The U.S. military is trying to recover the oil form a ship that's been underwater for 72 years. In an interesting twist, it's not even an American warship.
The United States captured the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen as a war prize after the end of World War II. The Prinz Eugen capsized in 1946 after being nuked—twice—during the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. For decades, experts have feared that the ship's oil might leak into the Pacific. Now the Pentagon is trying to do something about it.
The Doomed Fleet
It was July 1946, months after the end of World War II, when the U.S. Navy assembled one of the mightiest fleets in history. Led by the aircraft carrier Saratoga and battleship New York, the group also included captured Axis vessels such as the Japanese battleship Nagato and the Prinz Eugen. A doomed fleet of more than 80 warships anchored at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, way out in the Pacific Ocean... and was promptly nuked. Twice.
