USS Lexington found
The fires on board after the Japanese attack got out of control and the ship had to be abandoned. You don't abandon a ship in a combat zone and leave it for the enemy to recover. The death of USS Hornet after the Battle of Santa Cruz is a very telling story of scuttling a Yorktown Class (Lexington was not) carrier on the battlefield, and the condition the Japanese found it in (they sank it).
Being US Navy property, it is unlikely anything will be salvaged. They are hyper-anal about anything that was in their inventory as technically, it still is. If anything is recovered, it will be with the strict consent and supervision of USN personnel as they have very specific guidelines about recovering their property. Which is a shame too: Other than one rotting away off the coast of Palm Beach FL and two slowly becoming coral reefs off Jaliut in the Pacific, these are the only known Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo planes in existence. Nearly the entire squadron was on board when Lady Lex went down and it was believed that finding the ship would reveal a wealth of TBDs that were not shot down and destroyed. It seems it is the case. No Devastator survived 1944; they were relegated to training squadrons and systematically scrapped after Midway. Not only that, but the F4F was "Butch" O'Hare's aircraft. He won the MOH in this ride by shooting down 5 Japanese "Betty" bombers in a row while in the process of attacking the Lexington in an earlier skirmish. FYI-O'Hare Field in Chicago was named after him and there is a replica of this plane (real plane, spurious markings) on display in the terminal.
This is a helluva find. I didn't know if it would happen in my lifetime. All us TBDnuts have our fingers crossed that the USN will relent and let someone raise one and restore it for display.
edit: A correction. The F4F photographed in the debris field was flown by Noel Gaylor. Three of the four kill flags on the fuselage were credits for three Betty bombers shot down in the same action when O'Hare received the MoH. Gaylor retired an Admiral and passed away in 2011.
The fires on board after the Japanese attack got out of control and the ship had to be abandoned. You don't abandon a ship in a combat zone and leave it for the enemy to recover. The death of USS Hornet after the Battle of Santa Cruz is a very telling story of scuttling a Yorktown Class (Lexington was not) carrier on the battlefield, and the condition the Japanese found it in (they sank it).
Being US Navy property, it is unlikely anything will be salvaged. They are hyper-anal about anything that was in their inventory as technically, it still is. If anything is recovered, it will be with the strict consent and supervision of USN personnel as they have very specific guidelines about recovering their property. Which is a shame too: Other than one rotting away off the coast of Palm Beach FL and two slowly becoming coral reefs off Jaliut in the Pacific, these are the only known Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo planes in existence. Nearly the entire squadron was on board when Lady Lex went down and it was believed that finding the ship would reveal a wealth of TBDs that were not shot down and destroyed. It seems it is the case. No Devastator survived 1944; they were relegated to training squadrons and systematically scrapped after Midway. Not only that, but the F4F was "Butch" O'Hare's aircraft. He won the MOH in this ride by shooting down 5 Japanese "Betty" bombers in a row while in the process of attacking the Lexington in an earlier skirmish. FYI-O'Hare Field in Chicago was named after him and there is a replica of this plane (real plane, spurious markings) on display in the terminal.
This is a helluva find. I didn't know if it would happen in my lifetime. All us TBDnuts have our fingers crossed that the USN will relent and let someone raise one and restore it for display.
edit: A correction. The F4F photographed in the debris field was flown by Noel Gaylor. Three of the four kill flags on the fuselage were credits for three Betty bombers shot down in the same action when O'Hare received the MoH. Gaylor retired an Admiral and passed away in 2011.