Hello, my name's at Caesar, I'm a contributing rights or the New Yorker magazine, and in two thousand and nineteen I wrote a story for the New York Times magazine called lost in the deep set by the hunt for a shipwreck, and the ship in question was the USS was which weighs down by japanese torpedoes in nineteen forty two and you might wonder why it is a bit like me, get interested in a story like that. But there are lots of different answers that question. The first is that it was a fascinating technological, scientific quest, the shipwrecks that lie in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, but sometimes six thousand meters down so noted to find them

permanent midnight get to use the most advanced underwater robotics, and you have to have it incredibly expert crew, but there was also a spiritual and emotional sides, the story, but I find absolutely captivating. The search for these lost ships was about reclaiming the stories of the men who had served on board during some of the most ferocious fighting the second World war. In particular, I was drawn to the story of John Shea who wrote hate heartbreaking letter to his five year old son just before he left for the battle theatre

And this letter is one of the most beautiful you could ever read it Adam Bright's quintessentially american bodies, but it's also personal and talks about all the things that he wishes. He would doing with his son hunting and fishing and playing at the back yard. The dear Jackie letters it was known, touched my heart. My father was a authentic commanders, It is now being and he died when I was ten years old and I d young son have about the same ages. Jack Shea was when he received that letter, and so I read that letter, both as a father and mother,

is a son who, a long time ago, had to deal with a father. You never came home and I became a normal state involved. Emotion me in the search for their lost battleship, so this is my story lost in the deep bread by Grover. Gardner Americans have the best names Angela nineteen, forty to the? U S: s, WASP, an aircraft carrier holding seventy one planes. Two thousand two hundred forty seven sailors and a journalist sailed for San Diego to the western Pacific join the battle against the Japanese on Lord, was unable officer named Lieutenant Commander John Joseph Shea, two days before He left San Diego. She wrote his five year old Son, a letter dear Jackie,

This is the first letter I have ever written directly to my little son and I'm thrilled to That you can read it all by yourself if you Some of the words I am sure it will be because I do not write very plainly. Mother, help you. In that case, I m sure I was scared. Glad to hear your voice over the long distance telephone it sound it is, though, I were right in the living room with you. You sound. it is, though, you missed your daddy very much. I miss you more than any one will ever know. It is too bad. This war, not have been delayed a few more years so that I could go up again with you and do with you all the things I planned to do. When you were old enough to go to school, I thought how nice it would for me to come home early in the afternoon and play ball with you and go mad. And climbing and see the trees and Brooks

and learn all about woodcraft Hunting fishing Swimming and things like that. I suppose we must be brave and put these things off Little while when you are a little bigger, you will know why your daddy is not home so much anymore You know we have a big country and we have ideals as to how people should live and enjoy the sure of it and how each is born with equal rights to life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness, unfair Finally, there are some countries in the world where they dont have these ideals, where a boy cannot grow to be what he wants to be, with no limits on his opportunities to be a great man such as a great priest, statesmen, doktor soldier, business, man etc, because There are people and countries who want to change our nation, its ideals, forms of gum, month and way of life.

must leave our homes and families to fight fighting for the defence of. Our country ideals, homes and honour is an honor. The duty which your daddy has to do before. He can come home to settle down with you and mother when it is done He is coming home to be with you always and forever so wages the little while longer. I am afraid It will be more than the two weeks you told me on the phone. In the mean time, take good care of mother. Be a good boy and grow up to be a good young man. Studies when you go to school Be a leader and everything good in life be a good Catholic, and you can't being a good american play, air, always straw to win, but if you must lose lose like

gentlemen and a good sportsmen, don't ever be a quitter either in sports or in your business or profession. When you grow up get all the education, you can stay close to mother and follow her advice obey her and everything, no matter how you may at times disagree. She knows what is asked and will never let you down nor lead you away from the right and honourable things in life. If I don't get back, you will have to be mothers prick actor because you will be the only one she has. You must grow up to take my play. As well as your own in her life and Heart Don, letter brood over me, nor waste herself on anyone not worthy of her or you. love your grandmother and Grandad as long as they live two will. Never let you down love your ants and see them, as often as you can. Last of all, don't ever forget your daddy

pray for him to come back and if it is God's will that he does not be the case. If a boy and man, your daddy, wants you to be thanks for Nice, sweater and handkerchiefs, and particularly for the note and card right, Very often, then tell me everything, kiss Therefore me every night, goodbye for now With all my love and devotion for mother, and you, your daddy, on the afternoon of September, fifteenth the wasp was, in the car see. The convoy of United States Marines bound for Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands when it was hit by torpedoes fired at closer change by a japanese submarine explode. And immediately rocked the ship. Many men were killed instantly. The ships disease and fuel stores. Detonated like bombs. The hangar

deck where most of the planes were stored was soon entirely ablaze. At the in time water rushed into the breaches in the ship's hull and the wasp lurched fifteen degrees to its starboard side, like a boxer, buck Yet the knee after a body shop the command, an officer of the WASP captain, Forrest, P, Sherman one the ship around, so that the flames and smoke blue toward the ocean rather than across the deck, but it made no difference. More than three hundred feet of his ship from the bow to the central island containing the bridge was subsume. By an uncontrollable inferno. Within minutes the wasp had become a vision of hell an hour after the strikes, Sherman realised the situation, was hopeless you made the order to abandon ship the worst injured were loaded onto rats, many

Their survivors simply jumped into the flaming waters around the ship, with only life preservers, flotsam, more mattresses, to keep them afloat. Five hours after the wasp was hit. It was irreparably damaged, but still drifting with the current the USSR and down was ordered to scuttle. The carrier with a volley of torpedoes was slipped below the surface. At twenty one hundred nine p M then sank through more than two and a half miles of water to the bottom. has remained ever since a giant carcass surrounded by miles of desert in the press midnight, the deep ocean floor. In total, one hundred ninety four men on the wasp were deemed killed or missing. On September fifteenth nineteen, forty two one of them was John Shea.

Recently, you may have been wondering how can I help strengthen poor folio for what comes next with I shared Cory's. Yes, you can build a diverse portfolio without a ton of legwork. I shears Corey tasks are designed to give you broad and balanced exposures across a range of asset classes. This makes diversification In easy, and can help give your portfolio a stronger foundation, get a new perspective on your portfolio with I shares Corey tasks learn more at. I shares dot com, slash corps. On January second of this year, a research vessel called the petrol set out from Tony IRA on Guadalcanal, defined the wasp to locate a shipwreck. Even seven hundred forty one foot aircraft carrier its essential too. an accurate idea of where to start looking the ocean. This vast, you need to find a haystack before you. find the needle in

Second World war. Before the advent of satellites, a ship's position was plodded using traditional open sea techniques. There was celestial navigation using Sexton to navigate by the sun and the stars and dead reckoning. The estimation of current position done time, speed and bearing had reckoning. A tiny miscalculation of one variable over a great distance can lead to a large error in final position. Navigators skill was particularly tested. his ship was under fire or thinking as a result separate. reports from naval battles of the error can show the same vessel and positions more than twenty nautical miles apart. The ocean is also frighteningly deep. much of the bottom of the coral see where the wasp went down lies between forth Thousand and six thousand meters in what is known

The abyss ozone alight bliss round characterized by frigid water temperatures and animal life and crushing atmospheric pressure below six thousand meters is in the oceanic trenches. The deepest part of the ocean is known as the hate ozone. It is truly the underworld. It can be hard to grasp the profundity of the abyss. You could imagine its depth as being between eight and twelve freedom, towers, stacked, one on top another or at the higher and of the range one than Ali, but even thinking about the disk, to the ocean floor in terms of height, is ultimately unhelpful because to imagine skyscrapers or Mrs to imagine the made visible by light the season I dark below about one thousand meters.

When I was on board the petrol. The concept that I found most vivid and unsettling was the idea of sinking time when the crew dropped at transponder fitted with sixty pound weight from the deck of the petrol, it took more than an hour to reach the bottom. A result of this profound inaccessibility is that science, snow, the surface of Mars, in greater detail than they do the abysmal plains of the ocean, which cover more than fifty percent of the earth's surface, an international project called sea bed. Twenty thirty aims to recruit enough Souls to conduct a full bath symmetric survey of all the world's oceans within eleven years, a laudable live wildly ambitious task: the since cover one hundred forty million square miles at present, less than ten percent

of the ocean floor has been adequately mapped. The petrol is perhaps the best equipped, and certainly the most successful private vessel the earth for finding deep water rex, a two hundred fifty four North sea oil and gas maintenance vessel bought in two thousand. Sixteen and retrofit four wreck hunting. It is a strange but beautiful ship. It's the petrels hype that strikes. You first The ship is steered from a bridge on the seventh deck more than four feet above the water line. With three hundred said de degree windows that blended the feel of an aircraft control tower or an eerie. The ship's most precious assets are housed several decks below the bridge They include an autonomous underwater vehicle or a you ve, an underwater. drawn that looks like a fat, yellow torpedo. Ba you ve uses side scan sonar

four anomalies on the sea floor. The petrol also Houses, a remotely operated vehicle or r o d afford ten square. Submersible robot that looks like a futuristic elevator car, which is fitted with powerful lamps high definition cameras. And hydraulic arms and is connected to the petrol by a sixth thousand meter umbilical cord on a winch. The petrol owes its existence and success to Paul on the multi billion air who founded Microsoft with Bill gates do died in October at age, sixty five after a recurrence of Non Hodgkin's lymphoma. Four Alan Underwater Exploration and world war to history were abiding interests. Alan's lab Ashley appointed four hundred fourteen foot yacht the Octopus had its

submarine and our own v, which he used for a sub, see exploration, but after a few notable successes, including the discovery and two thousand fifteen of the wreck of the largest battleship ever built. The japanese moves saw she Alan decided he wanted his own separate research vessel that wouldn't stop exploring every time he wanted to use the octopus for the can film Festival For new year's in Saint Parts, Alan bought the petrol paid for its work nation, salaried its crew and sourced. It's rare and Spencer underwater research tools, the investment is paid, of abundantly. In the two years since it became a dedicated wreck hunter, the Troll has discovered among many other ships, the remit. in the: U S: S Lexington and USS Juno, as well as perhaps the most infamous amount. Can worship of old time. The? U s

Indianapolis, which sank with tremendous of life in nineteen, forty five, the vessel itself, is worth fifteen million dollars. Ba uv in the hour of e cost, around five million dollars each the crew is highly skilled and could easily be employed in oil and gas or other fields to fill the petrol fuel tank from empty costs. Six hundred fifty thousand dollars Chartering the petrol fully crude. As the United States Navy has done. When american aircraft have been lost at sea costs about eighty three dollars a day, but to Alan at least its expense was trifling in two thousand. ten, he pledged to give away more than half his wealth. That goal proved possible within his lifetime. His investment port.

LEO grew faster than he could spend it. Alan bought Super yachts estates and sports teams that barely dented his pile. He collected vintage planes, guitars and cars Who Gatsby ask parties? He started a minor space programme. He also two billion dollars away in the fields of education, health care, science and the arts, and appeared on the the goal of philanthropies list of the fifty most generous Americans, seventeen. years in a row nevertheless, was worth more at the time of his death trunk. billion dollars, then he wasn't too and ten thirteen point: five billion dollars. Alan's portfolio of business and philanthropic interests, including the petrol is now being managed by his sister Jody and the senior management of his company Vulcan when the pet

sailed from home tiara. There were thirty seven people on board, including a photographer for this magazine and me Most of the crew were maritime, that is, they attended to the continued smooth, unsafe running of the ship itself, a separate exports seventeen consisting of ten highly calf unaided british and american engineers and programmers, was dedicated to the sub see mission. This group was called ain t you, which and for all things underwater, leading the experts she was Robert Craft former army, medical civilian submarine pilot Who bore more than a passing resemblance to a the fugitive era? Harrison Ford and who is known, his colleagues, as Hollywood Rob crafted allotted fifteen days to search for the wasp, after which the petrol would change. Course,

Look for another sunken american carrier in theory. This was plenty of time searching One ocean floor grid of about forty square miles with the you took about eighteen hours, the Saudi yielded no clues. It was possible to reprogram and relaunch the probe in a few hours roughly. speaking be a uv good, complete a new mission, every twenty to twenty two hours? When you deducted the time it took to travel to and from the a spot in the ocean where the wasp was believed to have sunk a little less than three days, in total that gave the crew something like fifteen opportunities defined the wreck but deep sea it. oration, rarely runs smoothly I'm as always lost for equipment, repair and recalibration bad weather and other unforeseeable delays. It seemed most likely that the pay four might have no more than a dozen attempts to find the wasp.

as in a game of battleship craft, had to call his shots with care, the wasps. Navigator was a thirty eight year old officer named Lieutenant Commander John, if green slave, when lookouts spotted the japanese torpedo who's coming toward the WASP green slave In the charred house is maps spread before him. He heard the shop or pillows on the starboard bow and me ITALY went outside where he watched as two of them disappeared out of sight and thundered into the wasps flank. Just for word of where he stood. The blast, forced Green Slade back inside the charred homes, is formerly tidy office had become a shambles greens laid gathered his maps and ran forward to the bridge, along with several other officers debris from explosions land against the windows and superstructure within minutes green sleep

And his fellow officers evacuated the bridge which by now was roasting hot and moved to the back of the ship. They did just in time, the bridge structure was soon completely wrecked by a huge explosion. Both the five inch magazines and the thousand pound bombs were housed directly underneath the central island only one or both of these stores detonated. What happened to Green Slade over the next few hours is difficult to piece together in the County later road for the official action report, he neglects to narrate what must have been a harrowing escape. noting only that he was rescued by the USS Lansdown. but chairman the commanding officer on the wasp mentions Green Slade is having the wounded and helpless men into life rafts before abandoning ship from the reports. It can be assumed that

like many other senior officers on the wasp, including Sherman, Green Slade, swam. In fact, as I later Discovered from green slaves, grandson the navigator, Ben several hours in the ocean without a life preserver having given his own to a fellow sailor who was not a strong swimmer when Green Slade was rescued by the lansdown. He watched as its commanding officer scuttled, the wasp evidently green, laid stowed, his charts somewhere waterproof. His final report offers startlingly precise, coordinates for the ship's position, as it sank: On board the petrol during the first afternoon of the mission craft agone Ized over how much to trust green slaves positions He needed a sounding board. deputy leader of eighty you was arrive. Fifty year old, Californian, named Paul mayor Bald, except for a fringe gray hair, who was known

his colleagues as pops may or has a background in commercial, diving and submersibles, but he has also become a to use. Historical researcher on dry land. He spends weeks in the national archives in College part Maryland pulling naval records to pinpoint the most likely place. A potential target sank mayor, then plants, the various fishing noted in the official records onto a Google earth map on petrol, mayor and craft scour the data and original documents in media was known by both men as speculation club as the pet wholesale, the eastward from honey tiara along a stretch known as iron bottom sound for the concentration of world war, two shipwrecks in its relatively shallow waters: speculation,

club convene, didn't crafts windowless office on the second tat craft and mayor discussed the wasps complicated final movements when it was hit. around fourteen forty five, the was was traveling southeast. It was abandoned between fifteen twenty and sixteen hundred point on the wasp became what is as a dead ship floating without power. Population Club believed that the current pushed the moribund was west and North West. Of just over one not forever four hours, then came the and downs scuttling torpedoes, after which the wasp finally sank. Mayor craft worked on the supposition that ships sink straight down with little variation for current after I left them Paul. I asked the lecturer in ship technology at Britannia Royal Naval College about this question. He told me that in deep water at least a vest

could behave like an arrow foil, especially when picking up speed and might move a significant distance off the vertical when sinking. But he also said the process was complex, dynamic and based on so many unknown factors, including air pockets, currency and the asymmetrical nature of the damage that caused the ship to sink in, words, even if you knew that ships tracked away from the point, sinking while underwater it wouldn't change. Much about how you looked for a wreck. Besides, Greens, AIDS reckoning. Several nearby american ships gave estimates of the wasps final position at twenty one hundred. These data points spam around twenty five miles. The question was boom to trust craft was sceptical about how much creed,

to give green slaves reckoning, not least because the lansdown so navigator had marked his map. Seventeen miles south of the spot, Green Slade noted you'd, think crap. Said birds of a feather he'd at least go check the navigator on the lands down there long periods of silence, said speculation club. This was one such time. Both men sat with their feed upon desks, hands, crate, old trying to imagine the mindset of a world war two navigator who, in one afternoon and evening had watched friends die, seen his ship destroyed Suam with sharks, found time to note down the wasps final love. dude and latitude eventually mayor, spoke here

thinking about how many other data points seemed to roughly tally with green slaves and how the only outlier on Google Earth Map was the spot recorded by the lands downs. Navigator, there's no way she's down there, he said tapping his finger on the spot, but the southern end of the map, where the lands downs, navigators said the wasps sank, I've heard from you before grabbed said. Both men laughed. The petrol had invited especial guest for this mission, an angel retired to STAR Admiral named SAM Coxe. Who now AIDS, the naval history and Heritage Command in Washington Cox's interested The cataloguing and preservation of United States Navy Rex, some of which should be in shallow waters are at risk of being damaged by bounty, hunters or raised by salvage firms who chase value in large supplies of metal Cox, told me that

The Rex of United States warships, where the Navy's equivalent of the island to national cemetery and should be accorded similar respect. But he was also a walking encyclopedia on naval history and the distinct help. An interpreter the original documents used by the petrol to find lost ships. At one point during speculation, Club Cox stopped by crafts office, mayor asked, in which position he trusted more wasps or land Downs, oh, I think I'd trust the navigator on the carrier over an greater on a destroyer Cox said more experience sooner, The decision was made craft put Yellow pin where he wanted the uv to begin its first mission, new green slaves, spot the petrol

Just out of sight of land and still more than a day's sailing away from the yellow icon on Google Earth Map and a little after ten p m on January. Third, we were on site in the a uv was primed for its first mission. Petrol rolled in a three metres Swell The ocean was inky and purplish year, pink squid jumped near the surface and the light the ship cast into the water giant tuna swam off the stern craft. Why? on the after deck as the fat yellow drone was ruled out of its hang around the cradle of white light blink done its fin. One of Eight EU team, a jovial Shaven, headed Englishmen named Scott Matthews, operated a crane fixed to the port side of the deck which lived The vehicle up and into the water

Beer uv is designed to be slightly boy in order to say battery life or weight is affixed to its nose so that at times at a pre programmed depth. In this these four thousand meters, Ba UV is instructed to detached the weight at which point gauges its propeller and spy rules. The remaining couple hundred metres to the bottom. If the vehicle aboard friends reason and not uncommon occurrence. It also detaches wait and rises to the surface. Team peered over the port side as the yellow drone dived beneath the ship. It's blinking like growing fainter, then disappearing. I've been reading sermons report of the wasps sinking that day three torpedoes four sided close aboard approaching. The captain wrote almost immediately the ship receive.

the three heads watching the uv barrel underneath the hull of the petrol I couldn't help but perceive a plan. Deck of events. Seventy six you, ago in this very patch of ocean. The crew, however, had more pressing concerns on room. The nerve centre of eighty use operations, which was furnished with three dozen screens a monitor tracking. The uv showed that the vehicle had aboard and dropped its weight and was returning to the surface the reasons It does so are sometimes never fully understood. Even by the most experienced day to members, it was Accepted that any number of factors, including an obstacles, and by the EU, these forward facing sonar a loss of battery or a programming malfunction could cause the. Round to abort.

one. Member of D. You told me not to try to understand, because it's all witchcraft he added, send stuff down to thousand five thousand meters a few times and stuffs going to go wrong. and team was despatched in a Zodiac inflatable to fetch the recalcitrant drone where it bobbed flashing at the surface. More than one hundred yards away from the petrol in an increasingly swollen see a risky operation, especially at night, Once the uv had been affixed to the Zodiac by Carabine her and then toad back to the petrol old on board and re programmed, it was sent down again a little before eleven p m. This time it appeared to dive. I went to bed. I woke up few hours later to the news that the you ve had a boarded at midnight, the crew

worked all night to reprogram her craft now faced another tough decision the weather was worsening and the swell had risen to a maximum of five meters. That's a big see in my cabin on the sixth deck I felt as if I might be pitched clean out of my bunk craft could easily send the you ve down in this weather, but retrieving it with the Zodiac might put his crew and the drone at risk craft made the call off Operations were delayed until the ocean flattened out that didn't. And until more than a day later, an hour or so after breakfast? On January fifth, when the uv was sent down again. At that point, the pepper was about three hundred nautical miles. South EAST, Not only are we seen another ship in two days when the Zodiac was despatched to it

leave the surface day you ve, it was one thirty. The next morning humidity, was stifling seeber. Its flew over the petrol fish thronged Water and two or three oceanic white tipped sharks gold near the zodiac. The drill was returned to its cradle on deck, a wire into its side and its data retrieved. A process that took around twenty five minutes the team, convened in the online room to watch as the results of the dive, came in Eric Breaker a barrel Dryly comic, a uv expert from New York. Explained. What I would be looking at when I saw the sonar data visualized on screen, it would be rose. What looked like a moan Kansas wheat feel if the sea bed were perfectly flat, Sonar image would be featureless if there

Rocky hills or obstructions you'd, see a shadow nanos holiday behind the outcrop. What the crew was in four were items inexplicable by geology. In the case of a debrief, hold the anomalies, would look like a collection of shiny flex. In the case of whole preserved shipwreck. The sonar would show what looked like a toy ship dropped in a sandbox craft peered at the screams, as the results came in. mostly the sonar image showed a flat, uninterrupted desert, but screw through one line of data, something cod craft die in the southeast portion of the image shiny flex, hello, expletive, Dolly he said rising slightly from his chair. That's debris! In the next few minutes.

Team would identify two distinct patches of debris. A few hundred yards apart from each other, it was two a m craft, seemed as exciting as a puppy. That's Erech. He said at one point before walking the comment back, Sir lay the debris, looked like a promising clue, the biggest pad Was within three miles of where Green Slade, the wasps navigators said, the ship went down craft asked his team to run a new search south of where the debris builds had been located. It seemed very light, Lee. He thought that the wasp itself would be there right. At the end of the debris trail. when the suv was pulled out of the water. After its next mission that around two thirty p m, the online room filled mayor and craft covered by the screens there was always an air of anticipation when the sonar data came in May or two

me that the moment was like opening your gifts. On Christmas morning, you waiting to unwrap your presence and see. If you got socks or something you really wanted, it was socks. You ve found a little more debris in the new grid, but no ship, mayor and craft spent While thinking about where to go next, they had used, of their battleship shots. This was the first missions. Paul, Alan's death and the crew felt his absence on previous mission craft emailed his billionaire boss, at least once a day to update him Allen did not give praise lightly. The highest honour aircraft could hope to receive from his boss was an email with two words in caps: very cool was no uncertainty regarding how much Alan loved the petrol liked to watch fear.

mode feed when his teen dived with the arrow key at a new site. There was never any doubt, and eight EU member told me have joking. We were in the the attainment business with an audience of one in August. Do In seventeen, when the petrol, sorrow, VIII, dived to five thousand five hundred metres on what the eighty you assumed to be the wreck of the indian apples, Alan watched the feed from a swedish century. link field where the NFL team he owned. The Seattle Seahawks was beating, Minnesota Vikings and precision game. The only other live feed was provided for islands friend Steven Spielberg, in LOS Angeles, distinctly post modern arrangement, it is Robert Shaw's booze addled speech about the hundreds of american sailors from the Indianapolis eaten by tiger sharks with lifeless eyes in Spielberg's, Jaws, detail

to fix the story of the Indian, the american psyche as the quintessential naval nightmare, according those who knew Alan finding a significant wrecked led him up like times square. The work of the petrol was more than entertainment, fraeulein. However, his father Ford in World WAR too, and he had become and freezingly interested in the history of the conflict, the disk worries were away. He said to honour all those who served our country under the sunken military craft act, the wrecks of a mess, and warships on the bottom of the ocean are designated sovereign, United States, territory, Cox, told that the Navy's underwater Archaeology branch maintains a database of all known and best estimate locations of lost United States Navy Craft when Iraq is found, the precise location

added to that database, but never made public because the name He has no interest in encouraging exploration on these sites. The navy will, however, try to contact veterans and survivors groups associated with the ship in order to make the news of the discovery to them. Two days passed the crew eight mountains of food three times a day, a few of them fished off the aft deck at shifts. and sometimes, but not often, they hit the trim room to exercise. Here you ve only completed one successful mission West of the first grid and came back with now. thing but Mon wheat fields, mission was boarded four shots. Gone speculation club met more frequently as craft and may I tried to understand the mistake in their theories. The walls was traveling southeast. It was hit by the japanese torpedoes. It was abandoned. It floated with the current

West North West, it was scuttled by the lansdown, it sank, but if all those were true, then the EU. We should have found it already. What did they missed? It was a perpetual intrigue. to craft and mayor that facts faithfully recorded. Deck logs and official reports could prove so misleading after the last fruitless sonar. Sir. ouch craft was in the online room with his eyes fixed on a monitor when he said to nobody in particular the elusive wasp there was, I thought, some tenderness in it then came a say. back a crew member became ill with severe abdominal pains nobody on board wanted to take any risks: the petrol steamed. Tony IRA, the nearest port to seek medical help

journey was thirty hours. One way the importance of finding a shipwreck paled. Nevertheless, the prospects for the mission now look bad in the best case scenario in which the crew member was successfully and swiftly treated. We lose or days of the expedition for idle ship shots. It was only at the moment when the mission seemed bound to fail, at least within the time. I would be on Board that I realized how invested I had become in the petrels finding the was. It wasn't only a sense of narrative closure. I sought, although that was a part of I had by now read widely on the wasps history and was gripped by its stories and characters There was David Mc Campbell who survived

thinking by jumping into the water and who subsequently became the most successful Navy fighter ease of the entire war there was Benedict SAM. Junior, who later became a vice admiral stems, saw an eight foot shark circling his group of survivors, as they swam toward the USS Duncan, but decided not to tell anybody lest he cause a panic, a wise decision. The shark lift his group alone There was the indelible vision of the Wasps AIR officer, Michael Coronado, was in the water when he looked back at the carrier and realise that he could see all the way through the ship from side to side what cost this large hole? I do not know, but it must have been the result of a terrific explosion. Granada later wrote. and then there was John Shea and the letter his son, which

my eyes, brim every time I read it- the action reports on sinking of the wasp. Pinochet in the most glowing terms as assistant officer. He would have been in a high part of the central island, called the primary fly tower when the torpedoes hit overseeing that go off and landing of the ships aircraft as soon as the explosions started Shea rushed down a ladder and toward the danger grabbing fire fighting gear is, he went, them James had been knocked out in the torpedo strikes, meaning was no water pressure and the hoses shade did what he could with chemical retardants. He was last seen. On the port walkway leading out another hose when an enormous explosion in the account of one witness, blue steel playing a hundred and fifty feet above the deck. some of the men were blown into the air. The officer wrote, and I did not see them again. It wasn't just chase Heroin

that bit me the more I learned about him, the more I was drawn in shape the tall lean red headed soft spoken Irish Catholic from Cambridge Massachusetts, the career naval officer with the body of an athlete. But the reflective manner of a poet at Boston College, where he was outstanding. Undergraduate scholar he had written verse competing on the debating team and played varsity football, border on the walls broke that he is freckled knows was dented from personal combat. After college. He waited years to marry his sweetheart Elizabeth because of some ill feel between his family and hers John and Elizabeth Son Jack, was only child and the late blessing when the news reached that she was missing, presumed dead, two of his four sisters, both Boston public schools,

cheers remembered. The letter there brother had sent to his son and read it to their grade school classes, the school system. Then decided to publish it in a pamphlet soon, the text became a national sensation. The dear Jackie Letter, was reprinted in the Boston Globe, which called it spiralling memorial to american Youth If magazine followed, as did many other papers law before she was declared legally dead on September. Sixteen nineteen forty three a year and the day after the wasp was sunk, the stuff of the letter grew bigger than the story of the wasp itself. Jack shit died in two thousand and fifteen. At the age of seventy seven, a father of three and the grandfather of nine heavy enjoyed a happy career. As a teacher of latin and Greek at Boston College throughout

adult life. He oscillated between pride in his father's legacy and unease about the strange and unbidden attention the dear Jackie letter had brought him from time to people would ask him about the letter and he would answer their questions as politely as he, good. Before moving the conversation on that, L of the wasp, however, would never leave him alone, especially towards the end of his life jack shit. Often wondered exactly what had become of his father and the Erika, carry on which he served I am the father of two young children, including a bookish six you're old boy who had a hand written note in my luggage, saying But she would miss me while I was on the ship. Thanks for the note and Card John, she had told Jackie write me very often and tell me everything

But I also felt a deeper connection to the chaise story. When I was to my own other pilot, who spent much of his career in the british Navy, was killed in a helicopter accident. My father was forty three when he died. She was forty four It was hard for me to read the dear Jackie Letter, with all its volume, reality and old fashioned man, the boy wisdom and not be a flare of anguish, kinship. I realized, of course, that the wasps worries existed, whether the wreck was found or not, but the physical artifact itself now seemed important. Does it might allow these narratives to be reawaken anyway? interested in the history of world war. One infantry battles can tread the same Flanders and picardy fields as the young men who fought in their millions there and empathize with their experience. I have done so. Myself

there is no better recruiting sergeant for pacifism than a walking tour of the western front, but the surface The ocean holds no landmarks, too stand or memorialize the sailors baffle experience. You must dive deep. The sick crew member was swiftly treated the pain it turned out. Was not a harbinger of a serious ailment? We returned to the search side as fast as the petrol could motor, which was twelve knots or about the speed fastest. Ten thousand meter runners. on January, eleventh, the EU. These data showed nothing but wheat fields. On January twelve, it came up empty again on this and occasion. It was five a m when the drone was retrieved and three sharks circled. The Zodiac. A young eight EU member, a heavily bearded Englishmen named Pat Travis leaned out the clipped the drone.

the hook on the crane when six foot oceanic. Why tip glided in between his boat and the way you had Travis wanted to, he could have stroked the sharks dorsal fin as it swam by It was a genuinely hair raising moment, but one quickly dismissed by the crew. They now had a technical problem to solve Drone, they noticed was letting in water as the eighty EU team fix. The problem craft used the delay wisely. He chose to do with the Euro V on the big debris fields they had found on the first grid week earlier, he was still hoping for more clues may teased him saying, the robot would find a sign saying: WASP Sam, hundred meters. This way craft had the grace to live. There submersible is a remarkable piece of equipment. The petrol sends four thousand five hundred votes and

I of electricity down the umbilical cord to the hour of as well as instructions that operate its thrusters, the mother ship. thieves, crystalline images from the subs nine cameras through this technology gold devilry to pilots sitting in what look like mean chairs in the online room fly the are Ovida the bottom of the ocean. Inspecting the so surrounds as easily as if they were looking through the glass at the aquarium. When the Let's dived down the debris field. What they found was ghostly on the bottom ocean among mesh, iron railings and shell casings were dozens of helmets defined, caused more heads scratching from craft and mayor. It seemed quite unlikely that whatever they had found was evidence of one of the wasps two major traumas, the japanese straw or the american volley that scuttled the ship. It doesn't see

like a major event, but it is spread over a wide area. So whatever happened, it happened to a ship that was moving fast craft, said. A new theory began to formulate him crafts, mind that wouldn't reach full expression until he sent down the you ve again and seen more lines of wheat fields, the debris they had found wasn't from the wasp, if he was right, Every single data point they had on their map was wrong by at least ten miles, but craft could see now other possible explanation. His team now run six search grids around a hundred and fifty square miles and did come up empty the exact Hawarden recorded by a dozen United States. Navigators didn't matter now they were all in crafts opinion, Worthless Cox was more measured in his analysis,

doesn't give you a whole load of confidence in american Open Ocean navigation. He said to a rueful smile from others in the online room. I have, however, was on the cusp of a breakthrough. If the coup knights were wrong, and the debris hadn't in fact come from the wasp. It was most likely to have been a result of torpedo strikes on two other ships in the convoy. The japanese submarine had in fact fired six torpedoes the Bali that fatally wounded the was one past the wasp, but why Tom, to hit the: U S, S o Brien, compromising it's so much that it sank a month later, another from the? U S, s North Carolina, forcing it back to Pearl Harbor for repairs. Both were signal the current events, but not as dramatic as the attack on the was all the manner decree

Now was where the wasp had been in relation to the o Brien and the North Carolina mayor found this sketch and Cox found a photograph each seemed to confirm that the war but been south west of the o Brien and the North Carolina when it was hit. Well, if that's true than pushes everything further South Craft said he eyed the map again There was an empty unsearched square in the southwest, least ten miles from any navigators estimate of where the wasp went under he tapped on it with his finger. All the clues push me over here. He said Mayor was silent. He could see His friend was onto something- and he didn't want to disturb his train of thought, in theory, made perfect sense of the nagging but inchoate feeling the mayor had wrestled with. Ever since the you ve found, the first debris site and craft momentarily, declared victory speculation,

club had been misinterpreting the clues. The ocean floor was sending them indeed even before craft, sent the drone down again to scan the new grid. There was a general sense of intellectual accomplishment in the online room. when the uv re emerged from the deep it was around three thirty, a m on January fourteenth I've been away since and of December. It was nearly time to catch a flight home we were still more than a day's sailing from the nearest airport. There might not be another chance for any uv mission after this one, the sonar formation was spool down the screams of the online room. We all peered at the monitors, sitting in the middle of the grid unmistakably was a toy ship dropped in a sandbox. Their shields crabs. Nobody spoke for what seemed like a while

somebody in the room cried those seconds felt complicated, emotionally the petrol purposes defined rex- and this moment was the purest distillation of that. Imperative, but there was no immediate celebration, part of this riot, he was that the sound waves drawing the outline of the ship represent did the lives of a hundred ninety four people whose stories over the past days and weeks. We had come to know In my mind at least, there was also a fleeting thin and unexpected sliver of regret, which I still can't fully explain. the pang of watching a hunters standing over a shot, stag, eventually craft broke, the quiet nailed it. He said. Hours later, the petrol tsar, avi dived lights, blaring on the wasp, it was

company aid until around three hundred meters by two of the sharks who now followed us. Wherever we went, the arrow It took more than an hour to descend to four thousand two hundred metres, where the wasp lay it spent the next half day or so in Spain, thing. The wreck from one end to the other, with only the ok no slow, moving deep sea creature interrupting the view, the fire and explosion that had wounded. The wasp were and everywhere all sections of deck we're missing in one spy forward of the central island. It looked as if the ship had been cleaved like a log, the bridge was marked with charred flame lines. The funnel had cheered off, but the cold. Water and the lack of lighted preserved the wreck remarkably. Well, My overriding impression was how small it seemed for

carrier that had house more than two thousand sailors and dozens of airplanes there had been so much life contained within that rusting hulk. Scattered around the wreck of the wasp, where airplanes dauntless is wild cats and of injuries in various states of destruction Even before the wasps sank, according to the captain's report, the plains, both the flight and paying decks were thrown high in the air by explosions. were badly damaged, a trip to the I of the ocean had not improved their condition, and then there was the ghostly side of dozens of helmets lying in the silk. By the time we returned. Tony are a days later Cox's colleagues in the Navy had been officially informed of the wasps discovery and her location noted. Otherwise it was left alone the process of contact

seeing the families of men who had served on the ship began. I called the family of Manders. Shea myself. Jack. She married a woman named Claudette, with whom he had three children, John Laura and Christine. for the period of about a week. I spoke to all four of Jack she's, immediate family. To tell them about the was. It was strange news to deliver. The facts. Their grandfather were not changed by the discovery, and yet something had changed. They were all thrilled The crew had taken the time and effort to locate the ship, Laura, a social worker, reacted to the news supply singly emotionally John network. Engineer was happy. There was new information to bolster his understanding of the conflict in which his grandfather, Sir Claudette, told me that her spend would have been shocked, amazed and said, of course, too. live his childhood memories

Act of the wasp blood at told me was a puzzle that Jack always hoped would be solved when I Christine Commander, Chaise youngest grandchild, a teacher and a public school. She told me she felt some regret because she knew how much the news would have meant to her father, but she also found the discovery. Thrilling part because it would mean that a new generation of people would have a chance to read her grandfathers letter in Nepal. Ized America. She told me its values, sang out There is a strong sense of living. A good life Christine said. There's nothing in that letter about making a lot of money Christine all told me about what Commander Chaise example had meant to her father, whom she disguise does a humble man who did not in the limelight that sometimes shine done him because of the letter she said that

ass. She had lived within the value system, his father, Adam Braided, in that short text. Almost to the item he's been in every sense a good life, albeit one touched by tragedy in a strain way the discovery of the wasps brought closer to this complicated episode in the shade history, the whole family He said had believed that the wasps last resting Ace would remain. Unknowable Now, all these years later, the mystery had been put to rest to not be missing forever. Christine said, that seems important. Several days after I spoke to the family about the discovery of the WASP Jack she's widow, Claude, Wrote me an email. She taught made that the news had encouraged her to revisit the Shea family history. She found herself researching her husband's papers.

There. She discovered a note written by John Shea as a boy, the text was undated, but the childish scrawl saw. Did it would have been written in the earliest years of the twentieth century when Teddy Roosevelt was president Nobody has yet driven afford. Modeled tee and an aircraft carrier was a distant futuristic. Instrument of war When I'm a man, I'm going to be a soldier, because I like to fight for my country, it read. I like to March and ride on horseback and go on ships

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