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WWII shipwrecks are mysteriously vanishing


Hanslune

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It has been discovered that a number of WWII warship wrecks off the coast of Indonesia have 'disappeared'.

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But the three missing wrecks were located 100km (60 miles) off the coast of Indonesia, at a depth of 70m. Salvage operators say it would not be easy to lift them.

"It is almost impossible to salvage this," Paul Koole of the salvage film Mammoet told the Algemeen Dagblad. "It is far too deep."

Experts say the operation would have needed large cranes for long periods of time and would be unlikely to have gone unnoticed.

The Indonesian Navy, when contacted by the BBC, said they were unaware of the disappearance but said they would investigate.

"To say that the wreckage had gone suddenly, doesn't make sense," Navy spokesman Colonel Gig Sipasulta said. "It is underwater activities that can take months even years."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37997640

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"They're" pulling up old WWII wrecks, repairing and outfitting them to provide fleet support to Space Battleship Yamato.

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I read about this on the FT today. Apparently, and I have no idea if this is true, there's an industry salvaging metals from wrecks which pre-date the nuclear testing of the 40's and 50's. As, they're uncontaminated, and the salvage can be used to make radiation sensitive equipment. It's called 'low background steel', which I'd never heard of before today.

The primary source of low-background steel is ships that have been under water since before the Trinity test, most famously the scuttled German WWI battleships in Scapa Flow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

I think it's Krakens though. (John Wyndham, not big octopuses) 

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They are being towed  away underwater by submarines and being used to make the foundations of new islands in the South China Sea     .....   shhhhh  !  

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Three Dutch World War Two ships considered war graves have vanished from the bottom of the Java Sea, the Dutch defence ministry says.

All three were sunk by the Japanese during the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942, and their wrecks were discovered by divers in 2002.

A report in the Guardian says three British ships have disappeared as well.

The British government says it is "distressed" by the reports and is investigating.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37997640

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  • The title was changed to http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/topic/300823-who-lifted-these-wrecks-from-the-sea-bottom/Who lifted these wrecks from the sea bottom?

I remember reading a book or story about mermen trading for metal because they couldn't forge it themselves. 

 

But in all actuality I can see people salvaging them for the metals in them.

 

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10 hours ago, Thorvir Hrothgaard said:

"They're" pulling up old WWII wrecks, repairing and outfitting them to provide fleet support to Space Battleship Yamato.

162slm.jpg

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I am rather surprised this has not become a major news story, I suspect it soon will be. I don't think Indonesia cares too much, but allowing this to happen is beyond the pale.

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Thing is if this business about low background steel is right, and someone actually has extracted a total of five and a bit allied warships from the sea floor, then there's one hell of a lot of money and logistics gone into it. Serious money and influence must be at play here. 

But is it possible? It sounds like something out of an Alistair MaClean plot. It couldn't be that someone's cocked up their GPS coordinates could it? 

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1 hour ago, Habitat said:

I am rather surprised this has not become a major news story, I suspect it soon will be. I don't think Indonesia cares too much, but allowing this to happen is beyond the pale.

To acknowledge your point, I'm watching BBC news now, and we've got stories about retail trends, and football stadium seating, you'd think someone would decide this was a bit more newsworthy. 

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to salvage 5 ships from the depths would take a major setup.  something that could not go unnoticed.  even if they blew the ships to pieces.  that would be a lot of steel showing up on the market.

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Since the Titanic wasn't where it was expected to be when it was finally located, maybe the ocean moved the ships?  Of course if all else fails blame Aliens and look in the Bermuda Triangle.:alien::whistle:

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21 hours ago, oldrover said:

I read about this on the FT today. Apparently, and I have no idea if this is true, there's an industry salvaging metals from wrecks which pre-date the nuclear testing of the 40's and 50's. As, they're uncontaminated, and the salvage can be used to make radiation sensitive equipment. It's called 'low background steel', which I'd never heard of before today.

The primary source of low-background steel is ships that have been under water since before the Trinity test, most famously the scuttled German WWI battleships in Scapa Flow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

I think it's Krakens though. (John Wyndham, not big octopuses) 

I like this idea, but it begs the question of whether or not that would have been easier than excavating old mining equipment and such.  I guess that could be explained by what resources you have available to you as a scavenger.  This is also the first time I heard of this property with steel, but I know freshly unearthed lead is also in demand for similar reasons.

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Leaving such a massive amount of material in third world countries' waters or near it and expecting they will "respect" these sailor graves. :innocent:

If the Brits valued these graves so much, they should have guarded them themselves. Crocodile tears and an afterwards "but it was precious to us" won't make it.

Edited by Gingitsune
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1 hour ago, Gingitsune said:

Leaving such a massive amount of material in third world countries' waters or near it and expecting they will "respect" these sailor graves. :innocent:

If the Brits valued these graves so much, they should have guarded them themselves. Crocodile tears and an afterwards "but it was precious to us" won't make it.

They must have been sleeping we normally have a ship with a full crew above every wreck.

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1 hour ago, Gingitsune said:

Leaving such a massive amount of material in third world countries' waters or near it and expecting they will "respect" these sailor graves. :innocent:

If the Brits valued these graves so much, they should have guarded them themselves. Crocodile tears and an afterwards "but it was precious to us" won't make it.

So, you think we should have kept a naval presence in Indonesian territorial waters? Presumably they'd have been OK about that do you think? After we explained that we were doing it because we didn't trust them to maintain their own security. Yeah, I can't see how that would have been a problem. I bet they're kicking themselves in Whitehall over that one. 

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Brits should have moved these sunken boat into their water territory, if they were this precious to them. Or make sure Indonesian themselves were rich enough to not care about scavenging the scrap metal. Leaving a bounty at the reach of poor people, even in the form of a grave, will only encourage looting. Even more so when it's not their dead relatives grave.

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12 minutes ago, Gingitsune said:

Brits should have moved these sunken boat into their water territory, if they were this precious to them. Or make sure Indonesian themselves were rich enough to not care about scavenging the scrap metal. Leaving a bounty at the reach of poor people, even in the form of a grave, will only encourage looting. Even more so when it's not their dead relatives grave.

Oh of course, yes. Sorry, that probably didn't occur to anyone. But it's obvious once it's pointed out. We should have dredged up three warships/war graves, fixed them up and towed them the 11,000 (as you have to go the long way round Africa) miles back to Portsmouth. Why are we so inefficient?

 

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No need to get them all the way to UK, there are British Oversea territories in the Pacific, they could even have put them into Australia or New Zealand's waters. But truth is, these graves weren't a priority for the British government, so they were left to robbers. And robbers happily took the open door left there for anyone to profit.

Whatever happen to the corpse which were in these wrecks? Probably tossed in the trash like these mummies after these Victorian unwrapping parties. That's what happen when you don't look over your deads, Brits should have known better.

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2 minutes ago, Gingitsune said:

No need to get them all the way to UK, there are British Oversea territories in the Pacific, they could even have put them into Australia or New Zealand's waters. But truth is, these graves weren't a priority for the British government, so they were left to robbers. And robbers happily took the open door left there for anyone to profit.

Whatever happen to the corpse which were in these wrecks? Probably tossed in the trash like these mummies after these Victorian unwrapping parties. That's what happen when you don't look over your deads, Brits should have known better.

You seem to be motivated by an antipathy towards Britain for some reason, but there are several other nation's warships and war dead involved here. And the idea of moving these shattered ships, out of Indonesian waters, or foreign countries policing anti-salvage measures, are among some of the more absurd proposals I've seen on this website, which is saying something !. Don't be ridiculous, this is just another manifestation of the fact that Indonesia could not give a damn about Western sensitivities about anything. It has occurred because it has been allowed to occur by the authorities there, the same way that the illegal people smuggling trade that has caused vast expense to Australia to curtail, was facilitated by this corrupt dump of a country.

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7 hours ago, danielost said:

to salvage 5 ships from the depths would take a major setup.  something that could not go unnoticed.  even if they blew the ships to pieces.  that would be a lot of steel showing up on the market.

It seems it is not only valuable items like bronze propellors are targeted, the ships are being systematically dismantled using explosives. No doubt where pay rates are very low, and workplace safety not a priority, it becomes economic to do so. Even though these ships are in relatively shallow water, it would be a very hazardous undertaking. It would not be the ****-kickers taking the risks that are making the money out of it. I am rather amazed to learn that even the major, historic wrecks of the HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales are being plundered in Malaysian waters. It seems that politicians are loath to speak out against this, they don't want to get offside with these muslim countries, seemingly petrified they might move toward more radical Islam.

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Nothing against the Brits, but they really were naive (and the other nations involved too).

Indonesians don't have the spare money to look after foreign people sensitivities. If the Westerners couldn't be bothered to foot the bill, don't expect Indonesian to do it. Plus, there are heavy corruption problems in Indonesia, official are easy to bribe to look the other way by boat wreck harvesting mafia. The common sense mind set in these countries are "if I don't take it and make a profit out of it, someone else will do, so I better do it first."

That has been known for years. Maybe they thought the wreck-graves where too far from Indonesia to be at risk, which was naive.

Talking of these matters, did you heard of the Italian mafia digging dead people to rob the wood of their coffin, so they can sell it to restaurant for wood fire baked pizza and breads? Even Westerners don't care about Western sensitivities.

I'm sorry if my cynicism sound harsh, but I heard too many things like that, I am not surprise anymore.  

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43 minutes ago, Gingitsune said:

Whatever happen to the corpse which were in these wrecks? Probably tossed in the trash like these mummies after these Victorian unwrapping parties. That's what happen when you don't look over your deads, Brits should have known better.

The dead on those ships will be in bits. Some blown apart while they were alive, other trapped and drowned trying to escape, other still too badly burned and wounded to escape. The ships they were in were big, heavy, and tricky to move without demolishing them first. Plus, they were heavily damaged, bits scattered everywhere like the remains of the men who fought and died in them. Besides which, if you dredged them up and carted them off, you'd inevitably end up leaving some of the bodies behind.

Alone.

I think you'll find the idea is to leave them rest with their comrades and treat the wrecks and where they lie, as both graves and monuments to the fallen. 

That's why Britain, and every other country in the world, leaves sites like this in situ.  The Pacific is full of them, from all sides. So you're suggesting that Britain has fallen down and neglected their war dead, something which we never do. Living can be a different issue though, but that's another matter.

 

9 minutes ago, Gingitsune said:

I'm sorry if my cynicism sound harsh, but I heard too many things like that, I am not surprise anymore.

Yeah it does a bit. And totally unnecessary and ill informed. 

Edited by oldrover
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10 hours ago, oldrover said:

To acknowledge your point, I'm watching BBC news now, and we've got stories about retail trends, and football stadium seating, you'd think someone would decide this was a bit more newsworthy. 

Here in Australia as well, I am stunned that a stink has not been kicked up over this. There would be plenty of people still alive whose fathers died on these ships, I also wonder what the attitude of the Japanese is to interference with their wrecks in the region. I am not one to make a big deal of what happens to human remains after death, it makes no difference to the dead, even if it is deeply unsettling to some of the descendants, but there is a cross-cultural tendency to not disturb such sites. I see in this yet another example of the Indonesians giving westerners the finger.

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1 hour ago, Gingitsune said:

Nothing against the Brits, but they really were naive (and the other nations involved too).

Indonesians don't have the spare money to look after foreign people sensitivities. If the Westerners couldn't be bothered to foot the bill, don't expect Indonesian to do it. Plus, there are heavy corruption problems in Indonesia, official are easy to bribe to look the other way by boat wreck harvesting mafia. The common sense mind set in these countries are "if I don't take it and make a profit out of it, someone else will do, so I better do it first."

That has been known for years. Maybe they thought the wreck-graves where too far from Indonesia to be at risk, which was naive.

 

 

Lets square something up a bit...
 

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The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia. The territory comprises the seven atolls of the Chagos Archipelago with over 1,000 individual islands – many very small – amounting to a total land area of 60 square kilometres (23 sq mi)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Indian_Ocean_Territory


 

 

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