when it was struck by a Japanese-manned suicide torpedo, or "kaiten," on the morning of Nov. 20, 1944. The ship burst into flames and sank, killing 63 American Sailors.