Sixty-seven years after a pair of TBD-1 Devastator torpedo bombers ditched in a lagoon after a second world war raid on the remote Pacific atoll of Jaluit, a team of aviation archaeologists plans to recover one of the planes, described as an unsung hero of the Pacific war.
When one of the Devastators is recovered, it will - remarkably - be the only surviving example of this aircraft to go on display anywhere in the world.
Not only are these two planes rare, they are also historically important because they were lost during the US Navy's first offensive action of the Pacific war - a raid on February 1, 1942, by planes from the USS Yorktown against Japanese installations in the Marshall Islands, according to Ric Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR).
'The Devastator has been called one of the crown jewels of naval aviation,' Mr Gillespie said. 'When it entered service with the US Navy in 1937, it was the most advanced carrier-based aircraft in the world and ushered in a new era in naval aircraft design.
'However, so rapid was the advance of aeronautical development in those years, by the time war broke out in the Pacific in December 1941, the TBD was hopelessly outclassed,' he said.
Nevertheless, Devastators played a role in the American victories of the Coral Sea and Midway, although losses were so heavy at Midway - when only four of the 41 aircraft launched returned to their carriers and not a single torpedo hit a target - that the type was withdrawn from combat and relegated to training units in the US.