Just saw this!http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/wreck-likely-that-of-nazi-aircraft/20060727101109990002?ncid=NWS00010000000001


WARSAW, Poland (July 27) - Poland's Navy said Thursday that it has identified a sunken shipwreck in the Baltic Sea as almost certainly being Nazi Germany's only aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin - a find that promises to shed light on a 59-year-old mystery surrounding the ship's fate.

The Polish oil company Petrobaltic discovered the shipwreck earlier this month on the sea floor about 38 miles north of the northern port city of Gdansk.

Suspecting it could be the wreckage of the Graf Zeppelin, the Polish Navy sent out a hydrographic survey vessel on Tuesday, said Lt. Cmdr. Bartosz Zajda, a spokesman for the Polish Navy.

"We are 99 percent sure - even 99.9 percent - that these details point unambiguously to the Graf Zeppelin," said Dariusz Beczek, the Navy commander of the vessel, the ORP Arctowski, said soon after returning to port Thursday morning after the two-day expedition.

The Graf Zeppelin was Germany's only aircraft carrier during World War II. It was launched on Dec. 8, 1938, but never saw action. After Germany's defeat in 1945, the Soviet Union took control of the ship, but it was last seen in 1947 and since then the ship's fate has been shrouded in mystery.

Navy researchers plan to continue to examine the material they gathered during their two days at sea, but the analysis of the shipwreck will then fall to historians and other researchers, Zajda said.

The Graf Zeppelin will almost certain remain on the sea bed, he said.

"Technically it's impossible to pull it out of the water," Zajda said.


PVON

According to English tabloids, divers are expected to dive the wreck and recover artifacts in the near future....if there are any left after the russians had used the carrier for target practice.
Here is some interesting information I came across

At this time, the 15 cm guns were removed and transported to Norway to be used as coastal artillery ("Marine-Küsten-Batterie" - MKB). Four were installed at MKB 6/514 in Sore Korsnes near the Altafjord in December 1943 and got operational in February 1944. In November 1944 those guns were evacuated to MKB 5/512 in Karlsoy and got operational in January 1945. After the war, these guns were installed at Grotoya near Harstad and used by the Norwegian army until the early 1990s.
Four other guns were brought to Kap Romanov and in use since September 1942. They engaged Russian coastal artillery in Fiskerihalvoya and were blown up in October 1944. There are several versions about the fate of the Graf Zeppelin after the war. One version says that the ship was sunk after a mine hit on its way to the Soviet Union. Another version is that the ship capsized because of a heavy load of equipment stored in it. One possible fate mentioned is that the ship was completed by the Soviets after the war, but this sounds not very realistic at all.

According to new Russian sources, the Graf Zeppelin was sunk after weapons tests in August 1947:

The carrier was moved to Stettin in April 1943 where it was sunk by its own crew on 25.04.1945. Being captured by Russians, Graf Zeppelin was renamed to IA-101 (Floating Base No. 101) on 03.02.1947. On 16.08.1947 the carrier has been sunk as a target ship off Swinemünde.
Graf Zeppelin sank as she "scored" 24 (!) bombs and torpedo hits, including two 1000 kg air bombs. One of them was mounted into the funnel; as it exploded, the funnel was completely destroyed up to top deck, but superstructures of the island remained intact. Two 500 kg bombs, three 250 kg and five 100 kg bombs plus four 180 mm 92 kg shells were used on the ship. All these charges were mounted upon the flight deck and hangar deck. Six training air bombs dropped from the dive bombers and two 53,3 cm torpedoes from the torpedo boat OE-503 and destroyer Slavniy were fired on the ship. The last torpedo scored the fatal hit that finished the destruction of carrier. 23 minutes after the last hit, the Graf Zeppelin sunk.