HISTORY

Searching

for the lost

ships with

Paul Allen

USS

Lexington

Part one

Photo: Miles Harris

Text: Miro Barič

Many people have some kind of hobby. Supposedly our readers collect and build scale models of the airplanes, armor, or

ships. There are some who can afford to play with these subjects

in their actual size. One of those was Paul Allen, well known

co-founder of Microsoft.

6

INFO Eduard

ght art and as an avid sports fan several

sports clubs. His top hobby however was

the military hardware. His father, Kenneth

Sam Allen served in WWII. That’s why Paul

Allen was fascinated by this period of history since the early age. In 2004 he founded

the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum in Everett, Washington state. It became

Photo: Eric Friedebach

Paul Allen was born on January 21, 1953,

in Seattle, Washington. He met Bill Gates

at Lakeside, the private high school. Both

were interested in the computers, and both

were college dropouts. In 1975 they launched the computer company. It was Allen who

came up with its name, Micro-Soft. Later

the hyphen was dropped. The company was

extremely successful, they penetrated the

market with MS-DOS operating system

which ultimately became the top product in

the market. In 1982 however Allen was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, a malign

lymphatic system disease. Thanks to the

radiotherapy and bone marrow transplantation he was cured but that also prompted

him to re-evaluate his life. The company

was no longer his priority and in 1983 he

resigned from its leadership. However, he

kept his shares which yielded him a wealth

valued at more than 20 billion dollars.

After he left Microsoft, he dedicated himself to his hobbies. Also, he invested in the

space and AI research but primarily bou-

home for many aircraft and tank veterans

of WWII. Many of them were operational.

However, all his previous activities were

overshadowed by the search for sunken

military shipwrecks at the bottom of the

oceans around the globe.

In 2003 Allen ordered the construction

of 127 meters long yacht named Octopus.

In 2008 he had her converted to the research vessel standards. She was equipped with two helicopter landing pads and

two submarines. One of them was remote

controlled and submerged significantly deeper. Allen lent the ship for several rescue

missions and research projects as well, for

Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum in Everett, Washington state.

November 2022