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There have been several ships that have been claimed sunk on more than one occasion. Examples include the U.S. carrier Enterprise and the British carrier Ark Royal, both of which were supposedly sent down on several occasions. (The Ark Royal was eventually sunk for real, but the Enterprise never was.) A special case was the Japanese battleship Haruna, which had the distinction of having been claimed sunk in two entirely different wars.
I have to wonder, how is it possible to claim to have sunk an already sunken ship? Is it a case where the previous claim was shown to be incorrect, and then a new claim is made? Or is the same ship that is believed to be still sunk claimed again anyway?
Can anyone think of any other ships that this happened to? Anyone know what ship holds the record for being "sunk" most often?
The Japanese believed that they had sunk the Yorktown at the Battle of the Coral Sea.
Then it showed up at Midway and was attacked following the destruction of three of the four Imperial Navy carriers. The pilots returned to the one surviving carrier and reported it sunk.
The Yorktown not only wasn't sunk, it managed to get its boilers going again and make good speed. The Japanese launched another attack, found the Yorktown again, and having assumed it sunk, concluded that this was a different carrier. Once more they attacked and once more left believing that they had sunk it.
They hadn't. Though now crippled, the Yorktown was still afloat. It was torpedoed by a submarine as it was being towed back to Pearl Harbor, and this time it actually went down.
So, that is three reported sinkings and one actual sinking. I don't know if that is a record or not.
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