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MIDWAY 1998 In April and May of 1998 a team led by Robert D. Ballard searched over 200 miles of the seafloor in the pacific looking for the aircraft carrier Yorktown sunk during the battle of Midway in World War II. The carrier was found was found in 16,000 feet of water. An article from MIT's Tech Talk has more on MIT's participation in the expedition, and there's more info at the National Geographic Web Site and you can listen to an NPR broadcast on the web (look under USS Yorktown).
Laying out the search
Bruce Applegate from the University of Hawaii monitors the sonar data. On this computer monitor, an image of the Yorktown would be only about 16 pixels long and 2 pixels wide. Careful attention was warranted to avoid missing something important.
Harry Ferrier, one of the survivors along to see his old ship, holding the hat he was wearing when his plane was hit while attacking the Japanese carriers. Note the bullet hole.
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The
host ship, DSVSS Laney Chouest, tied up at the Midway pier (DSVSS stands
for deep submergence vehicle support ship). The Laney Chouest is owned
by a civilian company and on a long-term charter to the U.S. Navy. Thus,
the ship's crew (captain, mates, etc.) is civilian, but there is a detachment
of Navy personnel aboard (from the Unmanned Vehicles Unit in San Diego)
which runs the actual submersibles. This was the Laney's last cruise with
the navy. 
Search strategy for the Yorktown, showing the two undersea
mountains and various reported positions of the vessel when it sank, taken
from combat reports and Naval War College analysis. 
Tools
for the search: historical photographs, logbooks, ship models. 
After
we identified a number of bumps and smudges on the sonar image, the Navy's
ATV (for advanced tethered vehicle) dives at night to take a closer look
with video cameras. It's a remotely operated vehicle and carries no people,
the operators sit in a control room on a ship and control it with a joystick.
The island
of midway today: a few relics from the war and lots and lots of birds;
literally millions of albatrosses and their young, as well as terns, frigate
birds, and a host of others. 
