A remotely operated automobile exploration of the wreck of the USS Yorktown, a U.S. Navy plane provider sunk within the Battle of Halfway, has discovered a 1940-41 Ford vehicle on the aft hangar deck. That is outstanding for a number of causes, before everything that it wasn’t thrown overboard within the crew’s makes an attempt to avoid wasting the ship after it was disabled by a torpedo assault on the battle’s first day, June 4th 1942. Additionally, motor autos weren’t usually saved aboard ships at sea, particularly ones headed into battle. Moreover, this was a full-featured Ford Tremendous Deluxe Woody civilian mannequin, not the pared-down navy mannequin of this Ford wagon, dubbed the C11, that you just’d anticipate to see in lively navy use.
Commissioned in 1937, the USS Yorktown had taken heavy harm only a month earlier than Halfway within the Battle of the Coral Sea, a lot in order that the Japanese navy had counted it as misplaced, however it was patched as much as battle-ready requirements in simply 72 hours on the Pear Harbor Naval Shipyard. It performed a significant position at Halfway. Its planes had been the primary within the air scouting for the Japanese fleet, and as soon as battle was engaged and it was bombed, its crew repaired harm so quickly that Japanese flyers thought it was a special ship, so when it was struck once more with two torpedoes and crippled, the Japanese thought there was just one functioning American plane provider left when the truth is there have been two. The Japanese forces had been unprepared for the energy of the American counterattack and misplaced. On the finish of the battle, the US had misplaced solely the Yorktown of its three carriers. Japan misplaced all 4 of its carriers, and the Japanese navy by no means recovered.
After the June 4th torpedo strike, Yorktown was left with out energy and a extreme 23-degree listing to port, however it was nonetheless believed to be salvageable and the crew made each effort to counter the listing and hold it floating. On June sixth, the provider was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and this time there was no salvaging it. The crew was evacuated and the ship sank on June seventh, 1942. Forty males had been misplaced; 2,270 survived.
The wreck was found in 1998 by deep-sea explorer Dr. Robert Ballard, co-leader of the expedition that had discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985. Discovered at a depth of 16,650 ft (three miles, a mile deeper than Titanic), Yorktown was upright and in wonderful situation, with anti-aircraft batteries nonetheless raised and metal shiny. A number of explorations of the Yorktown wreck by Nationwide Geographic Society and the U.S. Navy adopted.
Since 2006, Halfway Atoll is a part of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Nationwide Monument, one of many world’s largest protected environments that’s wealthy in pre-European archaeological stays, marine life and conventional Native Hawaiian cultural significance. Papahānaumokuākea is run by the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and in 2024, NOAA Ocean Exploration started conducting sonar mapping expeditions of the monument on its ship Okeanos Explorer. Its mission was to map unexplored waters deeper than 656 ft, and in three expeditions, the staff mapped a unprecedented 52,774 sq. miles.
This spring, mapping operations resumed, including remotely operated automobile (ROV) dives to the sonar scanning. On April nineteenth and twentieth, the Okeanos Explorer staff explored the wreck of the USS Yorktown. The ROV’s digicam was in a position to seize for the primary time the hand-painted 42 by 12-foot mural, “A Chart of the Cruises of the USS Yorktown,” in one of many elevator shafts. Whereas the mural had by no means been imaged earlier than, its existence was well-known.
The car, however, got here as an entire shock.
Through the dive on April 19, we observed a faint define of an vehicle whereas peering into the aft hangar deck from the port facet of USS Yorktown. The staff aboard Okeanos Explorer and contributors ashore analyzed diagnostic options of the automobile noticed in the course of the follow-up April 20 dive and tentatively recognized the automobile as a 1940-41 Ford Tremendous Deluxe ‘Woody’ in black. With “SHIP SERVICE ___ NAVY” written on a part of its entrance plate, this automobile is hypothesized to have been used for Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, Captain Elliott Buckmaster, or different ship crew whereas USS Yorktown was conducting enterprise in overseas ports.
Why, although, did the automobile stay stowed within the hangar deck after a short 48-hour restore interval in Pearl Harbor, when the ship’s officers knew it was heading to the Battle of Halfway? Through the valiant efforts to proper Yorktown’s listing, why too wasn’t this automobile jettisoned just like the anti-aircraft weapons and the plane? Did this vehicle carry any explicit significance to crew and officers who hoped it might be saved?
My vote is Rear Admiral Fletcher, simply because whoever cherished this automobile a lot needed to be very high-ranking to safe the valuable hangar house within the first place, to maintain it there even headed into battle after which to prioritize it over plane and artillery within the battle to avoid wasting a complete plane provider.
Right here’s a ravishing instance of a 1941 Ford Tremendous Deluxe Woody in pristine unrestored situation to offer an thought of what it seemed like when it was driving the Rear Admiral (?) round.
