Deepwater AUV Surveys of WWII U.S. Cultural Assets in the Saipan Channel

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Exploration-Forward Archaeology Through Community-Driven Research", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In February 2022 members of Scripps Institution of Oceanography conducted an exploratory ocean survey using autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to locate and document multiple U.S. WWII B-29 aircraft that crashed offshore Tinian and Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The airbases, constructed in the final year of WWII, played a pivotal role in the war’s outcome by supporting thousands of B-29 long-range missions to Japan, with 13 losses reported in the nearby waters. This talk explores the historical context of the CNMI in WWII, project methodology, and results with an emphasis on the use of AUVs and other marine technologies for deepwater archaeological surveys.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Exploration-Forward Archaeology Through Community-Driven Research

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow