A few years back he was invited to go down and look for it with Robert Ballard. Will tried to tell him they were looking in the wrong area, while searching in a submarine. Ballard never listened. Consequently they never found it.
6 months later 2 university students from Japan found it, on the advice of Will Lehner.
Kind of like the American automakers ignored Deming but the Japanese not only listened, they adopted his statistical quality control ideas for all they were worth and listened to as much of his advice as they could get and now award a prize in his name every year.
Kind of explains where we are now.
The rule of Detroit and all too much of dominating American business is: “Don’t bother us with better ideas and technology if it would disrupt they way we’re doing things; we’re comfortable.”
Interesting note, on December 7, 1944 the Ward fired its last shot. It was struck by a Kamikaze plane at Ormoc Bay, Leyte, PI. The Skipper of the USS Ward was William Outerbridge on December 7, 1941. The Ward was burning and the crew were ordered to abandon ship after it became apparent that the fires could not be put out. All the crew escaped with a few sailors receiving burns. The USS O’Brien was ordered to sink the Ward. Another note of interest is that the Skipper of the O’Brien was William Outerbridge. I just happened to see the incident and being a radioman looked up the hull number and discovered it was the USS Ward (APD)-16.