On Oct. 26, 1942, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier the USS Hornet was sunk during pitched fighting in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. Strapped to the deck of the carrier was a farming tractor, converted to help move planes around the ship.
83 years later and a British tractor enthusiast is trying to organize an expedition to raise that tractor. Not the carrier, the tractor.
Tobias Wedgwood, who restores old tractors with his son and runs a YouTube channel Father and Son Tractors, learned about the surprisingly well preserved International Harvester A14 Shop Mule while reading a scientific journal. He said he felt bad for it, and threw out the idea of recovering it from the waters. The BBC first reported on Wedgwood’s effort, which was picked up by the U.S. Naval Institute. As he laid out in updates to his YouTube channel, what started out as a novel idea gained steam and built up into an actual endeavor as marine biologists and archaeologists joined in for a chance to study underwater life miles under the surface. He hopes that funding can come together to secure an expedition in 2026.
“We don’t know what is going on at these depths, have very limited knowledge, we’ve got a team of marine biologists on board,” he told the BBC last week. “We know in shallower waters that wrecks will act as incredible artificial reefs but we don’t really know what’s going on at these sort of extreme depths.”
There are some big challenges. For one, the expedition will cost roughly $13 million, according to estimates. The other issue is that the tractor is still U.S. Navy property and the law blocks almost all disturbances of sunken military vessels, barring limited exceptions for scientific research purposes. This expedition will need that permit.
The International Harvester tractor in question was taken from a farm and modified by the U.S. military to help move aircraft around the deck of an aircraft carrier. It is currently chained to the deck of the USS Hornet. The wreck, lost for seven decades, was found 17,500 feet underwater in January 2019. The research vessel Petrel found it, on an expedition organized by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Underwater robotic vehicles searched the sea floor, eventually locating and identifying the sunken vessel as the famous aircraft carrier.
The USS Hornet was one of three Yorktown-class aircraft carriers built by the Navy ahead of World War II. It was commissioned in October 1941. Along with its sister ships the USS Yorktown and USS Enterprise, it saw intense action in the early days of the war.
The carrier was in the Atlantic when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened. It was moved into the Pacific Ocean and The USS Hornet’s most famous mission was serving as the launching ground for the Doolittle Raid. In April 1942, 16 B-25B bombers took off from the carrier under the command of then-Lt. Col. James Doolittle, carrying out the first American bombing of the Japanese home islands. Soon after, the carrier took part in the Battle of Midway, one of the most pivotal battles in the Pacific theater. The USS Hornet then took part in the Solomon Islands campaign, supporting American forces involved in fighting on Guadalcanal. On Oct. 26, 1942, the carrier took part in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.
As the American and Japanese navies squared off, the Hornet’s aircraft heavily damaged the Japanese carrier Shokaku. However, Japanese bombers quickly hit the USS Hornet several times. Two damaged Aichi D3A “Val” dive bombers crashed into the carrier as well. In a matter of minutes the ship lost power and was dead in the water. Efforts to restore power and tow it away failed and eventually the order was given to abandon ship. The U.S. Navy tried to scuttle the Hornet but failed. Japanese forces continued to attack, eventually sinking the carrier after several hits. 140 crew members died in the fight. The USS Hornet was the last American carrier sunk in the war.
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Of the three Yorktown-class carriers built, only the USS Enterprise would survive the war, becoming the most decorated American ship of World War II. Images taken of the wreck in 2019 captured show several items, including anti-aircraft guns and the sought after tractor, looking surprisingly intact despite the years and depths. The USS Hornet was one of several World War II wrecks found in the last decade as deep sea vessels were able to map out the waters around battlefields.
Under customary maritime rules, shipwrecks and their items still count as the property of their home nation. The Sunken Military Craft Act, passed in 2004, prohibits unauthorized disturbances of sunken military vessels. It also established a permitting process for the Navy to allow limited disturbances, mainly for scientific research purposes.
“We know very little about life at 17,000 feet,” Wedgwood said in one of his videos. So if the expedition goes forward, the team would have to rely on remote controlled robotic vessels that can handle the depths to study the life that’s built up around the Hornet. As for the tractor, the proposed expedition would see the chains cut off to minimally disturb the wreck, then pulling the converted farm tool to the surface, where it could then be hoisted out of the water.
“It has a huge sort of historical relevance and it would be great for a sort of educational piece,” Wedgwood told the BBC.
