https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/12/us/world-war-ii-aircraft-carrier-found-south-pacific-trnd/index.html

The research vessel RV Petrel , almost one year after locating the remains of USS Lexington in the Coral Sea, has located the wreck of USS Hornet on February 12. The third of the three Yorktown -class aircraft carriers, Hornet was perhaps most famous as the launch ship for Doolittle's Raid on Tokyo. She also holds the distinction as being the last US fleet carrier to be sunk by enemy action (several light and escort carriers were sunk later in the war, including St. Lo and Gambier Bay at the Battle Off Samar).

Seeing combat at the Battle of Midway with her sisters Yorktown and Enterprise , Hornet later fought in the subsequent Guadalcanal campaign, helping to support landing, and safeguarding operations to reinforce the island with elements of the Seventh Marine Regiment alongside Wasp . Hornet fought alongside Enterprise at both the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in August, 1942, and her final stand at the Battle of Santa Cruz two months later that October. She sank in over 17,000 feet of water as a result of bomb and torpedo damage, and had been lost for 77 years. Her discovery leaves Wasp — sunk by Japanese submarine I-19 in September 1942 — as the only remaining American fleet carrier wreck unaccounted for, with Yorktown having previously been located by Robert Ballard in 1998.

The rediscovery of Hornet is just the latest of many such explorations undertaken by Petrel . In addition to Lexington in March, 2018, Petrel also relocated the wrecks of USS Juneau — made famous by the deaths of the five Sullivan Brothers — and USS Helena in that year. A previous expedition by Petrel in 2017 uncovered the wreckage of USS Ward , which fired the first American shots of World War II when she depth charged a Japanese mini sub prowling outside Pearl Harbor hours before the arrival of the air attack. Additionally, a week before Hornet's discovery Petrel located the Japanese battleship Hiei in the waters off the Solomon Islands.

In order to protect Hornet's remains, and because of her status as a war grave, the exact position of her final resting place is being kept secret.

I watched a news bit about this and loved every minute.. Hope they make a longer documentary like show for it..

Sadder news today:

George Mendonsa, the sailor captured in the legendary V-J Day In Times Square photograph, passed away today at the age of 95. Mendonsa, a sailor aboard USS The Sullivans , was on leave in New York when Japan's surrender was announced. Although the identity of the man has long been subject of debate, it's now generally accepted that Mendonsa was the man depicted kissing Greta Zimmer Friedman, then a dental hygienist. Friedman, who escaped Nazi-occupied Europe at the outset of the War, passed away in 2016.

On 2/13/2019 at 7:33 PM, Ambaryerno said:

In order to protect Hornet's remains, and because of her status as a war grave, the exact position of her final resting place is being kept secret.

This is probably the most important thing they can do. There are scavengers that are going after the sunken warships in the Pacific they can reach for the scrap metal the wrecks can provide. Both the wrecks of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse, sunk on 10 Dec 1941 by Japanese Mitsubishi G3M Rikko (Nell) and G4M Hamaki (Betty) torpedo bombers, are in shallow waters and are suffering extensive damage from the explosives being used by scrap metal dealers.

I would like to know what sorts of characteristics predict-for and correlate-with military history buffs' love of the topic. It's obviously a pretty popular trait, given the amount of 'coffee-table' books put out on the topic every year and the fact that entire television networks can exist on the topic. My sense is that presents more highly among gamers, especially wargamers.

It definitely seems to be an all-or-nothing kind of trait. People are either full-on obsessive geek about military history (sometimes with a sub-focus, like fighter planes or naval operations of WWII) or they couldn't care any less about it. Like, every time any sort of comparison or passing reference gets made between X-Wing and real-life fighter jets, you get a bunch of posters coming out of the woodwork going " WELL AKSHUUULY... " as the blow their figurative load about their encyclopedic knowledge about the mechanical process by which the pilot-seat bolts of the Spitfire were threaded during production (I'm sure someone will point out that they didn't use threaded bolts to affix pilot-seats in the cockpit, but you get my point).

33 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

I would like to know what sorts of characteristics predict-for and correlate-with military history buffs' love of the topic.  It's obviously a pretty popular trait, given the amount of 'coffee-table' books put out on the topic every  year and the fact that entire television networks can exist on the topic. My sense is that presents more highly among gamers, especially wargamers.

There's a lot of crossover, certainly. Yes, I qualify as above, not full on geekdom... ok, maybe a bit... Subset, anyway. WWII aviation buff, but not to the point I can give you the exact rivet count of a Yakolev-1 fighter plane. Some of it is the romanticized portrayals, some of it is family history, some of it is genuine appreciation of the shape and form the smaller fighters took on. Love that sound of props going by.

Predicting for it? How do you predict who will enjoy cooking? Who will become fascinated with butterflies? Pretty interesting topic in itself. I think it comes down to what you're exposed to, how positive/negative those first encounters are. I don't think it's limited to that though...

The crew of RV Petrel has also found USS Wasp.