Expedition of sunken WWII battleship finds mysterious car on board

By Dean Murray

A deep-sea expedition of a sunken WWII battleship has found a mysterious car on board.

Researchers using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) spotted a wood-panelled Ford station wagon in the wreckage of the USS Yorktown.

The vessel was crippled by Japanese dive bombers in the Battle of Midway in June 1942, before being sunk to a depth of 5,000 ft by submarine torpedo hits.

The U.S. government's NOAA Ocean Exploration of the location in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands says that on April 19 they saw a faint outline of an automobile while peering into the aft hangar deck from the port side of USS Yorktown.

While NOAA could guess potential reasons for the car being onboard, including for use by high rank officials, the definite reason is currently a mystery.

NOAA reported: "The team aboard Okeanos Explorer and contributors ashore analyzed diagnostic features of the vehicle observed during the follow-up April 20 dive and tentatively identified the car as a 1940-41 Ford Super Deluxe ‘Woody’ in black.

"With “SHIP SERVICE _ NAVY” written on part of its front plate, this car is hypothesised to have been used for Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, Captain Elliott Buckmaster, or other ship crew while USS Yorktown was conducting business in foreign ports."

"Why, though, did the car remain stowed in the hangar deck after a brief 48-hour repair period in Pearl Harbor, when the ship’s officers knew it was heading to the Battle of Midway?

"During the valiant efforts to right Yorktown’s list, why too wasn’t this car jettisoned like the anti-aircraft guns and the aircraft?

"Did this automobile carry any particular importance to the crew and officers who hoped it could be saved?"