A crew exploring the USS-Yorktown shipwreck made an unexpected discovery when they located a mysterious Ford automobile among the wreckage over the weekend, officials said.
The faint outline of a suspected 1940-41 black Ford Super Deluxe “Woody” was found Saturday by a remotely operated vehicle in the hangar deck of the historic World War II aircraft carrier that sank during the Battle of Midway in 1942, according to the NOAA Ocean Exploration.
Further exploration the following day showed the car upright with part of its license plate reading, “SHIP SERVICE __ NAVY” and the windshield still intact about three miles below the surface.
“It’s a car. That’s a car,” a researcher was heard saying on a livestream of the expedition, the Miami Herald reported. “That is a full car.”
“Why is there a car on this boat?” another researcher asked.
NOAA officials believe the car might have been used by Rear Admiral Jack Fletcher, Captain Elliott Buckmaster or another crew member while the USS Yorktown was docked at foreign ports.
The researchers questioned why the vehicle was left on the vessel as the crew desperately hurled heavy machinery off the sinking ship to lower its load after it was struck by a Japanese torpedo.
“Yorktown’s salvage crew worked tirelessly to jettison anti-aircraft guns and aircraft to reduce its list [after the torpedo strike], but did they leave the car, something they could roll off the side?” NOAA officials said in an email to the Herald.
“Perhaps the car belonged to someone important on the ship or to the fleet: the captain or admiral.”
There are also questions about why the car remained on the ship after it briefly stopped off at Pearl Harbor for a 48-hour repair ahead of the planned battle, officials said.
The USS Yorktown was commissioned in 1937 and took part in several World War II missions in the Pacific before it went down following an attack by the Japanese.
The massive shipwreck was discovered upright and intact in May 1988 in a joint effort by the US Navy and the National Geographic Society.
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