USS Eagle (PE-56), a World War I–era patrol boat, was photographed at the U.S. Naval Frontier Base in downtown Portland in 1944. On April 23, 1945, while towing targets off Cape Elizabeth, Maine, Eagle exploded and sank. The destroyer Selfridge rescued 13 of 62 crew members. Survivors reported seeing a German submarine bearing U-853’s insignia. Initially blamed on a boiler explosion, the Navy reclassified the loss as enemy action in 2001.

Arthur Schuh, who captured this photograph, served as a Lieutenant (Junior Grade) in the U.S. Navy Reserve. A professional photographer and entrepreneur, he was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, and earned his BA and MBA from Harvard, graduating in 1940.