I live in Michigan and never heard of this? 
ima go scuba diving more!! 
Dude--take in a newscast or crack a newspaper once in awhile...seriously.
They have been pulling WWII navy aircraft out of Lake Michigan at a rate of about one a year for the last decade. The last one was a F6F last year off Waukegan Beach. There are WWII aircraft all over Lake Michigan, mostly in the lower half of the lake and especially numerous from Kenosha down to Lake Forrest or so...thickest area from Zion to Waukegan's South Beach. There are also some on the Michigan side of the lake.
In January of 1942 the navy re-fitted a side-wheeled excursion steamer into an aircraft carrier for use in Lake Michigan. The Navy wanted something that they could practice cv takeoff's and landings because they knew the war in the Pacific would be hugely a navy operation and came to the sad realization that they had extremely few pilots trained to do so. Rather than have this done at sea, jeapordizing craft and crew to more U-Boat & Japanese sub attacks than necessary, they converted the steamer to a cv (without elevators or a sub-deck aircraft hangar) and it was "based" out of Chicago's Navy Pier...but the planes came from Glenview Naval Air Station (Glenview NAS was a long range anti-submarine aircraft base during the Cold War, but since decommissioned and is now apartment complexes) would take off there and land on the converted "cv". When those planes were lost/crashed they called it a day and went back to Chicago. "The Wolverine" (IX-64) and their might have been another one, not sure.
They would not only practice cv take offs and landings they would do live-fire strafing runs on stationary as well as towed targets, especially off the beaches of Zion, Waukegan, and Highland Park, IL. Sometimes off the beaches of town off the Michigan coast as well.
Evidently the Navy didn't take "losing" these aircraft all that seriously because they made little or no attempt to locate or raise the wrecked aircraft during the war years. When the compliment was lost to inexperience, engine problems, etc., they'd just fly in more navy birds.
It was scrapped in 1947. Darned shame too...what a hech of a floating museum that would have been.
