Research ship Petrel finds Japanese aircraft carrier lost in Battle of Midway

The research vessel Petrel has located the wreck of Kaga, one of four Japanese aircraft carriers that were sunk during the Battle of Midway in World War II.

Petrel‘s crew have posted on their vessel’s official Facebook page that they had found Kaga sitting upright and with much of its flight deck missing.

The wreck was located at a depth of 5,400 metres within the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, a protected area spanning over 1.5 million square kilometres in the Central Pacific.

Kaga was one of six Japanese carriers that had launched air strikes against American military installations during the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941. It was sunk by aerial bombs and submarine-launched torpedoes six months later at the Battle of Midway along with the carriers Akagi, Hiryu, and Soryu and the heavy cruiser Mikuma.

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