Original subtitles

Narrator: The pacific ocean, a tropical paradise,

That in 1941 turns into a vision of hell.

Eric: This was the largest scale maritime war in history.

Narrator: Many of this conflict's most shocking

And inspiring stories remain untold.

Because for decades, its iconic shipwrecks,

Have been lost under some of the deepest waters on the planet.

Imagine if we could empty the oceans,

Letting the water drain away to reveal the secrets of the sea floor.

Now we can.

Using accurate data and astonishing technology.

To bring light once again to a lost world.

How does the world's biggest aircraft carrier end up in pieces on the seabed?

James: The attacks left the ship a shambles.

Narrator: What happened to the warship that broke america's heart?

Norman: This was a confused battle.

And all sorts of terrible things happened.

Narrator: And what was the tragic fate of the ship

That played a key role in the first atomic bomb?

The pacific ocean, 60 million square miles.

The largest mass of water on the planet.

Roosevelt (over radio): The united states of america

Was suddenly and deliberately attacked.

Narrator: After the japanese attack on pearl harbor,

It's the site of a conflict that kills 3 million combatants

And destroys 3,000 ships.

Eric: The americans in particular were tested to extremes

But they proved able to match the challenge

And eventually grind japan down.

Roosevelt (over radio): We will gain the inevitable triumph.

So help us god.

Narrator: Now an extraordinary mission is unlocking the secrets

Of some of the most important moments of the pacific war.

Crammed with state-of-the-art technology, the research vessel petrel is on the hunt

For lost warships.

Part of a project funded by microsoft co-founder, the late paul g allen,

In honor of his own father's service in world war ii.

Veteran marine explorer, rob kraft, and his crew of wreck-hunters aim to discover

And document the last resting places of the warriors of the past.

Rob: There you go, we've, is that deck?

We do these as a testament to the brave souls that served on these ships and that,

You know, fought for their countries.

Narrator: Petrel is 500 miles east of australia in the coral sea.

Hunting for one of the most famous american warships of all time.

When the pacific war begins, the uss lexington is the

Biggest aircraft carrier in the world.

At 900 feet long and capable of launching over sixty warplanes,

She's bristling with menace.

Norman: The lexington was a very, very tough ship.

Narrator: The 'lady lex' as she is known, is a key target of the attack on pearl harbor.

Her lucky escape makes her a symbol of hope for millions of americans.

And hope is in short supply.

For months after pearl harbor the japanese military machine

Appears unstoppable racking up conquest after conquest.

Then, by may, 1942, a huge new invasion fleet is storming south towards australia.

The lady lex is sent to try and stop it.

She comes under fierce aerial attack,

Is wounded, but survives.

So why, many hours later, does she end up on the seabed?

On the petrel, the team studies the battle,

Hoping it will help them find the wreck of the lexington,

Lost for 75 years.

Rob: So lexington was on southerly heading at two three zero.

Paul: Which gives a position.

Narrator: Paul mayer is the petrel's onboard historical researcher.

He's studying us navy reports and logbooks from the 1940's,

Trying to shed light on a possible location for the lady lex.

Rob: Does it say that lexington sunk here?

Paul: Yes, it says lexington disappeared from sight 10 miles away from us, right?

Yeah, you do the research and then you come out and start looking for it

And that's kind of the final piece of the puzzle.

There you go, x marks the spot.

Rob: Right there!

Narrator: They search many miles of seabed using an autonomous underwater vehicle,

Or auv, a robot submarine worth $5 million dollars.

It uses the latest sonar to map the seabed in fine detail.

It scans for days, until it finally spots something astonishing.

Rob: Oh man. Look that that! Paul: Wow.

Narrator: If you're looking for an aircraft carrier,

Then planes are a very good sign.

Rob: Two, three, four, five, six, seven at least!

Narrator: At 2 miles down,

These planes are far beyond the reach of divers.

The team must deploy another high-tech tool,

A remotely operated vehicle, or rov.

At three tons, it weighs more than a small truck.

Its super strong titanium shell can handle pressure that will be 500 times greater

Than on the surface.

Tethered to the petrel, its cameras send back live images from a long-hidden world.

Rob: What have you got?

Man: Something coming into view.

Narrator: The rov's onboard lamps illuminate a shape.

Rob: Oh, wow.

Paul: That looks like an airplane, t5.

Narrator: It's an american bomber called a devastator.

The lexington carried those.

Rob: Alright.

Paul: Shall we carry on, scott?

Rob: We do have a target in front of us.

About 50 meters dead ahead. Looks interesting on sonar.

Where are we? Is that the?

Paul: Those are hangers for lifejackets.

Rob: I'm trying to work out what we're looking at here.

Paul: Basically we're looking through a tunnel

And so we're just looking at a very small portion of it.

Trying to orientate our self to where it is.

Uh oops, go, go back a little bit.

Right on the corner of that little mess.

Was there something written there?

What's that?

Man: Right there, lexington, right, right there. L.E.X.

Paul: Oh yeah.

Rob: If there was ever any question.

Narrator: The petrel's crew are the first people to lay eyes on the lexington

Since the day she settled on the floor of the pacific.

Now, by using their high definition scans,

And removing the vastness of the pacific ocean,

We can see her in all her glory.

An extraordinary sight.

Lady lex has been scythed through as if by some enormous force.

She lies amid a vast field of scattered debris.

And her mighty frame is broken into three colossal sections, each hundreds of feet apart.

On her flight deck, evidence of appalling violence.

Where once planes landed and took off,

There's now a gaping hole.

What could have caused such massive destruction?

Hours before she goes down, the lexington is involved in a fight for her life.

By six am on the morning of may 8th,

Two japanese carriers have entered the coral sea.

The lexington is one of two american carriers that come within striking range.

The first ever sea battle between aircraft carriers is soon underway.

Anthony: The first one to sight the other and launch their planes

And get the strike in had a very good chance of winning the battle.

Narrator: By 11 am, lexington is under attack.

Anthony: Once the japanese planes were sighted,

It becomes almost continual action and gunfire.

Narrator: At the heart of the assault, one of the most feared japanese aircraft.

In may, 1942, the aichi is the fastest dive bomber in the pacific war.

Its speed of more than 260 miles an hour helps the aichi sink more allied ships

Than any other plane in world war ii.

It carries two small bombs under its wings

And a devastating 500 pounder under its fuselage.

The lexington's gunners manage to shoot down four bombers.

But just ten minutes into the battle, disaster.

An aichi soars above the flight-deck and drops its 500-pound ship-killer.

Norman: The flight deck is not armored.

The flight deck is thin steel.

So, bombs do go through it.

Narrator: The bomb crashes through the deck just behind a gun turret

And plummets deep into the ship's interior where it explodes.

James: The attacks on lexington left the ship a shambles.

Narrator: She may be in shambles,

But somehow she survives.

In fact, her wreck is almost 100 miles away from the site of the battle.

So, if the bomb didn't sink the lexington, who or what did?

In remarkable footage filmed after the battle.

This shows how immediately after the attack,

Her crew begin repairs.

This allows all her precious planes to return and land.

So confident is the crew that by noon they're even asking about shore leave.

They've no inkling of the disaster about to engulf them.

Can the drained wreck site tell us what happened next?

On the seabed, the lady lex still wears the scars of the battle she survived.

One of the three massive sections, the bow, bears the punch hole of the dive bomb.

But her other two sections were clearly thrown far apart

By a force many times greater than a bomb.

And that dive bomb hole is completely dwarfed by the cavernous space

That's been gouged out of her flight deck.

It all looks like lady lex has been ripped open from the inside.

What could have done that?

Man: See that looks like a fracture on the ship.

Rob: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Yeah, she's broken badly.

Narrator: On board petrel, the team studies the lexington's original blueprints.

And these reveal that like every aircraft carrier of her age,

Lexington has an achilles heel.

Anthony: It's basically a floating airport.

As you would at an airport you need to have refueling tanks.

Narrator: To fuel herself and her many planes, the lady lex is carrying

140,000 gallons of gasoline running along a network of fuel lines.

When she is hit, these are ruptured.

Anthony: Gas vapor began to leak very slowly through the ventilation systems

And through the doors.

It was a time bomb waiting to go off.

(explosion)

Narrator: A series of blasts culminates in a massive explosion around three pm.

Lexington can't take much more.

Almost 3,000 crew rush to escape the inferno and are rescued by nearby ships,

But even now the lady lex is not quite ready to die.

At the wreck site there's one final discovery.

Rob: What the hell is that?

Narrator: This american torpedo is a haunting artifact

From the lexington's final moments.

24 hours ago, she had been the pride of the fleet.

Now the us navy decides to put her out of her misery.

A us destroyer at close range aims five torpedoes at the lexington.

Man (over radio): Commence firing.

Narrator: She slips under the water.

Partly filled with gas, and packed with munitions,

She erupts in a cataclysmic explosion.

It's this that tears the lexington into the three broken pieces

That are so striking in her wreck site.

But the lady lex snatches victory from her own defeat.

She may lie on the seabed but the japanese don't know that

And fear she could launch more air attacks.

Their invasion fleet retreats and never returns to the coral sea.

James: The tides of war were beginning to change.

Narrator: The petrel has moved 600 miles north hunting another massive wreck from

Another critical moment of the pacific war.

Today, these waters are idyllic.

Seventy-five years ago they are a scene of carnage.

The allies summon enough resources to attack

And land on the island of guadalcanal,

Seizing a strategic airfield from the japanese.

James: Guadalcanal is one of the key turning points in the pacific war.

It's where the united states,

And its allies, begin to push back.

Narrator: For three months, battle rages on land and in the waters around the island

As the japanese try to take back the airfield.

Now petrel is looking for a mighty warship that played a tragic role in that campaign.

Her loss, it is said, breaks america's heart.

Only nine months old, the uss juneau is one of the most modern warships

In the allied fleet.

With forty anti-aircraft cannons, and the latest strengthened armor,

She's well-equipped to resist japanese bombers.

She's also loaded with new technology, including radar.

Amongst her crew of 697, are the most famous sailors in the united states navy,

The sullivans.

Anthony: All five resolved to join the navy after pearl harbor,

And not only that, they insisted on serving on the same ship.

Narrator: The sullivan brothers become household names.

Yet just months after they volunteer, they're gone.

(explosion)

Anthony: All the descriptions of the juneau explosion talk about its volcanic power.

When the smoke cleared away there was nothing to be seen of juneau.

Narrator: The juneau disappears in an astonishing thirty seconds.

What could make a ship blow up that catastrophically?

Rob: So, we've got deck logs and war diaries from the other vessels but the uss...

Narrator: Rob and paul want to find the location of the juneau,

One of the last great mysteries of world war ii.

Rob: We have three positions reported for juneau,

But all three positions are within about a mile.

1.3, 1.4 miles.

So, it's a very concentrated area.

Narrator: After many weeks of searching,

The crew finally have a target that looks promising.

Rob: The problem is it is very deep,

And the north side is, is very treacherous.

Narrator: The area they're searching lies among steep ravines on the seabed,

Some are over twice the depth of the grand canyon.

The crew uses its sonar to search for anything that

Stands out from the natural topography.

Rob: All of that looks pretty natural, except for that.

We've got a massive debris field right here, which spans probably a kilometer.

Prep the rov.

Narrator: As the rov descends to the seabed,

Two and a half miles down, it sends a live video feed.

First, there's a trail of enigmatic debris,

Then suddenly, metal, lots of it.

Rob: This is definitely a ship but obviously we're looking for some unique identifier.

Ah, there you go, we've, is that deck?

Narrator: This wreck has clearly suffered horrific damage.

Rob: Is that the keel?

Yeah, look at this.

Man: Yeah. Rob: That is the bow.

So, we are gonna wanna go over there

And take a look at that stern, huh?

Man: There's a letter, right here, yeah? Man 2: Yeah.

Rob: Oh, and it's right where it's supposed to be, yeah, e, oh there's that piece,

Yes, u n e, that's it.

That is the juneau.

Narrator: But what has happened to her?

Using the petrel's scans, it's now possible to see the juneau as never before.

She's been ripped apart.

Each piece is catastrophically mangled.

And there's a mystery.

How did the two opposite ends of the ship, the bow and the stern,

End up crumpled on top of each other,

While her mid-section is 2,000 feet away?

What could explain a wreck so strange?

D is furious that after three

Months they've still not recaptured guadalcanal from the us marines.

They send a mammoth japanese fleet racing towards the island.

To stop this, the allies can only muster a much less powerful naval force,

Including the juneau.

It's david versus goliath.

Anthony: The american commanders know they would be outgunned.

In fact, some of them saw it as a potential suicide mission.

Narrator: As night falls the two fleets approach each other.

The allies do have one advantage.

The very latest radar.

But there's a problem.

Norman: The american ships had radars of various kinds,

But we didn't really understand how you use radar.

Narrator: Radar is so new, many allied captains don't trust its data.

As they struggle to make sense of their positions,

They drift out of formation

And right into the gun-sights of their approaching enemy.

The japanese captains can't believe their luck.

James: Ships were crossing in each other's wakes.

They were practically colliding and gun flashes in the night

Illuminated a vessel right next to you and then away.

Narrator: The japanese target the thirteen warships in the

Allied fleet with one of their most devastating weapons.

The type 93 is the most powerful torpedo of world war ii.

Norman: It's a very fast torpedo and it has an enormous warhead.

Narrator: With its 1,000-pound warhead the mega torpedo helps wreck six allied ships.

One strikes the juneau amidships.

But from the maelstrom of destruction all around her,

The juneau manages to slip away.

Her strong modern keel is barely cracked, enabling her to escape.

James: Daylight finds juneau limping away after the night fight,

Hoping to join the other survivors.

Narrator: The juneau does eventually find the other allied ships,

And her captain signals she's in decent shape,

But seconds later she explodes.

The juneau ends up in pieces,

Yet just hours before she'd survived the strongest weapon the japanese have.

What could possibly destroy her now?

The latest historical research allows us to answer that question,

And rebuild the juneau the way she was moments before she sinks.

She looks undamaged apart from the tell-tale wound left by the japanese mega-torpedo.

Behind this spot is the armaments store.

As her crew signals to their comrades,

They don't spot a lone japanese submarine nearby,

And out of the blue, a torpedo rushes towards her.

It's much smaller than the one she's already survived, but, unfortunately for the juneau,

It hits in almost exactly the same spot,

Breaking through the weakened armor and igniting the stored munitions.

She sinks in just thirty seconds,

A victim of almost impossible bad luck.

And what of her crew?

The explosion is so cataclysmic that nearby

Us ships are convinced the entire crew must be dead.

Rob: When the smoke had cleared the ship and all debris completely vanished.

There was nothing left.

Narrator: But eight days later other us forces make a terrible discovery.

100 men from juneau did survive the blast, and were left behind on the open sea.

Only ten live long enough to tell the tale.

James: What powerfully hit american households

Was the loss of all five sullivan boys.

But it also inspired them.

And a new ship, the uss "the sullivans",

Would be launched to commemorate the service

And the sacrifice of those five men.

Narrator: The sullivan brothers and their ship aren't lost in vain.

Faced with unexpectedly strong resistance,

The japanese abort their mission.

At guadalcanal, the allies gain ground

And keep it for the first time in the pacific war.

The petrel is on another expedition,

In pursuit of a new and spectacular target and this time,

She's japanese.

In late 1944, the allies are on the March and move north to try to take the philippines.

Realizing that they're losing the war, the japanese launch an all-out attack

On the us navy, deploying the biggest fleet they've ever assembled.

James: As the war reaches the philippines, the japanese are increasingly desperate.

They're on the ropes and they throw everything they have in

An effort to stop the us navy in its tracks.

Narrator: Heading the southern flank of their fleet is a giant battleship

That's adored by the japanese public,

Not least because she bears the mythic name for japan herself.

The fuso.

With prodigious battle armor she's been upgraded with deadly new anti-aircraft guns.

At the battle of leyte gulf she has a key role,

Launching a surprise attack on part of the allied fleet.

So why is it this behemoth herself that ends up on the ocean floor?

The petrel crew is on the case, but finding the fuso won't be easy.

Rob: We've multi-beamed up here to the north so the northwest is where

We need to go.

That's the only place. There's a lot of wrecks here.

There's a lot of history from world war ii in this particular area.

But you're gonna run here next?

Man: Yeah, we'll just hold here,

Trying to get over exactly where we need the ship to go.

Narrator: They've narrowed down the hunt to a few square miles of ocean.

Man: C'mon where are you? Uh, something's coming in.

Man 2: Wow!

Man: Wow, that's sticking up huge.

Narrator: The object is the right size for a battleship, but looks bizarrely twisted.

Man: Something's stuck out there, something's stuck out there and...

Man 2: It's well and truly busted up.

Narrator: Can this bent and twisted form really be the mighty fuso?

Of a legendary japanese battleship, the fuso.

These aren't the deepest waters they've explored,

But strong currents make it tricky to operate the rov.

Rob: She is bouncing around a lot now.

Narrator: 600 feet below the surface, and just barely visible,

A damaged hull.

Rob: Let's push in, have a, a little look here.

That looks like a shaft and a propeller over there.

Paul: Looks like a prop. Rob: Okay.

Paul: Looks like that's the rudder.

Narrator: It's definitely a large warship and there are clear signs of battle-damage.

Rob: And that's a big hole. Man: Torpedo damage.

Narrator: The team turns to us action reports from the battle of leyte gulf

That describe how the fuso was hit by american torpedoes.

Rob: We can see the torpedo hit was aft.

Narrator: This gives them an idea.

If they can match the pattern of torpedo holes on this wreck with the reports,

They'll know whether this is the fuso or not.

Rob: Oh, there you go. Look at that.

Paul: Yeah, there you go. Wow.

Rob: We're seeing damage all over the hull in the places noted in the damage report.

Narrator: The damage pattern is an exact fit.

Rob: Kabam! That's fuso.

Paul: Yeah.

Narrator: The torpedo holes are clues to fuso's fate,

But they don't fully explain what happened to her.

As the waters of the pacific ocean drain away,

We can at last see fuso's vast steel structure.

600 feet long, it's resting upside down, half sunk in mud,

Like a gargantuan beached whale.

The bow bent back like an opened sardine can.

Then, 150 feet from the wreck,

A second, complex structure, studded with glinting glass.

Could this help explain what happened here?

It's a remarkable structure no allied ship possessed.

Anthony: The distinctive feature of the japanese battleships is the tall tower

Masts which they called pagodas, which were essentially a series of

Platforms to provide the highest possible level for observation to sight the enemy

Vessels on the horizon.

Narrator: The fuso's pagoda was the biggest warship observation tower ever built.

An astonishing 144 feet high, it towered over the ship.

Packed with some of the most sophisticated optical equipment in the world from

Telescopes and binoculars to rangefinders and searchlights.

At the height of a battle, sailors and technicians would work as one,

Computing distances and spotting enemy ships and planes.

It's ingenious, but the americans have gone one better.

Since the battle of guadalcanal, they've perfected radar.

James: By the late war, the united states not only had learned how to use radar,

Had learned to use radar well.

Narrator: As the fuso closes in on leyte gulf ready to surprise the allies,

She now lights up on their radar screens,

And the allies prepare their own surprise.

Anthony: They were able to set the perfect trap as a result of this,

And array their destroyer lines in a perfect ambush

Position from both sides of the strait.

Narrator: As soon as they come in range, the us warships launch a barrage of torpedoes.

Anthony: There's no way to turn east or west without running into some

American torpedo spread.

Narrator: Two torpedoes slam into the fuso.

She immediately starts to capsize,

Her top-heavy pagoda shearing off.

In the shallow water, her bow crashes into the rocky seabed.

It's this collision that wrenches her back

Into the bent sardine can shape of the wreck.

The loss of the fuso and almost her entire crew of 1,600

Is just the beginning of a bloodbath at leyte gulf,

Where twenty-five more japanese warships are sunk.

Japan will never again dare confront the allies in a large-scale sea battle.

The petrel is in waters 700 miles east of the philippines looking for another ship,

One that played a vital role in the final apocalyptic days of the pacific war.

She's been in the thick of battle many times and survived them all.

Uss indianapolis.

In July, 1945, she is chosen to race to tinian island

With a top-secret cargo of uranium,

The crucial ingredient in the bomb that enola gay will soon carry to hiroshima.

But shortly after completing her mission, indianapolis' captain makes a controversial

Decision that will end in his court martial.

What happens to the ship and her crew of 1,200

Is one of the most terrifying tales in maritime history

And makes her wreck one of the most famous

And sought after on the planet.

No one has ever managed to find her until now.

To track down the wreck of uss indianapolis.

Rob: We need to put the pieces of this puzzle together.

It's, it's seventy-three years old, and there are you know,

1,200-1,300 lives at stake,

And families, and everybody has questions as to what happened here.

Narrator: So far, they've scanned hundreds of square miles of seabed

In the philippines sea, but as yet, the indianapolis has eluded them.

Then, finally, a moment of hope.

Rob: What have you got?

Yeah, we definitely need to go have a look at that.

Narrator: The astonishing image certainly looks like a ship.

The only way to know for sure is to send the rov.

Man: Oh, something visual coming in top left.

Man 2: Uh huh. It's the wreckage site.

Rob: There you go. That's good.

Narrator: It's definitely a warship.

The rov cameras explore the deck and the hull looking for something

That might identify her.

Rob: Look at that edge.

I mean that, that is just ripped, torn.

Narrator: Then, on the bow, the crew spot a clue.

Man: So what does that say right there?

Rob: Three five. There it is.

Narrator: Every us naval vessel has its own unique id number

And the team know very well what number thirty-five means.

Rob: Yeah, we've got it.

The indy.

Narrator: It's a truly historic moment.

The crew is looking at the first ever images of one of

The most famous shipwrecks in american history.

As the boundless waters of the pacific are rolled back,

They reveal the long-lost wreck of the indianapolis.

On her starboard side, the unmistakably violent signature of a torpedo strike.

And where her bow should be there's nothing but a ghastly empty space.

We know from contemporary accounts the bow was sheared off by a second torpedo strike.

But remarkable as it seems, this doesn't explain why she sinks.

Anthony: Throughout the pacific war, multiple times, american cruisers had lost

Their bow and or received up to two torpedo hits without sinking.

Rob: We need to know what that space is called right there?

Narrator: The team analyzes the indianapolis's blueprints.

This shows her interior crisscrossed with compartments.

These can be sealed shut with hatch doors, to make them watertight,

And are intended to keep her afloat even without her bow.

So why does she sink in just twelve minutes?

There's a clue in naval records that show captain charles mcvay

Makes a fateful decision.

After she heads back from tinian island, the indianapolis follows

Standard procedure, regularly changing direction or zigzaggig

To make it harder for submarines to target her.

But on the evening of July 29t, mcvay stops zigzagging.

Norman: The captain of the indianapolis decided that it was so dark that a submarine

Couldn't possibly attack and therefore he didn't have to zigzag.

Narrator: A little after eleven pm, the moon rises.

It's now light enough for a nearby japanese submarine to spot the giant warship.

And at five minutes after midnight, it gets ready to fire its torpedoes.

So why don't her watertight compartments save the indianapolis?

The answer is revealed in her drained wreck.

All along what's left of her once sleek 500-foot length,

Her portholes and hatch doors lie open.

This strikes historians as unusual.

James: In the middle of a sea-fight,

Everything's battened down, portholes are closed,

Hatches are shut.

Narrator: The day before her sinking,

Portholes were indeed closed, and compartments sealed,

But as the tropical temperature rockets to above 100 degrees,

The captain decides to open the portholes and the hatch doors

To ventilate the ship.

Now, without zigzag, and lying open to the elements,

The indianapolis is a sitting duck.

And the lurking japanese submarine takes full advantage.

Slamming two torpedoes into the indianapolis.

She continues to power ahead at full speed

But now her bow starts to break off.

Her forward movement funnels sea water into her interior

And with doors open it can pour through all the unsealed compartments

Pulling her under,

Sealing the fate of indianapolis and 300 of her crew.

(splashing)

But for the 900 men who make it into the water, the horror has just begun.

600 of them perish over the next terrible four days from exhaustion,

From dehydration and worse.

It's the deadliest single-ship disaster in us naval history.

Captain mcvay is court-martialed, convicted,

And in 1968, commits suicide.

But thirty-three years later, congress clears his name,

Acknowledging that intelligence about submarines along his route

Wasn't passed to his ship.

By locating the final resting place of the indianapolis,

The crew of the petrel has done something remarkable,

Part of an exceptional series of discoveries giving a new generation insight into the

Widest-ranging combat-zone the world has ever known.

James: The rest of us have incredible respect for the late paul allen,

For rob kraft, and for the entire team.

They've got the right people,

Their hearts are in the right place,

They do the right research and they then employ

The best equipment in a very effective way.

Narrator: This continuing quest helps honor those serving on both sides

Who gave their lives at sea.

Captioned by cotter captioning services