I actually dove on the Johnson wreck, and was sitting right next to her
Johnston was about 6,500 meters deep, which is almost twice as deep as Titanic is
and I took 500 photos on my iPhone
Wait! This is with your iPhone? You took these with your iPhone?
Yeah, and actually it got better pictures than the camera on the outside of the sub
The deep-water discovery of the famed World War II destroyer USS Johnston...
...in the spring of 2021, rocked the world because at over four miles down...
... it was the deepest shipwreck ever to be explored at that time
However, if we're just meeting for the first time,
my name is Ken Stano and I am a WW2 historian, mechanical engineer...
...and host of the video podcast 'Museum Ship Mafia'...
...where on a recent episode, we were shocked to discover one of the pieces of technology the expedition utilized...
...to survey the wreck of the USS Johnson...
... is actually something many of us routinely carry in our pockets...
...that's right, your basic iPhone
We're gonna bring a guy by the name of Parks Stevenson on with us. Parks welcome!
Parks Stevenson... I'm just going to give you a little bit of background...
... he is a deep-ocean explorer out of San Marcos, California
Parks is a graduate of the US Naval Academy with over 20 years as a naval officer...
... and he's even joined expeditions down to the Titanic
He's co-authored a book with film producer and director James Cameron...
called "Exploring the Deep, the Titanic Expeditions"
Parks, thanks for joining us tonight!
Thanks for having me on.
We've been talking about Taffy 3, the USS Johnston...
You actually went down as part of the expedition to find the USS Johnston, so you were there
Yes, I was there. We found the wrecks of Johnston and Sammy B...
...the deepest shipwrecks in the world on the western edge of the Philippine trench
I actually dove on the Johnston wreck, and was sitting right next to her...
...Johnston was about 6,500 meters deep...
... which is almost twice as deep as Titanic is...
... and down there in that deep was Johnston,
sitting upright, buried in the sand up to her waterline...
... guns trained-out, looking just as fierce as she did in 1944,
but very badly riddled, very very badly damaged
Victor's 'Limiting Factor' is a full-ocean-depth submersible...
...the only commercial one in the West...
...and Victor has 'Pressure Drop', and so depth is not a problem for him
He can go to any depth
At the end of our third dive, he saw the bow of Johnston...
...and did a quick look at it before he had to surface...
... and then he and I dove the next day to go down to survey the wreck
How long does it take to get down that far?
How much time can you spend down there before you have to start coming back up?
A typical dive is like eight hours, and it's very cramped.
It was about an hour-and-a-half to get down to Titanic...
...a little bit over two hours to get down to Johnston...
... and of course there's going to be another couple hours to come back up at the end...
...so you normally spend about four hours or so exploring the bottom
This is a photo that I took outside my viewport.
As you can see, '557' is just as clear and bright almost as the day it was painted
The strake above the number, you'll notice that the paint is different
It's confined to the strake, the lines of the strake.
It could have been painted a different paint.
It may not have burned. You can still see the paint underneath it
I almost think that this strake was painted at a different time
or with a different quality of paint, I think is the difference in this particular photo here
That's mount 43, starboard side on Johnson
It looks like she took a shell right into her 40mm magazine there...
...which blew-out the back part of the pedestal that the gun was on
I used all of the photos, not only the photos I took, and I took 500 photos on my iPhone.
Wait! This is with your iPhone? You took these with your iPhone?
Yeah, and actually it got better pictures in some instances than the 4k camera on the outside of the sub...
... because the software that controls the shutter speed on the 4K camera...
...couldn't handle the absolute flatness of the depth, is our guess...
... and that's why this imagery is kind-of blurry, kind of indistinct. That's a 4k camera
The iPhone is actually better suited to low-level light situations than the 4k camera was...
... so yeah, I used my iPhone as a backup and I'm glad I did because I caught some very key shots
This picture here, if you look at mount 52, right outside the trainer's seat, you'll see a shell hole
That shell went right into the mount housing, right outside the trainer's seat. He probably never knew what hit him.
It hit the five inch gun inside and exploded
This is Mount 51 on Johnston. This was right outside my viewport.
I had to take a picture of that barrel just pointed right at me
Now to learn more about the deep-water discovery of the shipwreck of the celebrated...
...WWII destroyer USS Johnston, check out this video
Finally, if you enjoyed this video, then why not lend your support by clicking 'Like' and also subscribing to this channel
My name is Ken Stano.
Thank you for watching History X