A pocket watch from the sunken World War I armored cruiser San Diego was returned to the family of its owner, Alfred Vernon Jannotta Jr., in Maryland 99 years after it sunk, according to the Washington Post. 
The ship took 20 minutes to sink, taking the lives of six of its crew members. Jannotta was among the survivors who were in the water for six hours before being rescued by a Dutch freighter.
"The story was that the Navy didn’t want to send a ship to pick them up because they were afraid it would be torpedoed," Sharon Covington, Jannotta’s granddaughter told the Washington Post.
The freighter dropped the men off at a warehouse in Hoboken, New Jersey, across the Hudson from New York City. As the San Diego’s survivors had lost all of their possessions, Jannotta telegraphed his uncle who wired him $2,000. He lent each sailor $10 to buy clothes. The final sailor paid him back in 1939 after tracking him down, according to a biography of Jannotta by his nephew Joseph.
The ship settled 110 feet beneath the ocean, landing upside down although relatively intact. This has made the ship a popular home for lobsters and a popular destination for divers.
After WWI, Jannotta continued serving in the Navy Reserve, while becoming a successful businessman. He was able to return to service in WWII, serving with the Navy in the Pacific and overseeing hundreds of Marine Corps landing craft. He was eventually promoted to rear admiral and received the Navy Cross.
"He was a character, a wonderful guy," said Sharon. "He had a real presence."
Two divers found a pair of pocket watches inside the wreckage in 1981. One of the watches was gold and engraved with "AJV" on one side and "To my beloved son Vernon" on the other. As time went on, the creation of the internet eventually allowed one of the divers, Mike Boring, to locate Jannotta’s family. He also found the family of the other pocket watch’s owner, John Henry Russell.
The other diver chose to remain anonymous as Navy rules have since banned salvaging items from their ship wrecks. Although the 1981 dive occurred before the policy change, the other diver told the Post that people still get upset at salvage divers past and present.
On Saturday, the two divers joined relatives of Jannotta in Potomac, Maryland, for a gathering where the watch was finally shared with the family and where stories of Jannotta’s life were told. Jannotta died in his 70’s in 1972.
