Posted on 10/23/2019 3:07:17 AM PDT by srmanuel
A Group financed by the late Paul Allen is searching for sunken WW II ships.
If you remember they found the Aircraft Carrier Lexington which was sunk in the battle of the Coral Sea.
Now the group is attempting to located ships that were lost during the Battle of Midway.
They have found the Kaga and more recently the Akagi.
New Video of the Kaga on the ocean floor has been released. The ship is around 15,000 ft or more below surface.
I find this type of thing fascinating just thinking of how many people on both sides are still in those ships....
Imagine all the sailors and airmen , both American and Japanese , that fell victim to sharks in that one engagement alone.
And war fighters of today think they have it tough.. .
FWIW: There’s also a new Japanese carrier named Kaga.
“Scratch one flattop!!”
With his aircraft still in relatively good condition, he decided to make for Hornet after clearing the Japanese carrier. However, five Mitsubishi A6M Zeros brought his aircraft down in a hail of machine gun and cannon fire, killing his rear gunner, ARM3c George Arthur Field.[1]
Exiting his aircraft, and floating in the ocean, he hid under his seat cushion for hours to avoid Japanese strafing attacks and witnessed the subsequent dive bombing attacks and sinking of three of the four Japanese aircraft carriers present.[4]
After dark, Gay felt it was safe to inflate his life raft. He was rescued by a Navy Consolidated PBY Catalina after spending over 30 hours in the water. Gay was later flown to USS Vincennes (arriving June 28, 1942), before being transferred home.[5] Of the squadron's thirty pilots and radiomen, Gay was the only survivor.
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George Gay, the sole survivor of Torpedo Squadron 8 at Midway, was shot down after his Devastator bomber attacked the carrier Soryu unsuccessfully. Before being rescued by a PBY Catalina seaplane, Gay spent thirty hours in the water, alternately watching the battle and hiding under a seat cushion so as to avoid getting strafed by Jap fighters. Sharks were apparently not a problem for Gay and others in that the Battle of Midway occurred in the vast empty space of the Pacific, away from schools of fish and feeding grounds that attract sharks.
I met him at a IPMS model contest in atlanta when I was 13.Super nice guy.He retired from TWA as a captain.47 years ago.
“The pilot of an SBD Dauntless dive bomber, after releasing his payload on carrier Akagi, shouting over his shoulder, “Arizona... I Remember You”... It was that kind of time...”
If you haven’t read William Manchester’s “Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War”, you should. It is probably one of the best first-hand views of the war ever written, IMHO.
“Sank you very much!”
great post, thanks.
amazing that it descended 15,000 feet and landed more or less in one piece upright.
Gay wrote a book: Sole Survivor. He signed quite a few copies, too.
The USS Yorktown was found resting upright on the ocean bottom with all its AA guns pointed defiantly upward.
Yorktown died hard. Made Japanese aviators think they sank two carriers, then still took a submarine torpedo to put her down.
Given enough depth, most sunken ships will settle upright, because that is their natural stability.
I’ve heard that the Japanese carriers lost at Midway, at least some of them, were still carrying the film taken during Pearl Harbor!
I still get a thrill watching MIDWAY when the Japanese airmen run to the side of the ship, and look with angst on their faces. The camera pans around to show three carriers burning.
“Helen Leader to squadron: enemy carriers burning.
Time to go home.”
So they have found the Yorktown, Kaga and Akagi and some DD’s, right?
Robert E. Dixon (1906 – October 21, 1981) was a United States Navy lieutenant commander and aviator, whose radio message “Scratch one flat top” during the Battle of the Coral Sea became quickly famous,[1] as his unit of dive bombers contributed to the first sinking of a Japanese aircraft carrier in the Pacific theater of the Second World War. Dixon eventually retired as an admiral.
I too have heard that film of Pearl Harbor attack taken by their individual air groups went down with them. As none of the 4 had returned to ports in Japan, it is very possible that they did. And I believe that Cdr Fuchida may be the source of this and as the commander of the air group strike force, he would know.
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