Diver Make Incredible Discovery From WWII The Depths Of The South Pacific

Brandi Mueller started her deep-water diving hobby at the age of 15. Fascinated by the underwater world, of which 95% remains virgin and unexplored, Mueller began a lifelong love of the unknown aquatic.



As a teenager, Mueller enrolled in a diving student exchange program in New Zealand, and took it upon herself to combine her dual loves of photography and the deep sea. She’d soon study ecology while also traveling to exotic destinations including Tasmania, Costa Rica, and the Bahamas.



Mueller’s underwater photographs took the public by storm, and she quickly became a renowned and accomplished deep-sea photographer. She also earned her captain’s license in addition to being a licensed diving instruction.



Mueller assumed the post as the Captain of a vessel in the Marshall Islands’s Kwajalein Atoll, allowing her free reign to explore the vast depths of the Pacific and the specifically untouched world of the local atolls.



Mueller consistently happened upon large pieces of metal debris scattered around the ocean floors. Thinking its source was a shipwreck, she continued to explore the silent seas to get to the bottom of the mystery.



Continued exploration led her to realize that the debris wasn’t from a shipwreck, but rather a plane that had mysteriously descended into the deep waters.



To her surprise, Mueller didn’t find any signs of dead bodies in the form of skeletons, clothes, and the like. Though the sea’s conditions could have potentially preserved the human form for up to five years, she figured that perhaps animals had gotten to the bodies before she did.


Mueller realized that the planes couldn’t have been shot down to their immaculately intact form, so she was curious as to the reason of their submersion and what could have possibly happened to the aircraft’s passengers.



She continued her exploration, ultimately unearthing an astounding 100 fallen planes five miles off the coast of the Marshall Islands’s Roi-Namur. Locals weren’t able to provide Mueller with helpful information.



It took some time and digging (both literally and figuratively), but Mueller came to discover that the planes were surplus aircraft of the American armed forces that were sunken after defeating Japan in World War Two.



Mueller didn’t understand why the United States would sink over 150 good aircraft, seemingly in good condition and worth millions of dollars.



Most of Mueller’s discoveries were found about 150 feet under the sea, a rather dangerous depth for humans to descend to for too long.



Amongst the discovered planes were the TBF, the TBM Avenger, the Douglas SBD Dauntless, and the F4U Corsair. The majority of them had only been manufactured in the 1940s, and thus were quite new when they were submerged under the sea.



It turns out that the Allies intentionally drowned the planes since their transport, storage, and maintenance fees would exacerbate the existing over-budgeted costs of their fleets.



Planes weren’t the only significant items found in the depths of this Pacific region. Also discovered closeby off the island of Vanuatu were SUVs, bulldozers, tractors, iron, and more.



Six months following the Pearl Harbor attack, the Allies outsmarted and obliterated Japanese rivals at the Battle of Midway in 1942. The Japanese armed forces had made it to the Marshall Islands as the easternmost point of their defense.



Additional remnants of WWII, including preserved human remains, have been found in the “underwater graveyard” surrounding the relatively remote Marshall Islands. Mueller was one of the most prolific photographers of the stunning remnants of WWII-era underwater remains.



In addition to her discoveries off the Marshall Islands, Mueller also happened upon remains of more WWII-era war items at Chuuk Lagoon—the Japanese navy’s primary strategic South Pacific outpost—situated in what is today the Federated States of Micronesia.



Over 28,000 sailors were stationed in the vicinity of Chuuk Lagoon, which was also considered “the Gibraltar of the Pacific Ocean.” Mueller as well as other deep-sea divers happened upon a dozen war ships, nearly three dozen merchant ships, and approximately 249 planes that belonged to the Japanese forces.



The majority of the planes found in this area were of the Mitsubishi G4M model, often nicknamed “Himaki” (cigars) due to their cylindrical shape. Around 10% of the total manufactured aircraft of this kind were found at the bottom of Chuuk Lagoon.



August 1945 saw the surrender of Japanese Emperor Hirohito, effectively ending the Second World War. Drowned war weapons and machines contributed to the total war costs of countless of billions of dollars for the Axis and Allied powers alike.



Ecologically speaking, the dumping of these wartime relics clearly doesn’t do the ocean any favors. In addition to the potentially lethal depths in which the WWII remnants are scattered, Japanese explosives are also somewhere buried in their midst.