US researchers have confirmed that a wreck discovered off the Solomon Islands last year is the Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Hiei, the first Japanese warship lost in the Second World War.
US researchers have confirmed that a wreck discovered off the Solomon Islands last year is the Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Hiei, the first Japanese warship lost in the Second World War.
A previously uncharted wreck was located by the Tokyo-based Asian-Pacific Remembrance Honouring Association in February last year, but the organisation lacked the technology to examine the debris field, which lies at depths of as much as 3,200 feet, and confirm the identity of the ship.
A survey of the site was taken on by Vulcan Inc., the Seattle-based philanthropic organisation that was set up in 1986 by Paul Allen, the joint founder of Microsoft Corp.
Underwater craft remotely controlled from the R/V Petrel explored the wreck in late January, revealing the warship’s 6-inch guns in the debris field, crates of anti-aircraft rounds and portholes that are gradually being swallowed up by encroaching rust.
The images also show a large breach in the hull that it sustained during the November 1942 First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal with US Navy warships and aircraft.
