IJN Akagi as last seen (artist's conception).
Posted on 10/21/2019 9:25:38 AM PDT by US Navy Vet
MIDWAY ATOLL, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (AP) — A crew of deep-sea explorers and historians looking for lost World War II warships have found a second Japanese aircraft carrier that went down in the historic Battle of Midway.
Vulcan Inc.'s director of undersea operations Rob Kraft and Naval History and Heritage Command historian Frank Thompson reviewed high frequency sonar images of the warship Sunday and say that its dimensions and location mean it has to be the carrier Akagi.
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.
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 Sunday morning.
The first scan used low-resolution sonar, so the crew sent their AUV back to get higher-quality images.
"I'm sure of what we're seeing here, the dimensions that we're able to derive from this image (are) conclusive," Kraft said. "It can be none other than Akagi."
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Excellent, more episodes of “Drain the Oceans”.
I’m curious to know how far a sinking ship will travel laterally from its location on the surface as it travels down 18,000 feet.
A few years ago they found Yorktown.
The Soryu should be in the same area. The Hiryu could be a lot tougher to find it was sunk the next day.
Pretty far is my guess depending on the weight and how it sank! 18,000 ft of water...holy cow
There’s also Hammann and Mikuma. The former should be pretty easy to locate as it was torpedoed the same time as the Yorktown and went down fast. Mikuma will probably be the hardest to locate of the ships lost at Midway.
IJN Akagi as last seen (artist's conception).
There probably won’t be much left of the Hammmann, a WW II Jap Lang Lance torpedo would do quite the number on a Destroyer!
This group found the Lexington which was sunk at the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Yorktown was sunk at Midway.
Ping to Army vets with an interest in the WW2 Battle of Midway. Last year this team located the USS Yorktown, a few days ago they located the Japanese carrier Kaga, and now they have located and identified the Akagi. Just 2 more sunken Japanese carriers to go: Soryu and Hiryu
“8,000 ft of water...holy cow”
3.4 miles underwater. At the average walking speed of 3 to 4 miles per hour,itnwould take an hour of walking straight down to get to the wreck. Planet Earth is truly a monster.
Gravity acceleration is 9.8 m/s^2 and I don’t know if there is a mean max. velocity in air. Maybe some smart person here on FR knows what it is in water?!
Long Lances were shipboard weapons, submarines generally used the Type 95 which was a smaller version of the Type 93.
http://www.combinedfleet.com/torps.htm
I might not of been clear. I wasn’t talking about falling, I was talking about walking the distance just so readers get a feel for the distance.
If the ocean where to disappear and a person was to fall to the wreck we have to look at skydiving. When skydiving the average terminal velocity of a skydiver is around 197 feet per second. If you divide 18,000’ by 197’ you get 91 seconds of free fall before you would smack into the mephitic ooze of the sea bottom like a bullet hitting mud.
Yes, and I saw a tv show a few years back where they tried to do what the current expedition is doing. They couldn’t find the Japanese ships but did find the Yorktown.
Actually, Ballard found the Yorktown in 1998. Same guy who found the Titanic.
O ok, But a HUGE Blast nonetheless.
Meh. I’ve had swim call in deeper water.
There’s a vid on YT on Midway from the Japanese perspective. Only part 1 [of 2] that I could find. Ends with the IJN down 3 carriers, and what the Hiryu has left for aircraft.
It’s pretty much graphical display, save for the occasional combat photo.
Anyway, it lays out Nagumo’s time constraints, orders, IJN doctrine, etc.
The haphazard US attacks did a number on his ability to stage and launch attacks.
Can’t find part 2, though.
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