Video: WW2-Era Landing Boat Sunken Deep in Las Vegas' Lake Mead Resurfaces Amid Drought
© AP Photo / John Locher
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Due to their widespread use in the D-Day landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944 and in other theaters of war, Higgins boats, or LCVP, gained their fair share of fame. The well-known ramps from which soldiers poured out to storm the beaches under Nazi control make the Higgins boats easy to spot.
As the main reservoir at Nevada's Lake Mead continues to get smaller, a WWII boat that was deliberately buried there is now rising out of the water, local media and bloggers have discovered.
With the lake's water levels having fallen so low, just one-third of the LCVP is currently submerged. Footage of its current standing can be seen in video uploaded by YouTuber The Other Me.
Lake Mead reveals sunken WWII-era boat as water levels plummet. Experts say climate change and drought have led to the lake dropping to its lowest level since it was full about 20 years ago. https://t.co/tIkUZNE3ez pic.twitter.com/doE1cMAjHr
— USAUnify (@usaunify) July 2, 2022
The Higgins landing craft has been about 185 feet (56 meters) below the water's surface for some time, but is now almost halfway out.
The boat was in a place once considered a well-liked diving spot in Lake Mead, which supplies water to around 20 million people in the nearest populated areas, including the entire Las Vegas metropolitan area.
According to media reports, the Higgins boats were used to map the Colorado River after World War Two ended. The reemerged boat was bought by a marina and then purposefully sunk.
Due to a persistent drought in the American West, Lake Mead, a man-made reservoir that was created by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, has been losing water for decades, eventually resurfacing some long-forgotten artifacts, such as one standing-up speedboat.
A formerly sunken boat sits upright into the air with its stern stuck in the mud along the shoreline of Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Friday, June 10, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev.
© AP Photo / John Locher
Two sets of human remains that had been dumped in the lake years earlier were found in May.
4 May 2022, 22:39 GMT
