Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft and a well-known philanthropist, together with his research team, have uncovered an enormous 70-year-old Japanese WWII battleship about 0.62 miles (one kilometer) deep on the seabed in the Philippines.
Allen believes his team has found the Musashi, once one of the two largest warships in the world. Coincidentally, the discovery of the vessel happens to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the war’s end, and has created quite a storm of excitement among some of the world’s historians.
Using an autonomous underwater vehicle in conjunction with topographical data, Allen’s exploration vessel found the wreckage on the sea floor of Sibuyan, Philippines – marking the end of an eight-year search for Allen and his team.
The philanthropist, who is fascinated with World War history, announced the good news through his Twitter account stating, “World War II battleship Musashi sank 1944 is found.” His announcement has since received 19,000 retweets, in addition to the various comments found under the pictures and videos Allen has uploaded of the wreckage.
In October 24, 1994, US warplanes sank the Japanese war ship during the battle of Leyte Golf, which is largely considered the biggest naval confrontation to have taken place with the Americans and Australians, where the Japanese were defeated.
The Musashi warship was constructed in March 1938, as one of the trio of vessels the Japanese created for WWII. Spanning 862 feet in length and boasting a speed of 27 knots, it was large enough to house 2,399 crew members on the ship and even seven aircraft.
A professional historian in the Philippines, Mr. Manolo Quezon, states that a major historical find like this is comparable to the uncovering of the Titanic, if verified.
In commenting on this remarkable warship discovery, Paul Allen said, “The Musashi is truly an engineering marvel and, as an engineer at heart, I have a deep appreciation for the technology and effort that went in to its construction.”
The billionaire who co-founded Microsoft and was ranked as the World’s 51st richest man is now working on a project called Stratolaunch, aimed at revolutionizing the cost-effective launching of cargo into space. Back in 2004, Allen also launched SpaceShipOne, a privately built spacecraft into orbital space.
