The prow of the US destroyer Johnston, clearly numbered 557. Caladan Oceanic=Yonhap News
AFP news agency reported on the 4th that the hull of a US Navy destroyer that sank off the coast of the Philippines during World War II was found at about 6500m below the sea level in 76 years. A US undersea exploration company that discovered the sinking hull said it was found at the highest depth ever.
According to the news agency, an undersea exploration company Calledon Oceanic took video and photos of the remains of the Fletcher-class destroyer Johnston, which sank 6456m off the island of Samar in the Philippines at the end of last month.
The 115-meter-long Johnston ship sank on October 25, 1944 after the United States participated in the Battle of Leyte Bay for the liberation of the Philippines.
Leyte Bay is a bay on the east side of Leyte Island among the islands that make up the island nation of the Philippines. In October 1944, when World War II drew to an end, a fierce battle broke out between the US Navy and the Japanese Navy here.
In the early 1940s, the Philippines was not a completely independent country, but an autonomous territory of the United States. After that, in December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and started the Pacific War, attacking the Philippines the following year, defeating US troops stationed there, and occupying the Philippines.
Johnston’s gun turret remains intact. Victor Vescovo Twitter capture.
In 2019, many years later, another exploration team found out where the ship was sinking in the Philippine Sea, but it was outside the reach of a remotely controlled submersible.
Victor Bescobo, founder and chief executive of Caladon Oceanic, who piloted the submarine this time, tweeted, “After completing the deepest hull exploration dive in history, we found the main wreckage of the destroyer Johnston.” I found it standing upright in an intact state at the point,” he said. He added that data related to the discovery would be forwarded to the US Navy.
Historian Parks Stevenson said, “The Johnston battleship fought fiercely with the Japanese Yamato battleship, the world’s largest at the time.”
Reporter Han Young-hye [email protected]
