Paul Allen’s Petrel has been on a tear locating and documenting the lost ships of the Pacific War.
Today they released footage of the wreck of IJN Kaga.
What an amazing find! Unlike Yorktown whose sinking location was recorded, most of the documentation and logs for the Japanese carriers at Midway were lost or destroyed so their exact sinking locations are unknown.
With luck, knowing her location will make it easier to find the remaining ships of Midway.
Awesome. Thx for sharing.
It is good that the precise site is being kept secret and I hope it is deep enough to discourage the vultures that ravaged Repulse and Prince of Wales.
If 18,000 feet of water won’t do it, I’m not sure what will. I am guessing those two wrecks are also quite a bit closer to a port capable of supporting salvage operations than Kaga is.
While I enjoy reading about these endeavors and looking at the pictures, I sometimes wonder, “Why?”.
Like you say, the site is kept secret (Hey, it was pretty damn ‘secret’ before!), and I’m sure it ain’t cheap to go hunting for these ships. I know Paul Allen money is behind all this, but really, what exactly is the motivation? Joy of Discovery? Thrill of the hunt? Seems an awful lot of resources are spent for a few photo and then not tell anybody where you took them.
I’ve got some crack-pot theories, but I’ll keep them to myself. 
Is the Kaga designated a war grave?
Can’t be disturbed?
It is strictly forbidden that anyone attempt to retrofit it with a wave montion gun and fly it to Iscandar.
Breaking news: They think they’ve also found either the Akagi or the Soryu, too.
That’s great! Kaga, Soryu and Akagi were rendered hors de combat almost simultaneously and never moved that far from where the US dive bombers struck so if you find one, the others should be close by. If they have already found a second carrier it would seem to bear this understanding of events out.
Hiryu continued the battle on her own, closing with the US fleet so she could be far from her sister carriers. In addition, the scuttling of Hiryu was pretty sloppily done and the only a single torpedo struck her near the bow. For whatever reason, the destroyer assigned the job left without confirming the sinking and Hiryu drifted several more hours before sinking to the northwest of Midway.
The last ship to sink was the cruiser Mikuma. I believe her sinking location is known so hopefully they have the time/money to locate her as well.
Depending on the condition of the wreck it may be easy to tell which one it is, since the Akagi, like the Hiryu, had a portside island while the Soryu’s was to starboard. The Akagi was also larger, though the discrepancy wasn’t as great as was thought at the time (the Soryu was considered to be about the size of an escort carrier, while in reality it was roughly equivalent to the USN Yorktown class).
An update to the same story states that they have confirmed it as the Akagi.
Those same vultures have desecrated virtually every ship that went down at the Battle of Jutland- and indeed after the sinking of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow and shortly there after.
Even HMS Vanguard (sunk 1917) was heavily salvaged. 845 men of the 847 on board died.
Perfectly timed to coincide with the upcoming opening of the movie “Midway.” Funny how these things happen.
Great news. Here’s CNN’s coverage: Researchers discover Japanese warship from historic WWII Battle of Midway | CNN
Fascinating. Considering Japan was a feudal and intensely local power as late as 1854, her technological and military progress was astonishing.
The Kaga and Akagi were the premiere instruments of an entirely new form of warfare and the lead ships of a new tactical formation, the massed carrier strike force, of which Japan wielded the best in the world (right up until the battle of Midway itself, anyway).
Japanese war production may have been orders of magnitude less potent than that of her foes, but the ships and aircraft themselves were marvels in their day.
The Japanese may have progressed swiftly but they had plenty of assistance from the British (both officially and otherwise). The British who were the leaders in carrier flight and they contributed significantly as they did with the construction of battleships (although the Japanese forged ahead there)
Have you heard of Patrick Rutland and William Forbes-Semple? The old boy system protected the latter.
Carriers were virtually a one strike weapon early in the war- launch a trike and wait to be sunk when an incoming wave arrived The USA perfected the system with the help of their manufacturing base.
Well, as I see it, if you’re sending juvenile conveyances out to fight a battle, you deserve to lose.
Got me 
haha!
That movie’s preview looks god-awful. It appears similar to the recent-ish Pearl Harbor movie, which I made the mistake of watching.
My big complaint- if your CGI can’t depict something accurately, then don’t depict that event with CGI.
Second- combining characters is okay if necessary, but inventing situations and dialogue that are less interesting than the original is stupid.
ETA: If you haven’t read it yet, Shattered Sword is the best book on the battle in decades.
The original movie was terrible so not much to have to cover.