Historic bow of USS New Orleans, blown off during the WWII Battle of Tassafaronga in 1942, discovered 2,200 feet underwater in the Solomon Islands.

The first of seven New Orleans-class heavy cruisers built during the 1930s, the USS New Orleans saw some of the heaviest fighting during the Pacific war, beginning on Dec. 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor.

A few flecks of residual paint and an engraved anchor were enough to link mystery wreckage at the bottom of the South Pacific to the saga of the USS New Orleans. Researchers aboard the NOAA Ocean ...