NOAA, U.S. Navy, find 'amazingly intact' WWII-era aircraft carrier off California coast

Sixty-four years after it was scuttled off California's Farallon Islands, the USS Independence has been re-discovered, resting on the seafloor "amazingly intact," according to NOAA scientists. A survey team made up of representatives from NOAA, the U.S. Navy and private industry parties is working on a two-year project to map and study the more than 300 shipwrecks estimated to be lying off California's coast.

The Independence is thought to be the deepest shipwreck in the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, which covers nearly 3,300 square miles of water beyond the Golden Gate Bridge.

"After 64 years on the seafloor, Independence sits on the bottom as if ready to launch its planes," James Delgado, chief scientist on the mission, said. "It is a reminder of the industrial might and skill of the 'greatest generation' that sent not only this ship, but their loved ones to war."

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The Independence was one of more than 90 vessels used as a target fleet for the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests, in 1946. Before that, it operated out of the central and western Pacific for two years. Scientists used a remote-controlled submarine to take images of the shipwreck; check out the photo, below, and read more about the carrier via the National Marine Sanctuaries' website. —Sarah Eberspacher