WATCH | Experts find World War 2 shipwrecks from Battle of Leyte Gulf and Surigao Strait

December 8, 2017 - 11:12 PM
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Experts have located quite a few shipwrecks from the Battle of Leyte Gulf as well as war vessels that sank at the Surigao Strait.

The shipwrecks have been around for more than seven decades.

Crews of the Paul G. Allen Research Vessel have shared videos and other images of underwater scenes showing wreckages of the USS Ward off Ormoc City, which was sunk by attacks from Japanese Kamikaze suicide bombers in the 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Another video sequence showed the wrecks of five Japanese warships: the Fuso, Yamagumo, Yamashiro, Asagumo, and Michishio from the Battle of Surigao Strait.

The crews found it difficult to approach the wreckage sites because of fast currents even as depth of the sea at the sites were not too deep.

Robert Kraft, the Director for Subsea Operations of Vulcan Inc. Vulcan Inc., a company created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, explained that they wanted to make sure the equipment do not get pulled by the current into the wrecks, for one.

The effort to locate the wrecks is part of a program to honor the war dead.