Sunken WWII mystery solved after 83 years as researchers make stunning discovery in the Pacific
The bow of the USS New Orleans was blown off by a Japanese torpedo in a 1942 battle that resulted in an Axis victory.
Nearly 83 years later, scientists and explorers with the Ocean Exploration Trust found the forward section of the ship around 2,200 feet underwater in the Iron Bottom Sound, a body of water in the Solomon Islands.
The Solomon Islands is an archipelago of hundreds of islands east of Papua New Guinea and northeast of Australia.
Experts aboard the Nautilus exploration vessel voyaged into the Iron Bottom Sound, which is already home to over 100 World War II shipwrecks, and took high resolution images of the sunken bow.
At that point they weren't certain of what they'd stumbled across, but after archaeologists worked to identify details of its paint, structure and anchor, they were eventually able to positively identify the bow as once belonging to the USS New Orleans.
'The wreck was located during seafloor mapping operations by an uncrewed surface vehicle, then investigated shortly thereafter by a deep-diving remotely operated vehicle,' Ocean Exploration Trust's Chief Scientist Daniel Wagner said in a statement.
'This imagery was viewed in real-time by hundreds of experts around the world, who all worked together to make a positive identification of the finding.'
A team of researchers with the Ocean Exploration Trust announced they found the severed forward section of the ship (pictured) nearly 83 years after the World War II battle
In the November 1942 naval engagement now known as the Battle of Tassafaronga, the US Navy and Japanese Imperial Navy faced off at nighttime.
A fleet of nine ships, including the USS New Orleans, intercepted eight Japanese destroyers trying to deliver food to their forces on the nearby island of Guadalcanal.
US cruisers fired first, but this exposed their position, which led to a bloody battle on both sides.
However, the Japanese quickly gained the upper hand, sinking one US heavy cruiser and damaging three more.
One of the three that were damaged was the USS New Orleans. It was hit by a 'Long Lance' torpedo, tearing off nearly a third of the ship and killing 183 sailors.
Three US crew members would die because they valiantly stayed at their posts as the ship flooded and managed to stop it from sinking.
Miraculously, the surviving crew managed to get the ship to a nearby harbor, where they stabilized it by creating a makeshift bow of tied together coconut logs.
This improvised solution worked well enough to allow them to sail backwards all the way across the Pacific Ocean back to the United States so the ship could be permanently repaired.
After she was fixed, the USS New Orleans was involved in several crucial naval campaigns throughout the Pacific from 1943 to 1945.
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New ocean expedition captures images of 13 WWII shipwrecks from major naval battles
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