Defender Discovery

Atremendous amount of excitement and media attention followed the news on April 16, 2023, that a team from Shoreline Divers had identified the sunken remains of Defender, the 1907 submarine designed and built by Milford’s Simon Lake.

Scuttled by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1946, Defender was “legitimately hiding in plain sight” in Long Island Sound off the coast of Old Saybrook, according to Shoreline Diving Services VP Richard Simon. “It’s on the charts. It’s known about in Long Island Sound, just no one knew what it was until we identified it.”

The discovery of Defender’s remains has thrown the spotlight back on inventor Simon Lake, a Milford resident considered a pioneer in the development of the submarine. Lake lived in Milford for almost 40 years. He purchased the property at 135