Sunken World War II Era Japanese Ship Discovered in Pacific Ocean

Video editors: Vivek Gupta and Purnendu Pritam

Vulcan Inc's director of undersea operations Rob Kraft and Naval History and Heritage Command historian Frank Thompson discovered a World War II era Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi under Pacific ocean. The carrier had went down in the historic ‘Battle of Midway’.

The Akagi was found in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, resting in nearly 18,000 feet (5,490 meters) of water, more than 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) northwest of Pearl Harbor.

Kraft and Thomson reviewed the high frequency sonar images of the warship and after confirming it’s dimensions and location, came to a conclusion that it was Akagi indeed.

“One of our final surveys of the mission, I mean we’re winding down, we’re coming to a close. Weather was actually pretty bad last night, so we had to make a decision whether we were going to go so we went ahead, and we dove and on the first line of that survey, we came across a wreck.”

Robert Kraft, Director of Undersea Operations, Vulcan Inc

The researchers used an autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV, equipped with sonar to find the ship.

The vehicle had been out overnight collecting data and the image of a warship appeared in the first set of readings on Sunday (20 October) morning.

The first scan used low-resolution sonar, so the crew sent their AUV back to get higher-quality images. The vessel is sitting among a pile of debris and the ground around the warship is clearly disturbed by the impact of it hitting the seafloor.

“She’s sitting upright on her keel, we can see the bow, we can see the stern clearly, you can see some of the gun emplacements on there, you can see some of the flight deck is also torn up and missing. So, you can actually look right into where the flight deck would be.”

Robert Kraft, Director of Undersea Operations, Vulcan Inc

The crew of the research vessel Petrel is hoping to find and survey all lost ships from the 1942 Battle of Midway which historians consider a pivotal fight for the US in the Pacific during WWII.

The battle was fought between American and Japanese aircraft carriers and warplanes about 200 miles (320 kilometers) off Midway Atoll, a former military installation that the Japanese hoped to capture in a surprise attack.

The US, however, intercepted Japanese communications about the strike and were waiting when they arrived.

More than 2,000 Japanese and 300 Americans died.

(With inputs from AP)