(Pioneer Press) Just days before Thursday’s 76th anniversary of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, marine researchers have found and explored the undersea wreckage of the U.S. ship that was the first to fire upon a Japanese vessel that day.
On Nov. 30, the crew of the research vessel Petrel sent an underwater drone 650 feet below to explore and document the remnants of the USS Ward, according to a statement by the USS Ward Expedition.
The Ward has rested unseen at the bottom of Ormoc Bay — just off the island of Leyte, Philippines — since it was destroyed by kamikaze planes in 1944. It was the end of the line for a ship that played a historic role in the beginning of World War II.
