NOAA Ocean Exploration sent a remotely operated camera inside the shipwrecked USS Yorktown WWII aircraft carrier for the first time ever on Saturday and were baffled to find the well-preserved carcass of a car inside the wreck. The Miami Herald cites a Reddit post about the discovery that says “none of the literature… mentioned a car being onboard for the battle,” so prior to this expedition there was no knowledge of the car’s existence, and there’s still no official understanding of why the car was on the ship. To help piece the puzzle together, NOAA researchers are calling to car enthusiasts to identify the make and model of the sunken piece of automotive history.
The USS Yorktown was a WWII aircraft carrier that was hit by three bombs dropped by Japanese carrier bombers during the Battle of Midway in 1942, but that’s not what sank it. The ship was being towed to Pearl Harbor for repairs when it was struck by torpedoes fired from a Japanese submarine, which caused the carrier to capsize and sink on June 7, 1942. Space on aircraft carriers is valuable and very scarce, which is why researchers are so surprised to see that a car was onboard when the Yorktown sank.
Here’s what we know
The vehicle was discovered by the NOAA Ocean Exploration remotely operated camera resting upright near elevator number three on the ship. The video shows that the vehicle has flared fenders, what looks to be remnants of a cloth roof, chrome trim, and a spare tire on what appears to be the rear of the car. Its split rear window and other panels on the vehicle seem to be made of wood, leading NOAA to suspect it’s a woody. The Miami Herald reports,
“One possibility: It’s Rear Admiral Frank Fletcher’s flag car, they guessed. (USS Yorktown was his flagship.)…
It is suspected the car is a “1940-41 Ford Super Deluxe ‘Woody’ in black,” NOAA Ocean Exploration says…
“It has a license plate on the front that can be partially read saying ‘SHIP SERVICE’ at the top, but the lower part is illegible due to corrosion,” NOAA reports.
“Evidently staff cars of the Ford Super Deluxe model were common with the Navy and Army ashore; however, as of yet, they haven’t been able to find a ‘Woody’ in service for staff officers, so that is potentially unique for this ship.”
Why was there a woodie onboard?
In an email to McClatchy News, NOAA officials hypothesized that the vehicle may have been brought aboard the aircraft carrier at Pearl Harbor during a very brief visit for repairs to damage it may have sustained during the Battle of Coral Sea. The Miami Herald says the discovery of the vehicle parked in the Yorktown’s hangar defies all logic; the Yorktown is an 809-foot-long aircraft carrier that was previously understood to have hosted about 2,200 personnel and 90 aircraft, but no cars. In the livestream, researchers can be heard expressing their shock at the discovery of the vehicle.
Woodies became viewed as upscale vehicles in America around the start of the 1940s, since the craftsmanship involved in producing their panels became viewed as a high-end, labor-intensive commodity. Steel conservation during wartime also is credited with playing a role in the popularity of the woodie body style.
Contribute to history by identifying the sunken car
After the Yorktown sank in 1941, the wreckage remained undiscovered more than three-miles under the surface, about 1,000 miles northwest of Honolulu for 57 years until 1998. It sits within the largest contiguous fully protected observation area under U.S. jurisdiction, the over 582,000 square miles of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which NOAA Ocean Exploration was mapping when the discovery was made. This was the first time that cameras have been inside of the wreck, and NOAA broadcast its footage via livestream.
A researcher can be heard on the livestream saying,
“Here’s an open request to all your automobile vehicle folks out there. I’m sure you are being attentive to this and you understand what you are looking at. Please post on this. It really helps.”
It seems pretty certain that the sunken car is an early-forties Ford Super Deluxe Woodie, but there were other American woodies on the market back then. What do you think it is?
