Posted on 03/07/2018 9:43:26 PM PST by bitt
Known for deep-sea exploration efforts uncovering military ships in the past, Paul Allen's personal search team has helped to discover a lost aircraft carrier.
The U.S.S. Lexington has finally been found, decades later and thousands of feet underwater.
The crew of Research Vessel Petrel (R/V Petrel), the exploration ship of billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, discovered the wreckage of the World War II-era aircraft carrier Monday. It was found about two miles below the surface of the Coral Sea and more than 500 miles off the eastern coast of Australia.
The Lexington is one of the first aircraft carriers built by the U.S. It went down in 1942 with 216 crewmembers and 35 aircraft on board, and it's finally been found.
WARTIME RELICS Allen is the son of a WWII veteran, and the R/V Petrel team had been planning to locate the Lexington for about six months after they were given coordinates for where the sunken ship might be. For this, they retrofitted their 250-foot vessel, originally deployed to the Philippine Sea in 2017, with subsea equipment that can reach depths up to three and a half miles. (Read: "How Microsoft Billionaire Found Largest Sunken Battleship")
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Was it found in the Seychelles?
So, right smack dab in the middle of an article about a guy amazingly rediscovering all these sunken ships, leave it to uber-conceited leftist stooges at National Geographic to toss in this gratuitous swipe at Allen:
(Read about how the billionaire’s 300-foot yacht allegedly damaged protected coral reefs.)
Used to love NG when I was a kid; their photography took me places I’d never be able to go, and their longtime alliance with Jacques Cousteau had me riveted to the TV on many occasions.
Today, however, NG is simply SO shot through with unreadable leftist tripe that no photographic brilliance can make a subscription worthwhile. These images of the Lexington resting on the sea floor would be best taken by NG Leadership as prophetic harbingers of their ultimate doom.
add it to the other respected icons we had - I used to love reading the Boston Globe... I get a free copy now and then; I toss it in the garbage with the plastic sleeve intact..
Only 5-6 inches in town; much more (18”+) just a few miles west.
You realize how large the Pacific is when you can turn a globe in such a way that almost one half is the Pacific Ocean. Supply was the Achilles’ Heel of the Japanese; many of the troops they landed in Alaska killed themselves before the Americans arrived to remove them because they realized they had no way out. I read an account of the last guy they brought in from the Philippines (around 1974), and it was so depressing. He was with another one or two guys, and they’d stolen a radio. They heard that Japan was hosting the Olympics, so they figured the war was going well; they’d hear about the war in Vietnam, and thought we were dealing with the same Viet-Minh that resisted Japanese occupation. Filipino villagers would shoot at them because they’d steal food and set fire to haystacks at night; when asked about setting the fires he said they were signaling Japan they were ready to help with the re-conquest of the Philippines. Eventually the others were killed, and Americans had to bring his former sergeant there to lure him our of the jungle. His uniform was in tatters but his rifle was kept in great shape. I believe he joined a small colony of similar people who couldn’t adjust to modern Japan; they went to live in the jungle in Brazil, IIRC. While feted as a hero, he saw nothing heroic about what he’d done; he had simply done his duty.
I recently watched “1898, Our Last Men in the Philippines” (based on a true story) about an isolated Spanish garrison that holds on for almost a year in a remote part of the Philippines because they don’t believe the restive peasants when they say that Spain has lost the Philippines to the US in the Spanish-American War. The officer shoots a couple of guys for deserting before realizing the truth; very sad.
I agree with your NG assessment.
Scientific American went that way twenty years ago.
I just learned from a cousin (she is 86) that her husband was a survivor of the USS Lexington. Ed passed a few years ago. From their Facebook posts, it appears that the whole family are Trump supporters - most or all of the daughters, too.
btt!!
we’re a loyal breed... ..anyone who is military or works!
A famous squadron insignia from VF-3, although some. trivia, VF=3 was not embarked on the Lexington when she was sunk, they took a bunch of VF-3 planes and pilots and put them on the Lexington.
A-MAZ-ing!!! Thanks for sharing those images!
p
great shots...
Wow, so cool! Thank you!
I felt it in me...seeing it made history real for me. All those pictures I have seen over the years of that...and then to see it, alive (so to speak) at the bottom of the ocean on the other side of the world...I felt the weight of history.
Just amazing.
It is...especially knowing that they guy who flew that plane was probably down there with it. Unless he was able to bail out and be rescued. Looking at the other pictures of the ship...it was like looking at a ghost ship. You know that there are people inside. It’s their eternal resting place. And it’s real.
The totality is kind of like a electric revelation, isn’t it? I am a big history buff, and that just made it real, realizing what you posted.
It certainly does. Especially when I think everyone thought this beautiful ship was lost forever. I watched the video at the link and it gave me chills. I hope there are more soon. It’s fascinating to see and know WHAT you’re seeing!
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