I've never been a big student of WWII naval history -- the era of sailing ships is much more interesting to me. As a result, I never knew that the German Navy had only one aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin. In fact, I was so unaware of that part of the war that I first clicked on this article believing that it had to do with the great German airship, sister to the Hindenberg. I'm glad about my mistake.

Poland's Navy said Thursday that it has identified a sunken shipwreck in the Baltic Sea as almost certainly being Nazi Germany's only aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin — a find that promises to shed light on a 59-year-old mystery surrounding the ship's fate.

The Polish oil company Petrobaltic discovered the shipwreck earlier this month on the sea floor about 38 miles north of the northern port city of Gdansk.

Suspecting it could be the wreckage of the Graf Zeppelin, the Polish Navy sent out a hydrographic survey vessel on Tuesday, said Lt. Cmdr. Bartosz Zajda, a spokesman for the Polish Navy.

"We are 99 percent sure — even 99.9 percent — that these details point unambiguously to the Graf Zeppelin," said Dariusz Beczek, the Navy commander of the vessel, the ORP Arctowski, said soon after returning to port Thursday morning after the two-day expedition.

During their time at sea, naval experts used a remote-controlled underwater robot and sonar photographic and video equipment to gather digital images of the 850-foot-long ship, Zajda said.

"The analyses of the sonar pictures and the comparison to historical documents show that it is the Graf Zeppelin," Zajda told The Associated Press.

The ship never saw combat, and was last seen in 1947, when it was in Soviet control. The ship was sunk on August 16, 1947, during Soviet exercises to determine tactics for sinking American carriers.

I suppose this helps explain why most of the great naval battles of the war took place in the Pacific and involved the Japanese fleet.

Posted by: Greg at 02:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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