Never-Before-Seen Images Of The Underwater Wreckage From The Battle of Midway

Across five days in September 2023, a crew from the Ocean Exploration Trust ran this remarkable operation from aboard the EV Nautilus. They sailed to the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which is the largest conservation area in the world to officially enjoy U.S. protection.

No project of this kind had ever been attempted in this area before. So, if the experts managed to pull off what they were attempting, it would constitute a notable achievement. Nobody had ever laid eyes on these historically significant ships since they were lost all those decades ago.

In practical terms, the aims of this survey project were to pinpoint the location the lost ships of Midway and to check out what sort of condition they were now in. But beyond that, there was another objective: one that was almost more spiritual than anything else.

From a technical point of view, the survey wasn’t an easy task to complete. After all, the depths at which the sunken ships now sit are barely comprehensible. In order to catch a glimpse of them, the team had to send a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to a tremendous depth beneath the Nautilus.

A whole host of experts were involved in this mission. Aside from the team who were directly running things, academics from all across the planet were following developments and were actually given the opportunity to communicate with the Ocean Exploration Trust. Significantly, archaeologists from both Japan and the United States were involved.

When it came to the more spiritual aspects of the mission, people from Japan, the United States, and the indigenous Hawaiian community came together to participate in a ceremony either side of each dive that took place. This was to remember the lives that had been lost.

A Japanese minister reflected on the significance of the operation in a statement published after the dives had taken place. Kosei Nomura, the head of the economic section at the Embassy of Japan, said, “On this occasion, we meet on those same Pacific waters in which Japan and the U.S. once met in battle, but this time as allies and fellow researchers.

Many sacrifices were made at the Battle of Midway. It came in the wake of the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which had been a terrible day for the Americans. Four battleships and 188 aircraft were destroyed and a grueling World War II campaign was set under way.

Led by Marshal Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese came up with a plan to destroy several American aircraft carriers that at the time were perceived to be vital to the U.S. war effort. The reputation of these carriers was by no means unfounded: they’d previously proven their worth to the Americans in battle.

Yamamoto’s idea was to entice the American carriers away from safety, so they could then be attacked. The way to do this, he reasoned, would be to launch an assault on territory held by the U.S. in the Pacific Ocean. The Americans would have to respond to that by sending out their forces.

The plan wouldn’t necessarily be easy to execute. The Japanese would have to be precise, ensuring several of their units were working in sync with one another. Yamamoto decided to send his forces out over a wide area, meaning his ships weren’t all clumped together. There were pros and cons to such an approach.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see now that the Japanese plan actually had issues that would ultimately prove insurmountable. For one thing, the intelligence they were receiving in the build-up to the battle was actually misleading. Working with compromised information is a bad place to be for a force about to engage in battle.

The American codebreakers had learned that a Japanese attack somewhere in the Pacific Ocean was imminent. They initially didn’t know the specifics, but they were aware that the target was denoted as “AF” in Japanese code. Suspecting “AF” may have been Midway, the Americans sent out a message stating that the base there was running low on drinking-water.

Admiral Chester Nimitz was the commander-in-chief of the Pacific Area on the American side. He calculated that if the Americans were to overcome the Japanese attack, they would require no fewer than four carriers, and maybe five. As many planes as they could dispatch would be needed for the coming battle.

Nimitz could only rely on those three carriers, in the end. His plans for four or five fell short, and that wasn’t his only problem. Garnering sufficient numbers of aircraft also proved tricky, and some older planes ended up having to be pressed back into active service. By June 3 there was no more time left to prepare: The Battle of Midway got underway.

Early the following day, Japan sent more than 100 planes to Midway Island itself. An hour after they’d set out, the Americans spotted them and sent their own craft to the sky. A terrible battle began in the air, with the Japanese ultimately winning out. A great number of American aircraft were destroyed; Japanese losses were minimal in comparison.

American aircraft, meanwhile, started to attack the Japanese carriers. One pilot took a tremendous risk by flying incredibly close to the Akagi carrier. It meant, though, that the Japanese ran the risk of damaging their own carrier if they tried to take this pilot out!

The Americans couldn’t really match the Japanese when it came to the rate at which they were launching planes into the sky. In fact, American planes would regularly be sent out in small batches. Although this made it easier for the Japanese to take them out, it did have one advantage.

The early engagements went pretty badly for the United States. American forces sustained many losses, which wasn’t helped by the fact many of their aircraft were outmoded and simply not up to the task at hand. Torpedoes, too, weren’t hitting their targets and sometimes weren’t even exploding as they should have.

Luck plays its part in any battle, and while the Americans exhibited a great deal of skill, many would argue that a little good fortune helped with what came next. A group of aircraft managed to break through the Japanese defenses together, before proceeding to take out three Japanese carriers. They’d only had four to begin with!

The Japanese fought back hard. A wave of aircraft was launched from the Hiryū, which engaged the Americans ferociously. Bombs were dropped upon the USS Yorktown, which ended up taking a huge amount of damage. Holes had opened up across the vessel and internal damage was severe.

Despite the bleak outlook, repair works were called for aboard the Yorktown and they initially proved to be remarkably swift and successful. By the time a second wave of attacks came, it appeared to the Japanese that they were literally attacking a different carrier altogether: it had been given a whole new lease of life.

The Japanese were soon brought back down to Earth again. The USS Enterprise dispatched a fresh wave of aircraft attacks against the remaining enemy carrier, which ultimately proved overwhelming. The Hiryū took several hits and fires broke out. It was, for all intents and purposes, taken out of the battle.

Still, as the battle wore on, it couldn’t be denied that it was the Americans that had come out on top when it came to the carriers. The Japanese had lost all of theirs, but they still had other ships at their disposal. In fact, the threat they posed was still so great that the Americans decided to pull their own carriers back to protect them.

The American assaults managed to score some significant victories during that spell. They took out a number of vital ships belonging to the Japanese fleet, including a heavy cruiser known as the Mikuma and a pair of destroyers called the Asashio and the Arashio.

The Japanese still had a submarine out there, hidden beneath the surface and readying itself to inflict some terrible damage upon the Americans. It fired its torpedoes, which smashed into the ailing Yorktown. There would be no successful repairs this time: the carrier was finished.

That last Japanese assault had been really damaging, but it couldn’t hide the overall extent of their losses. By the end of the Battle of Midway, the Americans had unquestionably emerged as the victors. The contest between the carriers had obviously been won by the United States, which lost only one compared to Japan’s four.

And in terms of casualties, too, Japanese losses were far greater than those sustained by the United States. With more than 3,000 dead, Japan had lost roughly ten times as many men as its enemy. And considering the wider context surrounding the battle, the Americans had also come out on top.

Looking back now, many historians consider the Battle of Midway to have been a true turning point in how World War II played out as a whole. Momentum swung in favor of the Americans, which was now in position to attack rather than simply defend itself against the enemy.

You can see why, then, the researchers at the Ocean Exploration Trust have been working so hard to explore the seas where the Battle of Midway took place. Given how historically important the engagement had been, it’s understandable that people would want to learn everything they could about it.

Because of the team’s efforts, a number of the ships that had gone under during the battle were seen once again. Some eight decades or so have now passed since the terrible events at Midway took place, but the ruined vessels remain fixed in place in their watery grave, fully 16,000 feet below the surface.

The location of the carrier Akagi had actually been noted in 2019 during a mapping survey, but it hadn’t been investigated in great detail before. That initial study had been undertaken by a company called Vulcan, Inc., with assistance from the U.S. Navy.

The analysis of the Yorktown also generated a great deal of interest from experts and the public alike. The American carrier had been located a quarter of a century ago, but this was the first time that anyone had been able to look at it in real time. The feed shot from the ROV made for fascinating viewing.

The chief scientist for the Ocean Exploration Trust is Dr. Daniel Wagner. In a statement, he expressed his excitement at the work that his team has been doing. He seems to believe that their efforts are genuinely providing fresh insights to this decades-old story.

Dr. Wagner went on to discuss some of the work he and his colleagues had done and the things they’d encountered while doing it. “During over 43 hours at depth,” he began, “we methodically circumnavigated these historic wrecks, bringing to light many features in great detail, including their armament, battle, and sinking-related damage.”

Dr. Wagner wasn’t the only person involved in this project to have been especially touched by the historic and emotional significance of the work they’ve been doing. Dr. Rick Spinrad, an administrator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is another expert who has been moved by his involvement in the collaborative effort.

The seafloor around the Midway Atoll is littered with fascinating relics of the past. The great ships, the aircraft that fell from the sky — they all tell a story of the past. But without work from the likes of those involved in this project, those stories won’t ever be told.

Of course, while this particular project was focused so intently on the Battle of Midway, the wider Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument area possesses many other historical treasures, too. Countless sailors have floated through the region through the generations, so there are more than just World War II shipwrecks in those waters.

The earliest known shipwreck at Papahānaumokuākea traces back to the year 1818: it just goes to show how much history this region is hiding. Four years after that, two vessels went under during a single, dreadful night, and their wrecks have since been marked by the naming of nearby atolls. The ships were called the Hermes and the Pearl.