A search team led by Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen has found the wreckage of an American aircraft carrier that sank during World War II off the coast of Australia, the US Navy said on Monday. The USS Lexington was lost during the Battle of the Coral Sea against Japan in May 1942.
Allen’s philanthropic company Vulcan found the wreck of USS Lexington, along with 11 of its 35 aircraft, 3 km underwater in the Coral Sea, around 800 km off the east coast of Australia. Photographs of the well-preserved wreckage show Lexington’s nameplate and guns.
Lexington went down during the Battle of the Coral Sea against Japan in May 1942, which killed 216 crew members.
“As the son of a survivor of the USS Lexington, I offer my congratulations to Paul Allen and the expedition crew of Research Vessel Petrel for locating ‘Lady Lex,’” head of the US Pacific Command Admiral Harry Harris said, according to the BBC.
Spokesperson for Vulcan Robert Kraft said the warship was on their priority list “because she was one of the capital ships that was lost” during the war.
In August 2017, Vulcan had discovered the wreckage of a World War II cruiser, the USS Indianapolis, on the bed of the Pacific Ocean. A Japanese submarine had torpedoed the vessel in July 1945.
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