- There’s still no confirmation as to how this Ford ended up on an aircraft carrier.
- Key parts of the Woody remained identifiable despite its watery grave.
- The car’s iconic split windshield and wooden panels remain in place.
When a crew aboard the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer set out to survey the sunken hull of a World War II aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean last year, an old civilian Ford was nowhere on the list of things they expected to come across. The ROV Deep Discoverer, an underwater submersible, found one anyway.
The incredible discovery was made on April 19 last year. Operators had been steering the submersible and its high-definition cameras around the USS Yorktown, the carrier that went down during the Battle of Midway in June 1942.
Sam Cuellar, the expedition coordinator for NOAA Ocean Exploration, was watching the live feed when two round, shiny objects glinted in the murk off the ship’s far side. The shape sharpened as the cameras zoomed in, white-walled tires came into view, and the realization landed; there was a car down there.
Resting near the ship’s port-side hangar bay, some 5,200 meters (17,060 feet, or about 3.2 miles) deep, was a 1941 Ford Super Deluxe Woody. Eighty-three years on the ocean floor had done plenty of damage, yet the car was still recognizable for what it was.
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As these photos show, many of Woody’s most identifiable classic features have survived the decades down there, including the split windshield, which sits right where Ford bolted it, and the chrome bumpers, which are still in place. The wooden door frames that gave the car its name are visible too, though the timber has rotted away to almost nothing after all that time underwater.
Left To Rot
How and why did the Woody end up on the USS Yorktown during the middle of World War II? Although Ford started building the Woody in 1929, it ceased production of all civilian cars by early 1942, instead shifting its focus to defense-related production.
The prevailing thought is that this Woody was owned by the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard at the time and may have been driven onto the boat as it was undergoing repairs after the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May 1942. A handmade plate on the front reading “SHIP SERVICE ___ NAVY” fits that story, marking the car as shipyard property rather than anyone’s personal ride.
After three days, the aircraft carrier was fixed, and it was swiftly sent back out to sea, presumably before anyone could retrieve the Woody. After being struck by torpedoes from Japan’s I-168 submarine, USS Yorktown was sunk on June 7, 1942, taking this Ford down with it.
