Japanese heavy cruiser of the Mogami class lies low in the water after being bombed by US naval aircraft during the Battle of Midway.
The 33,000-tonne ship was first laid down as a heavy battlecruiser but quickly converted into a carrier, serving as the flagship for V-Adm Chūichi Nagumo during the surprise attack on the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, and the raids on Darwin and Colombo.Ī year later, ordered to engage and destroy the US carrier threat in the Pacific, Japanese forces settled on the invasion and occupation of Midway atoll as a lure, an action that would change the course of the war in the Pacific.įought largely at the operating limits of the two carrier fleets’ aircraft, and with errors made on both sides, the Japanese were unaware the US navy had broken its codes and underestimated the forces Americans could muster. “She’s sitting upright on her keel, we can see the bow, we can see the stern clearly, you can see some of the gun emplacements on there, you can see that some of the flight deck is also torn up and missing so you can actually look right into where the flight deck would be,” said Kraft. “I’m sure of what we’re seeing here, the dimensions that we’re able to derive from this image (are) conclusive,” Kraft said. The Akagi was found in 5,490 metres (18,011 ft) of water and more than 1,300 miles (2,090km) north-west of Pearl Harbor.Ī high-frequency sonar image of the wreck site, taken by the research vessel’s underwater drone, shows the huge carrier lying broken on the sea bed amid debris, but otherwise remarkably intact. Images of the Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga, off Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian islands.
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