The Sunday Read: ‘Lost in the Deep’

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2020

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On the afternoon of Sept. 15, 1942, the U.S.S. Wasp, an aircraft carrier housing 71 planes, 2,247 sailors and a journalist, was hit by torpedoes fired by a Japanese submarine, sending it more than two and a half miles to the bottom of the Pacific. It has remained there ever since. Last year, a team on the Petrel — perhaps the most successful private vessel on Earth for finding deepwater wrecks — set out to find it. In his narrated story, Ed Caesar, a contributor to The New York Times Magazine, joins the team aboard the Petrel and speaks to the family of Lt. Cmdr. John Joseph Shea, a heroic naval officer killed in the attack on the Wasp. This story was written by Ed Caesar and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, my name's Ed Caesar. I am a contributing writer at the New Yorker magazine.
0:05.7	And in 2019, I wrote a story for the New York Times magazine called Lost in the Deep.
0:12.2	It's about the hunt for a shipwreck.
0:14.9	And the shipping question was the USS Wasp, which was downed by Japanese torpedoes in 1942.
0:23.5	And you might wonder why does a Brit like me get interested in a story like that?
0:32.5	Well, there are a lot of different answers to that question.
0:34.2	The first is that it was a fascinating technological scientific quest.
0:40.2	The shipwrecks that lie on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean are sometimes 6,000 meters
0:45.2	down.
0:46.2	So in order to find them in that permanent midnight, you have to use the most advanced
0:50.6	underwater robotics. And you have to have an incredibly expert crew.
0:56.6	There was also a spiritual and emotional side to the story that I found absolutely captivating.
1:03.9	The search for these lost ships was about reclaiming the stories of the men who had served
1:10.1	on board during some of the most ferocious fighting of the Second World War.
1:14.8	In particular, I was drawn to the story of John Shea, who wrote a heartbreaking letter
1:21.1	to his five-year-old son just before he left for the battle theatre.
1:25.9	And this letter is one of the most beautiful you could ever read.
1:29.1	It adembrates quintessentially American values.
1:33.3	But it's also personal.
1:34.8	It talks about all the things that he wishes he were doing with his son hunting and
1:38.3	fishing and playing out in the backyard.
1:43.9	The dear Jackie letter, as it was known, touched my heart.
	...

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