Recently Found Yorktown Wreck Should Stay In Sea, Explorer Says

WASHINGTON - The recently discovered remains of the World War II aircraft carrier Yorktown should be left in the sea, and the area where it was lost in 1942's Battle of Midway should be preserved as a historic site, underwater explorer Robert Ballard said yesterday.

Ballard, the discoverer of the wreck of the Titanic, found the Yorktown last month in an expedition sponsored by the U.S. Navy and the National Geographic Society. The team found the carrier three miles down in the Pacific Ocean near the once strategically vital island.

Reporting his findings at a National Geographic briefing yesterday, Ballard said the USS Yorktown was "in the most pristine condition I've ever seen," which he attributed to the lack of corrosive nutrients and silt in the remote, warm-water Pacific location.

Though the carrier rolled over when it sank June 7, 1942, after being hit by Japanese torpedoes and a bomb, it settled right side up in 45 feet of mud, Ballard said.

Advances in recovery technology have led to attempts to salvage historic wrecks and artifacts for commercial purposes - most notably in the case of the Titanic. Marine archaeologists differ over whether relics should be excavated and recovered or only videotaped and photographed.

Ballard believes that disturbing undersea remains disturbs history. As for the Yorktown, he said, "It'd be silly to bring it up. Exposing it to the air and the elements now would quickly destroy it."

The Yorktown was the only American carrier lost in the pivotal naval battle, which occurred between June 4 and 6, 1942. Catching their Japanese foes by surprise, U.S. warplanes sank three Japanese carriers and stemmed the tide of Japanese aggression in the Pacific.

An important victory after a succession of losses, Midway established the aircraft carrier as the pre-eminent 20th-century war vessel.

Using World War II logbooks, new underwater sonar gear and the Navy's Advanced Tethered Vehicle (ATV), Ballard's team searched 300 square miles of sea bottom before locating the wreck at 17,000 feet, one mile deeper than the Titanic.

Ballard is a former naval officer who heads the Institute for Exploration in Mystic, Conn.