Come aboard and explore a sunken World War II Japanese warship in real-time

Public Domain

Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Hayate on trials, circa 1925.

It's not often that you get a chance to see a World War II warship. It's even rarer that you get to visit a sunken one still resting in the ocean.

But that's exactly what researchers are allowing the public to do, as they prepare a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to explore the ocean depths.

During its mission to explore the uncharted ecosystems in the ocean near the Wake Atoll, a team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) located the Hayate, a sunken destroyer of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Offering the public this rare chance to come along with their crew, starting at 4:30 p.m. EST, NOAA will be live-streaming the exploration around the wreckage of the destroyer.

The Hayate was unique in that it was sunk by American forces in the early stages of WWII. As the first Japanese warship to be sunk, the Hayate only had one survivor that was rescued after the Battle of Wake Island in 1941.

Watch the live stream of the exploration here»