The livestream is set to begin at 11:30 am ET.
On the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will livestream dives to two Japanese mini submarines, one of which was sunk by the USS Ward just before the attack. This is the first time the public will be seeing the Japanese mini-submarine.
An underwater robot will be operated from the ship Okeanos Explorer and will send images and a livestream back from the wreck sites near Pearl Harbor. It will dive down more than 1,100 feet to reach the mini-submarine around 6:30 am local time., the approximate time that the USS Ward fired a shell from a four-inch deck gun, sinking the mini-submarine. Roughly 90 minutes later, Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japanese aircraft.
“Until now, only a handful of explorers and scientists have seen these relics of the war in the deep sea,” said James Delgado, director of Maritime Heritage at NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, in a press release. “But thanks to technology, anyone and everyone can now dive with us in the first live exploration of the ‘midget’ submarines that represent the beginning of the war in the Pacific.”
The Japanese mini-sub was one of two at the bottom of the sea in the same general area that will be shown in the NOAA livestream. After 90 minutes, the NOAA crew will move three miles to the location of the second Japanese mini-submarine. It was discovered in shallow waters in 1951 and raised by the U.S. Navy. It was then taken out to sea and dumped in deeper water, before its rediscovery by the University of Hawaii’s Undersea Research Laboratory in 1992. The second submarine is lying in three pieces and is believed to have sunk due to design and system failures.
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