Microsoft's Co-Founder Finds WWII Ship Lost for 76 Years

An incalculable number of ships remain lost to history after circumstances—or enemy fire—prompted them to sink to the bottom of the ocean. While all of them carry stories of the crew, ships downed during World War II often have particularly poignant legacies. Thanks to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, we now have a geological marker for a ship that harbored one of the greater tragedies of American soldiers in World War II, as Gizmodo reports.

Allen's Vulcan, Inc. shipwreck exploration team recently announced they've located the USS Juneau, a cruiser downed during the Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942. The ship was discovered 2.6 miles below the surface off the coast of the Solomon Islands.

The Juneau was remarkable in World War II history for having five brothers, the Sullivans from Iowa, stationed there simultaneously, a decision that could prove disastrous if tragedy struck—and in the case of the Juneau, it did. All five insisted they wouldn't serve in the Navy unless they could serve together. All were killed and 682 other sailors perished when the ship went down after Japanese forces launched two torpedoes through it.

Allen's team located the ship via a research vessel dubbed Petrel that performed a sonar scan of South Pacific waters. A remote-controlled vehicle made visual confirmation of the wreck shortly thereafter.

Allen and his team have no current plans to disclose the exact location of the ship so it can remain in the water in peace. His crew made headlines in August 2017 when they located the USS Indianapolis, a famous wartime wreck that saw the surviving members of the crew preyed upon by sharks. The story was dramatized by the character of Quint (Robert Shaw) in a well-known scene from 1975's Jaws.

[h/t Gizmodo]