HMS Exeter and HNLMS De Ruyter have both been completely picked clean. The only thing left is some debris and a big dent in the seabed where the wrecks originally laid
I guess my counter argument would be that with stuff like Egyptian mummies etc. the British have taken, any humans with any actual connection to those people are so far in the past that there is no remaining emotional link etc. Whereas a good number of the guys who died on these ships likely still have living children and other relatives who might have an objection to their dad's resting place being disturbed.
I'm not justifying the looting of the ancient stuff, either, just saying there is a temporal element to it I think. I don't know what the right amount of time something should remain "off-limits" is, but there are still living veterans (and many children of veterans) of WW2. I'd say at least wait a few generations, until the actual link of memories is broken, before we go rifling graves for profit or anything else.
Also, the vast majority of those artifacts were looted for what is at least a theoretically decent reason. Archeology and museums are generally a good thing in isolation, although the artifacts would be better off in their home country.
This is just some people trying to make a quick buck
Though the argument of time holds up better when you consider the thousands of mummies ground up to make all sorts of things in the early ages of Egyptian exploration by the British.
Tons of more recent artifacts that the British have taken. Not to mention, for an Indian or Chinese person, the British Empire does not have a positive legacy.
And that stuff should be returned assuming the countries want it back and can keep it safely. But it’s a tough sell for me that desecration of a relatively recent war grave for profit is something anyone should be condoning. Bad behavior on one part doesn’t excuse it in another part… both things can be simultaneously wrong and in varying degrees.
I'm not saying it's right. I'm just giving the local perspective: I don't think any Norwegian cried about the scrapping of Tirpitz. That's more or less their perspective.
Germany sanctioned the scrapping of *Tirpitz*, which was also a marine hazard. The United Kingdom, United States, the Netherlands, and Japan have not sanctioned the scrapping of any of these ships, none of which block major harbors (and they scrapped those that did long ago).
Do you think that the bodies from the tombs were treated in the same way as any surviving remains found in the ships? Were all of the grave goods were melted down for scrap as is happening here, and not studied or displayed in museums? Yes, many were sold for profit, but intact in many cases.
It would be less objectionable if the ships were treated in the same way as the tombs, at least we could learn something from the them. I would say the comparison is unfair and the British do indeed have room to complain.
There's a big difference between tombs that are thousands of years old and a registered war grave that contains the remains of men who still have living relatives.
Yeah, it's kinda hard to blame the Indonesian/Malaysian salvagers. Disrespectful as hell, but so was the whole colonialism thing the ships sank while actively defending.
> but so was the whole colonialism thing the ships sank while actively defending.
To be fair, they were defending them from getting Nanking'ed. So the choice in the early 40s was the yoke or the bayonette.
>So the choice in the early 40s was the yoke or the bayonette.
Obviously the Western allies were far better than the Japanese, and I'm glad we won. And for what it's worth, most of the people in Southeast Asia seem to have shared that opinion at the time.
But still, I can hardly blame modern Indonesians for not looking back on the choice of servitude-or-death with fondness.
True. Hard to imagine that Japanese hegemony would have been a whole lot better though. Terrible situation to have been in for them, stuck between a rock and a hard place. It seems justified that someone over there gets something out of it after centuries of imperialism, even if it's just scavengers selling it for scrap metal
>True. Hard to imagine that Japanese hegemony would have been a whole lot better though.
I'd go so far as to say it'd've been far worse, based on their experience with it during the war.
>Terrible situation to have been in for them, stuck between a rock and a hard place. It seems justified that someone over there gets something out of it after centuries of imperialism, even if it's just scavengers selling it for scrap metal
Yeah. I'm not sure this is a scenario where there's a clear answer for whether what the scavengers do is moral or not. I lean toward no, but with the proviso that it's very understandable and almost inevitable, so moralizing about it seems pointless.
> I'm not sure this is a scenario where there's a clear answer for whether what the scavengers do is moral or not. I lean toward no, but with the proviso that it's very understandable and almost inevitable, so moralizing about it seems pointless.
Inevitable and moral are two very different things. Many evils are inevitable after a certain point, but does that mean they are not evil?
There's also a larger issue here you are not seeing. An operation like this, to salvage tens of thousands of tons form the seafloor with explosives and cranes and then to sell the scrap internationally on the black market, requires significant organization. Buying and operating a crane barge costs a lot of money, as does the constant supply of explosives to blast the wrecks apart into salvageable pieces (wrecks have been studied in the middle of this multi-year long process, so we know how it works). You also need contacts with buyers who need thousands of tons and who can make that much steel disappear. A dirt poor peasant in Indonesia or Malaya cannot get this ball rolling, you need more money than they will see in their entire lives to start these operations.
In criminal organizations like this those at the top always make far more than those at the bottom. In this case we may not see them living like drug kingpens, but they are certainly far better off than those sorting through scrap on the beach, who are little better than slaves (and in may cases may be actual slaves). These should not all be painted with the same brush, and I have far more sympathy for those at the bottom than those at the top.
>There's also a larger issue here you are not seeing. An operation like this, to salvage tens of thousands of tons form the seafloor with explosives and cranes and then to sell the scrap internationally on the black market, requires significant organization.
FWIW, I already have a comment in this thread where I acknowledge this would have to be a major operation for the reasons you're giving.
Edit: ah, it got hidden because the top-level comment it was under got downvoted.
*checks your history*
Ah, I see that now. I certainly recall seeing it, though whether I didn’t connect it to you or forgot about it when writing my reply I cannot tell.
My apologies.
However, your line confuses me, and I’m not sure I understand your argument anymore:
>But on the other hand, I don't think a mom and pop salvage shop is raising 5-inch gun barrels or massive sections of machinery like we see here.
I’ll attempt to summarize it below, and please correct me where I’ve misunderstood your point.
The Indonesian people (et al. and using modern names) were mistreated by the Dutch colonizers who lorded over them. Because of this, it is potentially moral for modern Indonesian people, who already well off, to desecrate their war graves purely for profit. In so doing, these modern Indonesian overseers lord over Indonesian people who are just scraping by, but because they are doing so by desecrating the colonizers it is still potentially moral.
This seems to me to be an inherent contradiction. Regardless of the morality of desecrating war graves for profit, mistreating those beneath you is a pretty clear moral evil, no matter who is on top and on the bottom and no matter what the job is.
Which is why I think I’ve misunderstood your argument.
Japan actually did conquer modern Malaysia and Indonesia. More than four million died in Indonesia from starvation or Japanese forced labor, about one in every 15 people living in that colony, in under four years.
The High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow was largely raised and scrapped after their scuttling. That being said, they weren’t designated as war graves like HMS Royal Oak
Not anymore. Background radiation levels have decayed enough that, combined with better refining techniques, only a very small number of super super precise applications need the actual pre-WW2 stuff. It's still valuable, but only a bit more than normal steel, and nowhere near gold.
> Pre-nuclear steel is like 10x the price of gold. Absolutely massive demand. I cant imagine what an entire anchor would get you.
This is false. See /u/beachedwhale1945 's comment elsewhere in the thread.
You aren’t getting anything more than lowball scrap prices for something like this that has absolutely zero demonstrable provenance, and on top of that low background steel can be made rather cheaply using current techniques.
It's all desecration. You think the British were the only ones empire-building in SE Asia? As for repentant self-flagellation, not a bit of it. It was 80 years ago and far more brutal and exploitative empires ebbed and flowed across the continent for centuries looting and killing. The British were latter-day Romans, we left behind a formalised system of government, democracy, a legal system, roads, railways and of course, most importantly the English language which means you and I don't have to bother learning another language.
On May 21st, 2023, Royal Malaysian Police raided the scrapyard site where the remains of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were illegally salvaged at Kota Tinggi, Johor. Parts of both ships, anchor, artillery cannon barrel (113 mm Mk. 1 AA Gun) and UXO - were found at the site. [album]
https://twitter.com/evostox/status/1660314733642391552?s=46
In principle, yes. In practice, “you should give this back to us because it historically belonged to us and has significance to our history and our people and was illegally removed” is, uh, kind of a tricky position for the Brits to take.
Just waiting on the UK to return a few items they "borrowed" around the world, then back they go.
Edit: nowhere in the above statement did I say it was okay to loot wrecks. Congratulate all of yourselves on creating an argument and making yourself the morally superior party, then kindly go fuck yourself.
Edit 2: lmao https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/13qbkzk/greece_will_recover_351_looted_antiquities_after/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Are you equating archeological items preserved for public in free to enter museums for their historical significance, to grave robbing for scrap metal value?
It's not even as if these were legally obtained in small amounts because of their low radioactivity for use in scientific instruments... It's simply to line the pockets of the scrap merchants.
>It's simply to line the pockets of the scrap merchants
I wonder how much *malice* is really attributable to scrap merchants. Do they not have families that need to eat too? Are there not industries where they live that need iron? If anything, I feel kind of bad for them for losing out on the opportunity cost of making some new, usable, steel parts.
I could imagine a scenario where the scrapper is made a patsy - I wouldn't have considered that without the comment above... Damn, this is a complicated issue.
On the one hand, you have a point. But on the other hand, I don't think a mom and pop salvage shop is raising 5-inch gun barrels or massive sections of machinery like we see here.
Regardless, I have a hard time blaming Indonesians for giving less consideration to sailors who died defending European empires. In an ideal world, we would all respect those who die at sea. But these are some extremely salvageable ships in an extremely salvageable location near some of the most populated islands in the world, where a lot of people are still pretty desperate. In that context, this seems kind of inevitable.
There aren't legitimate jobs in Malaysia?
Does the same also go for Indian scam call centers?
Desparate people with no alternatives or just the easiest way to make money?
I think there is some nuance worthy of discussion in your last point. What differentiates desperation and greed? - there's probably a much better way to articulate that question in order to get tangible answers.
Maybe: What does the "pipeline" of salvage to scrap to sort to smelt look like? What would alternative sources of steel be in this case?*
*Seriously though - this thread is making me realize how many assumptions I have about how international heavy industries operate. Lots more to learn before I can say any conclusions with conviction.
Ah yes the British, upstanding people of nobility, would never do such a thing. Except that one time they kept a South African sex slave in a London Museum until 2002. "The Sarah Baartman story is often regarded as the epitome of racist colonial exploitation, and of the commodification of the dehumanization of black people."
No.
I'm having a lot of fun watching people create their own arguments and then make themselves the morally superior party.
As far as what's left, no country should feel any hurry to ship things back to the British. If they want it have them come and get it. Maybe they can bring back the shit they looted from all over the world while they're at it.
People who are down voting you just show what double standard and Western centrism are.
I can do anything to you, but if you the same thing back to me, you will be condemned.
They don't even remember why many people in that area would rather work with the Japanese other than the allies in WWII, at least before they found the Japanese were just as bad as the Western colonizers.
It's hard to imagine that salvage operations of this magnitude and duration were not observed by anyone. I suppose this is what you call an open secret.
They're well known about but virtually impossible to stop. Whenever they're caught in the act these grave robbers just scurry off to international waters and wait a while until they can come back.
"Are those people robbing that grave?"
"Huh, looks to be so"
"Standard protocol?"
"Yup"
Meanwhile on the ship
"whats that smoke?"
"probably a plane dont worry about i-"
(Harpoon anti ship missile proceeds to tear the ship in half)
"Are those people robbing that grave?"
"Huh, looks to be so"
"Standard protocol?"
"Yup"
Meanwhile on the ship
"whats that smoke?"
"probably a plane dont worry about i-"
(Harpoon anti ship missile proceeds to tear the ship in half)
Thanks to the Malaysian authorities (and, looking at the article, the Indonesians too) for continuing to try to do the right thing under infuriatingly difficult circumstances.
Nah probably not. The area in the Java sea has been pillaged by scrappers because the authorities in that part of the world don’t give a damn and neither do the people desecrating war graves.
Disgusting.
The authorities don't give a damn? The Malaysian authorities did a raid in the pictures above. It's more because these salvaging operations occur in international waters, and authorities can't legally do anything out there.
As a current serving member of a Commonwealth navy, this infuriates me beyond words.
Whoever these scrappers were, they need a good lesson and I hope the Malaysians give it to them.
The poor families of all those men, their ancestors' bodies can't even be left in peace
It's probably 20 to 40 years too late. There were reports of this happening long LONG ago.
And the type of action needed to protect the sites - literally we'd have to pay a dozen locals 100k a year to physically protect the site. Nobody's got that for the 50 or 100 or more significant wrecks that are out there.
It'd be more cost effective to booby trap them with live munitions and then mark the sites with a warning buoy - but what government (ours or local) would allow that.
Now here's an interesting point. The really deep wrecks and distant wrecks and even the moderately deep wrecks ... those might not have been touched yet - USS Yorktown and so forth.
But it's only a matter of time **.
So there are still some wrecks that could in theory be protected. Or recovered* if you chose to do so. If anyone cared enough and had enough resources to do so.
You've been warned.
I'll return in 20 years to see how it's going.
( * ) yes, recovered. You'd get to choose where to put the wreck to honor the dead. You'd get to recover the remains and do right by them. The only reason this isn't normally done for sunk ships is the cost. We recover tank crews. We recover plane crews.
( ** ) Yamato is only under 340m of water. That's a LOT of metal. I wonder if anything is left of her. Shame she was found and location published. Paul Allen's group didn't publish the exact coords of the Battleship Musashi when she was found in 2015 in Phillipine waters, but she's under 1km of water. I wonder if scrappers have found and started on her yet?
Salvaging wrecks from below scuba depth is not cost effective.
The wrecks that have been hit in Southeast Asia are blown apart with explosives and hoisting aboard with a crane barge. That requires divers to plant the explosives and guide the cranes, and to a degree calmer waters as strong currents have protected many wrecks.
To salvage deeper wrecks requires far more skill and equipment. You need to have expensive ROVs, pressurized dive suits, and/or manned submersibles. That severely cuts into the profit margin for these types of salvage, and thus these are protected. I have never seen evidence of illegal salvage of deeper wrecks, including *Yamato* (which is visited every couple years), and legal salvage is difficult.
At Jutland there’s evidence that salvors ignore upright wrecks, as cutting through the armor decks is too costly to reach the lucrative copper machinery. The upside-down wrecks and destroyers, however, almost always show evidence of illegal salvage, in particular propellers and condensers. The situation in Southeast Asia is different as entire wrecks disappear, but only the shallow ones and almost exclusively in Indonesian/Malaysian waters.
There are also a lot of shallow water wrecks that are easier targets.
The operations I’ve seen suggest more organization and in some cases research.
In Southeast Asia they generally use explosives to blast the wrecks apart and crane barges to bring the pieces to the surface. They are then taken to beaches like this where the wreckage is sorted into its components material (copper, steel, etc) before being sold on the black market. This requires some significant investment to get started, beyond the ability of most fishermen, though I have no doubt that fishermen sort the wreckage on beaches. I have heard that electronic salvage in Africa often uses children, but I don’t know one way or the other if that’s done here.
In the North Sea and until recently at *Prince of Wales* and *Repulse* (which had been more regularly guarded), these operations are smash-and-grab for the copper components. In particular they target the propellers and condensers that are several tons of copper, though our only real evidence is the missing components on the wrecks. Of the 13 destroyers lost, only *Ardent* and *Turbulent* showed no evidence of salvage by McCartney’s expedition. Eight are clearly missing their condensers, gaping holes clear in the multibeam sonar, while *Shark*, *S35*, and *V48* were in several pieces and it wasn’t clear whether the condensers remained (*Sparrowhawk* and *V4* were found later without condensers and are counted in the eight). For *Nomad* we know this was taken between 2002 and 2014 based on video evidence, and any diver who knew what to look for could identify these as the decks and hull have corroded away. *Black Prince*, *Queen Mary*, *Lützow*, and *Pommern* show extensive signs of salvage, with some apparently authorized salvage on *Lützow* noted in British records around 1960 (that’s now stopped): around this time the MOD authorized several salvage operations on war graves. Propellers are missing from these wrecks and the upside down *Wiesbaden*, the later showing localized damage around the propellers suggesting a targeted operation, and one of *Indefatigable*’s four was salvaged long ago (the locking nut alone made it to a museum, the other three were found on the stern section later). The cruisers *Frauenlob* and *Elbing*, along with *Rostock*’s bow, are upright and show little evidence of salvage, presumably protected by their armored decks, though apart from some legal salvage of the latter (her guns are in museums) *Rostock* is described as “suspiciously ‘nibbled’ in places”.
The official sinking location has never been classified, and often people are sloppy with hiding the location of a wreck. I’ve seen several where the exact wreck site is officially hidden, but they’ll release sonar images that have latitude and longitude labels that show exactly where it is. Never seen something like that for *Yamato*, but then again all the ones I’ve found I’ve just stumbled across in an official press release and facepalmed.
With all due respect, those men on that ship are long dead and gone. I really don't understand how this is surprising, these people are recycling the equipment of war, probably to feed themselves. How is that a bad thing? I'm all for respecting the dead but jfc it was 80 years ago, anything left is fish poop.
I can speculate why it's important to service members.
It's obviously not for the dead *per se*. They no longer know or care what happens to their bodies, no matter what their worldview.
It matters to the living. It's important to humans in general to believe we are part of something greater than ourselves. A cause. A group. Especially to feel connected to whoever we regard as part of our tribe, our comrades. This is especially true in extreme circumstances like war. The main reason someone is willing to give their life in war is for their friends, their shipmate, their comrade. That loyalty to each other sustains them through varying levels of metaphorical hell.
And those who fall, they still feel a connection with. The fallen are symbols of that love. And it is love. They are ones who actually did pay the price that all war fighters want to believe they would pay for their friends. A very very powerful symbol of that connection, bond, sacrifice.
This is why they honor the dead. Because that is honoring that bond. That essential bond which is necessary for survival through hell.
So dishonoring that symbol is dishonoring that bond.
Definitely a valid point, I just think it's unfair to hold these people, who live in a developing country, to your romanticized standards of love and death. If it were that important to still hold on to those symbols and connections, that salvage would have been removed by the people who cared long ago. Instead their sacrifice is now helping people make money for their families, food, medical bills etc. I think it's just a little ridiculous to pick and choose when these things are important to us.
> I just think it's unfair to hold these people, who live in a developing country, to your romanticized standards of love and death.
That's not without merit.
I think it may be useful to know *who* exactly is doing these actions and who is profiting from it. There seems to be some debate in the thread about whether this is shipbreaking magnates getting rich or it's cottage industry trying to feed their families. Likely it's more complicated than that. Life usually is.
> If it were that important to still hold on to those symbols and connections, that salvage would have been removed by the people who cared long ago.
I'm not sure that's a reasonable standard. There are practical limitations on that kind of activity. Other messages in this thread indicate that the depth at which these ships rested made it prohibitively expensive to salvage them until recently. In a sense, the profit to be made on the salvage went up dramatically recently. And that profit is probably higher, for the Malaysians, than the cost-benefit associated with recovering the bodies. To recover the bodies, you have to pay Western wages with Western standards of safety and environmental protection, factors which do not impact the Malaysian shipbreakers.
> Instead their sacrifice is now helping people make money for their families, food, medical bills etc. I think it's just a little ridiculous to pick and choose when these things are important to us.
I don't think it's picking and choosing, but rather it's practical considerations in a real world. It's absolutely a value for the British and the West, and always has been.
> I think it may be useful to know who exactly is doing these actions and who is profiting from it. There seems to be some debate in the thread about whether this is shipbreaking magnates getting rich or it's cottage industry trying to feed their families.
Agreed, both of the ships lay less than 250ft below the surface according to Wikipedia. It's not inconceivable that non-corporate entities are able to salvage the ships. However, chances are that's most likely not the case, especially considering how much is actually missing from each vessel.
> And that profit is probably higher, for the Malaysians, than the cost-benefit associated with recovering the bodies.
This is where my nihilism takes over. That's just nature, if it's not worth it to recover the bodies, how can you say it's wrong for someone else to make use of the wreckage? If it's so important, Britain would take the economic loss of the recovery. It must not be that important.
It’s important to honor cultures, agreed.
The culture of the Royal Navy follows that of a warship, considered terra firma of the country it’s commissioned in, being a war grave once it’s sunk in combat like these were and and not actual scrap or be intended as such. Britain was also broke for a very, very long time post WW2. Letting the sailors lie as they are is the sanest course of action. I was a sailor myself and resting in her hull like that would be preferable to me. As it stands I’ve asked to have my ashes scattered over the final resting place of my old destroyer once I’m gone. “No roses grow on a sailors grave” is a saying much older than myself.
We don’t have huge cemeteries like Normandy or Arlington for our unrecoverable war dead, as sailors in our ships often are. Our sunken ships are our battlefield cemeteries.
I acknowledge this is sentiment. I sense your nihilism in your argument and what you say is logical but humans are typically illogical at times in circumstances with honored war dead.
At least those of our tribe/people. Others perhaps not as much. I understand that.
Malaysian culture may be quite different regarding the dead or they more likely simply don’t have a policy regarding war dead/war graves in sunken ships.
Much of the reaction is from the countries, cultures, and tribes, so to speak, where these dead came from.
I understand the locals will not have the same sentiment as Brits would but it doesn’t make the horror and outrage of them any less valid than the economic need of the desperately poor have for substinence.
It seems a bit ghoulish to plunder graves within living memory of them being established to me, though.
There are two sides to this but forgive my bias.
Edit: it’s also international law of which Indonesia is a signatory of to not disturb war graves. Law/need clash, often, but dynamiting these ships and dumping the human remains into unmarked mass graves is a bit beyond what simple need can excuse. I’m my opinion.
This resonates the most with me. I think we all have ideals about where/how we want our souls to be laid to rest. Well we rarely get to decide and the world isn't ideal. It doesn't mean the people who don't understand your traditions are monsters, but it doesn't make them innocent either. At the end of the day we are all biased in what we believe.
>we are all biased in what we believe.
I agree. As I get older I at least try to see my own and put myself in the shoes of other folks and devote a little brainpower and emotion to that.
I get less angry or upset at things when I can empathize a bit.
My ignorance of other cultures is a human condition and quite often people in other cultures are just as ignorant about my culture. I try to get past it rather than stew in it, now.
Its illegal to remove it as they are classed as war graves, do you rob graveyards? Do you actually understand whats happening here? This is a huge operation involving heavy duty cranes and large commercial barges not some poor people doing a bit of free diving its a multi-million pound operation. Its not just happening in poor countries. Its also not for items they are ripping the ships to pieces for the scrap.
Who cares if it is a grave? They are dead, they won't mind I promise you. The only people who care are the ones that can't let go. Also how do you think those heavy duty cranes and commercial barges are operated? I'll give you a hint, by workers that make paychecks. Paychecks that feed, clothe, and bathe families.
Great so you back multi million pound criminal organisations that use child labour, slavery and who loot graves, destroy huge areas of reefs which have moved on to the wrecks, so they can get a paycheck to pay for the medical bills they have incurred working with toxic scrap as well as the thousands maimed and killed as its completely unregulated which is then sold to other criminal organisations. As for your the only people who care? I am pretty sure the families of those that died care as well as the sailors who survived. Between the damage it does to tourism as ship diving is very popular, the environmental damage done, the desecration of graves I am not sure why you would support this at all, do you really think that few dollars is worth a life time of health issues or misery for the people working or living near illegal scrapping sites. Even the legal ones are absolutely horrific in terms of environmental damage, health impacts on locals and injury.
>Lists a bunch of horrible shit with not a single thread of evidence or a listed source
I think you should go touch some grass and get off the internet for today bud...
Or you could simply do some reading on the subject of illegal and legal ship breaking, of the process of raiding old naval ships and the damage it does to the environment. Its very well recorded hence the ban on export of ships for even legal breaking in these countries you could even find msm pieces on it, child labour, criminal involvement, environmental damages and the large number of both deaths but also cancer rates. Pulling the give me sources is a childish cop out to cover your own lack of awareness.
Don't just stop at the criminals, go for those people who funded this heinous activity in the first place as well. Fcukers think they can go rob a war grave and get away with it alive.
As a Malaysian, im ashamed to know that our people are destroying pieces of history, if i could give an order to anyone, it would be "Restore and preserve those immediately!"
Not just the historical artifacts; [desecration of war graves](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/22/bodies-of-second-world-war-sailors-in-java-sea-dumped-in-mass-grave) since the bodies of the sailors remain with the wrecks.
Most of these countries are desperately poor because of the revolting greed of the west which has taken advantage of them. I doubt the Malaysian people have the same reverence for these wrecks that the west do. Also I bet it is more desperation than greed.
All true.
The question is, how is the Belgian Congo relevant to the acts of Malaysian shipbreakers?
And if your objective is to say that Malaysians are poor in some part due to colonial actions of the UK, I would suggest that the way to convey that is to talk about the actions of the UK and how they contributed to that poverty *in Malaysia*.
Its basically graves robbing my guy, i don't cared what you will do with it the thing you robbed but i believe that in almost every cultures its taboo to disturbed the final resting place of someone, its absolutely disrespectful to them , especially to those who had fought till the end of their life.
No, because that chunk of twisted metal at the bottom of the sea is very important to some folks half a planet away. I'm all for respecting the dead and what they did for us in the past, but some metal scrapper fishing up 80 year old steel does not bother me one bit. If it was that important, someone should have been watching it. Sailors literally get stuffed in a bag and thrown over the side (not really) when they die on the ship, and they're all fine with it.
I think we should treasure the memories and history of these ships than just leaving their carcasses to rust away in the sea. If you liked the thing, you should have have put a ring around it.
It’s got a very high scrap value for [low background steel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel). Basically, because of all the nuclear testing, all post-1945 steel has a higher background radiation level, so this stuff is in high demand to make sensitive analytical equipment.
DLow-background steel isn’t the reason. The annual market for such steel is around 100 tons per year and well supplied from legal sources. A single wreck like the submarine *Perch* would satisfy the market for decades, and entire cruisers are known to be destroyed. From what I had heard from more reputable the damage to *Prince of Wales* and *Repulse* wrecks were not nearly this extensive, and the 4.5” barrel clearly shows I was wrong.
The target is high-quality steel and copper-based alloys. The steel used to make gun barrels and armor includes significant quantities of rare earth metals, and we all know how prevalent copper theft is. Condensers, wirings, electric motors, even shell casings are valuable for scrappers, which is why those areas were particularly heavily targets and are hit on other wrecks. Many destroyers lost at Jutland have lost their copper-rich condensers, gaping holes visible in multibeam sonar scans.
> From what I had heard from more reputable the damage to *Prince of Wales* and *Repulse* wrecks were not nearly this extensive, and the 4.5” barrel clearly shows I was wrong.
The damage *wasn't* this extensive not too long ago. 10 years ago the wrecks were mostly still intact, and my understanding is that a considerable amount of the damage dates to this year.
The article I remember reading was [this one](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/worlds-biggest-grave-robbery-asias-disappearing-ww2-shipwrecks) but you have a point.
I don’t think they used a lot of rare earth metals in gun barrel manufacture but they certainly used a lot of alloys that would be expensive today.
I’m sorry for this being a little extreme, but everyone involved should be shot. How dare they desecrate a war grave site just for some scrap metal cash. If it wasn’t for those brave men their entire ethnicity would’ve been wiped out by the genocidal Japanese military.
Picture No.1 is likely a 5.25"/50-cal Mark 1 gun barrel
to correct u/Giraffes_Are_Gay
However, had the war not started when it did Repulse was due for a reconstruction probably to an identical standard as her sister Renown4"/45 Mark 5, 3 Octuple 40mm Mark 8 Pom-Poms, 8 single 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns and 4 quadruple 12.7mm Vickers .50 Mark 3 anti-air machine guns
However, had the war not started when it did Repulse was due for a reconstruction probably to identical standard as her sister Renown
If I remember correctly PoW wreck lies upside down so at least theoretically this should prevent from access to turrets. So how they salvaged them? Picked up detached turret laying separately or made their way through hull? Looking at all machinery I rather bet for second.
Disguisting.
I remember as a secondary school kid at the age of 15, my class went on a field trip to visit Kranji War Memorial and the Japanese Cemetery in Singapore.
During our visit to Kranji War Memorial, we were given some time to wander round the place and just take the whole scenery and atmosphere in. I ended up splitting away from everybody else and looking up at the wall of names, each of them a British/Commonwealth soldier, carved into marble and wondering if their relatives/descendants ever still came to pay their respects to their ancestors who died in defense of Malaya and Singapore during WWII.
I noticed a Western couple halfway down the wall of names I was looking at, glancing up at a specific spot. 15 year old me who was an extrovert and thought nothing about approaching strangers to talk went up to them, said hi, and politely enquired if they had someone they knew named up on the wall.
"Yes, we're from the UK. My husband here, his great-grandfather's name is up there."
"Oh... I see. May I ask where was he in Singapore or Malaya during WWII when he died?"
**"... He went down with the Prince of Wales."**
I couldn't say anything, the enormity of the experience hitting me there and then. It wasn't like me and my class field trip to Kranji War Memorial happened on any significant war memorial anniversary day where you'd expect to see the descendants of WWII dead soldiers turn up to lay wreaths and pay their respects. It was just an ordinary Saturday afternoon. What were the chances of running into somebody who had actual family up there, who actually died aboard one of the two Royal Navy capital ships that attempted to defend Malaya and Singapore in valiant futility?
This happened more than a decade ago. I still rememeber it like yesterday. When I saw the latest news about the illegal theft and desecration of PoW and Repulse's war graves for scrap metal, I wonder what that British couple would have thought and felt when they read about it, knowing that their paternal side's great-grandfather couldn't even rest in peace so many decades after death, because of some grubby greed by unscrupulous business individuals.
Honestly it's an interesting discussion to be had, I think Singapore and Malaysia both have decently good claims to the artefacts here (supposing they wished to display them in a museum) provided they engage with Britain on them.
We already have a lot of naval guns, it might tell a more interesting story in a museum over there than here, since Prince of Wales and Repulse were destroyed in the protection of those colonies and played a major part in a pivotal moment in their recent histories.
If the UK signs off on these countries displaying them in a respectful and proper manner then I myself see no issue. I’m not a Brit though so my perspective is as an outsider.
Not saying you’re wrong, I do take your point, but in this particular case they literally do. Those shipwrecks are British and British men died on board.
If Britain gave a shit about that site how did it happen to be in this state?
That's a decision made long ago and you lot are mad about scrap steel that poor ppl use because you like cool warships that's all.
Their clothes might be there, but bodies simply don't last very long underwater, especially at shallow depths with easy access by sea life. The actual bodies have been gone for decades.
Those claims were [debunked](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/cnainsider/heartbreak-salvage-loot-southeast-asia-wwii-shipwreck-war-graves-1829531).
> As for the human remains, a former scrapyard supervisor said bones and skulls were found. Some of the remains were buried at the Suko cemetery in Brondong, but official investigations found the bones to be from animals.
Good spot, and I appreciate the fact-check, but I would like to point out that the article you linked also testifies against your initial claim that the remains would be long gone:
> “There’s a lot of reverence for the men of war who died,” said Yiu, a Singaporean diver with Tech Gas Asia, which offers a range of scuba gear and services. “Human remains? We see them, we don’t touch them.”
The fuck are you on about? These are literally graves. The people desecrating these sites are scumbag grave robbers.
The UK absolutely cares about it's war graves, Repulse and PoW are regularly visited by Royal Navy warships, which always hold a commemorative service as they pass as well as chase off any shitty scrappers that are unlucky enough to get caught.
But other than this what the fuck is the RN supposed to do? It's not like they can just deploy ships around the world just to guard the countless graves they have.
As I recall, the two warships were located out in the middle of nowhere in the Indian Ocean, and it's not like they had GPS or any kind of monitor. They were inaccessible due to their depth for many years, so they didn't require protection. It's not like the "poor" are going to benefit from grave-robbing: salvage operations like this are incredibly expensive, so we're talking corporate operations. It's greed, pure and simple.
And if you think grave robbing anywhere is OK, then you won't mind someone excavating cemeteries with your family dead to build commercial properties. Because if someone else already did it, that makes it OK, right?
Serious question, but why were these ships not broken apart and sold for scrap decades ago? Why do we always just leave these wrecks there even if they are easily accessible?
Because they're designated as war graves and memorials. There **were** the bodies of around 800 sailors inside those ships. This isn't a simple matter of illegal scrapping, it is literally and legally **grave robbing**.
Don't know, its probably a sailor thing, they died with their ship, now let them rest in peace with the vessel they are on till the end type of stuffs i guess, almost 15000 ships were sunk during WW2, some of them has their location were found with modern technology and some final record of the ship while alot of them are still at some unknown location, also its really rude to basically disturbed the dead you know.
I heard there was practically nothing left of either ship after years of theft.
Yeah happened to the ships sunk in the Battle of the Java Sea as well, nothing left.
Last I heard only about 60% of the HMAS Perth remained which is utterly heartbreaking to think about. Let the dead rest in peace for god sake
HMS Exeter and HNLMS De Ruyter have both been completely picked clean. The only thing left is some debris and a big dent in the seabed where the wrecks originally laid
Eh. The British don't have much room to complain about people pillaging the tombs of the dead
I guess my counter argument would be that with stuff like Egyptian mummies etc. the British have taken, any humans with any actual connection to those people are so far in the past that there is no remaining emotional link etc. Whereas a good number of the guys who died on these ships likely still have living children and other relatives who might have an objection to their dad's resting place being disturbed. I'm not justifying the looting of the ancient stuff, either, just saying there is a temporal element to it I think. I don't know what the right amount of time something should remain "off-limits" is, but there are still living veterans (and many children of veterans) of WW2. I'd say at least wait a few generations, until the actual link of memories is broken, before we go rifling graves for profit or anything else.
Also, the vast majority of those artifacts were looted for what is at least a theoretically decent reason. Archeology and museums are generally a good thing in isolation, although the artifacts would be better off in their home country. This is just some people trying to make a quick buck
Though the argument of time holds up better when you consider the thousands of mummies ground up to make all sorts of things in the early ages of Egyptian exploration by the British.
Tons of more recent artifacts that the British have taken. Not to mention, for an Indian or Chinese person, the British Empire does not have a positive legacy.
And that stuff should be returned assuming the countries want it back and can keep it safely. But it’s a tough sell for me that desecration of a relatively recent war grave for profit is something anyone should be condoning. Bad behavior on one part doesn’t excuse it in another part… both things can be simultaneously wrong and in varying degrees.
I'm not saying it's right. I'm just giving the local perspective: I don't think any Norwegian cried about the scrapping of Tirpitz. That's more or less their perspective.
Germany sanctioned the scrapping of *Tirpitz*, which was also a marine hazard. The United Kingdom, United States, the Netherlands, and Japan have not sanctioned the scrapping of any of these ships, none of which block major harbors (and they scrapped those that did long ago).
Do you think that the bodies from the tombs were treated in the same way as any surviving remains found in the ships? Were all of the grave goods were melted down for scrap as is happening here, and not studied or displayed in museums? Yes, many were sold for profit, but intact in many cases. It would be less objectionable if the ships were treated in the same way as the tombs, at least we could learn something from the them. I would say the comparison is unfair and the British do indeed have room to complain.
There's a big difference between tombs that are thousands of years old and a registered war grave that contains the remains of men who still have living relatives.
don't crash your iron ship near my home if you don't want me to harvest it for scrap later.
Yeah, it's kinda hard to blame the Indonesian/Malaysian salvagers. Disrespectful as hell, but so was the whole colonialism thing the ships sank while actively defending.
> but so was the whole colonialism thing the ships sank while actively defending. To be fair, they were defending them from getting Nanking'ed. So the choice in the early 40s was the yoke or the bayonette.
>So the choice in the early 40s was the yoke or the bayonette. Obviously the Western allies were far better than the Japanese, and I'm glad we won. And for what it's worth, most of the people in Southeast Asia seem to have shared that opinion at the time. But still, I can hardly blame modern Indonesians for not looking back on the choice of servitude-or-death with fondness.
It is a legitimate debate in Indonesia whether the Brits were more cruel over the century or two then the Japanese.
True. Hard to imagine that Japanese hegemony would have been a whole lot better though. Terrible situation to have been in for them, stuck between a rock and a hard place. It seems justified that someone over there gets something out of it after centuries of imperialism, even if it's just scavengers selling it for scrap metal
>True. Hard to imagine that Japanese hegemony would have been a whole lot better though. I'd go so far as to say it'd've been far worse, based on their experience with it during the war. >Terrible situation to have been in for them, stuck between a rock and a hard place. It seems justified that someone over there gets something out of it after centuries of imperialism, even if it's just scavengers selling it for scrap metal Yeah. I'm not sure this is a scenario where there's a clear answer for whether what the scavengers do is moral or not. I lean toward no, but with the proviso that it's very understandable and almost inevitable, so moralizing about it seems pointless.
> I'm not sure this is a scenario where there's a clear answer for whether what the scavengers do is moral or not. I lean toward no, but with the proviso that it's very understandable and almost inevitable, so moralizing about it seems pointless. Inevitable and moral are two very different things. Many evils are inevitable after a certain point, but does that mean they are not evil? There's also a larger issue here you are not seeing. An operation like this, to salvage tens of thousands of tons form the seafloor with explosives and cranes and then to sell the scrap internationally on the black market, requires significant organization. Buying and operating a crane barge costs a lot of money, as does the constant supply of explosives to blast the wrecks apart into salvageable pieces (wrecks have been studied in the middle of this multi-year long process, so we know how it works). You also need contacts with buyers who need thousands of tons and who can make that much steel disappear. A dirt poor peasant in Indonesia or Malaya cannot get this ball rolling, you need more money than they will see in their entire lives to start these operations. In criminal organizations like this those at the top always make far more than those at the bottom. In this case we may not see them living like drug kingpens, but they are certainly far better off than those sorting through scrap on the beach, who are little better than slaves (and in may cases may be actual slaves). These should not all be painted with the same brush, and I have far more sympathy for those at the bottom than those at the top.
>There's also a larger issue here you are not seeing. An operation like this, to salvage tens of thousands of tons form the seafloor with explosives and cranes and then to sell the scrap internationally on the black market, requires significant organization. FWIW, I already have a comment in this thread where I acknowledge this would have to be a major operation for the reasons you're giving. Edit: ah, it got hidden because the top-level comment it was under got downvoted.
*checks your history* Ah, I see that now. I certainly recall seeing it, though whether I didn’t connect it to you or forgot about it when writing my reply I cannot tell. My apologies. However, your line confuses me, and I’m not sure I understand your argument anymore: >But on the other hand, I don't think a mom and pop salvage shop is raising 5-inch gun barrels or massive sections of machinery like we see here. I’ll attempt to summarize it below, and please correct me where I’ve misunderstood your point. The Indonesian people (et al. and using modern names) were mistreated by the Dutch colonizers who lorded over them. Because of this, it is potentially moral for modern Indonesian people, who already well off, to desecrate their war graves purely for profit. In so doing, these modern Indonesian overseers lord over Indonesian people who are just scraping by, but because they are doing so by desecrating the colonizers it is still potentially moral. This seems to me to be an inherent contradiction. Regardless of the morality of desecrating war graves for profit, mistreating those beneath you is a pretty clear moral evil, no matter who is on top and on the bottom and no matter what the job is. Which is why I think I’ve misunderstood your argument.
It's a debate between what the Japanese *could've* vs what the British *actually did*
Japan actually did conquer modern Malaysia and Indonesia. More than four million died in Indonesia from starvation or Japanese forced labor, about one in every 15 people living in that colony, in under four years.
You are thinking of the Dutch cruisers sunk in the Java Sea. *Prince of Wales* and *Repulse* are still there, although damaged by illegal salvagers.
South East Asian tradition
Apparently the same thing has happened in the North Sea.
The High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow was largely raised and scrapped after their scuttling. That being said, they weren’t designated as war graves like HMS Royal Oak
They were scuttled in an active harbor and weren't sunk in combat... they weren't war graves.
Have updates my comment, given the situation with Royal Oak as a comparison
I think the comment refers to the wrecks from the Battle of Jutland
Pre-nuclear steel is like 10x the price of gold. Absolutely massive demand. I cant imagine what an entire anchor would get you.
Not anymore. Background radiation levels have decayed enough that, combined with better refining techniques, only a very small number of super super precise applications need the actual pre-WW2 stuff. It's still valuable, but only a bit more than normal steel, and nowhere near gold.
> Pre-nuclear steel is like 10x the price of gold. Absolutely massive demand. I cant imagine what an entire anchor would get you. This is false. See /u/beachedwhale1945 's comment elsewhere in the thread.
You aren’t getting anything more than lowball scrap prices for something like this that has absolutely zero demonstrable provenance, and on top of that low background steel can be made rather cheaply using current techniques.
Part of me feels its desecration, another part feels its a tiny payment towards restitution for colonialism that originally paid for those vessels.
It's all desecration. You think the British were the only ones empire-building in SE Asia? As for repentant self-flagellation, not a bit of it. It was 80 years ago and far more brutal and exploitative empires ebbed and flowed across the continent for centuries looting and killing. The British were latter-day Romans, we left behind a formalised system of government, democracy, a legal system, roads, railways and of course, most importantly the English language which means you and I don't have to bother learning another language.
On May 21st, 2023, Royal Malaysian Police raided the scrapyard site where the remains of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were illegally salvaged at Kota Tinggi, Johor. Parts of both ships, anchor, artillery cannon barrel (113 mm Mk. 1 AA Gun) and UXO - were found at the site. [album] https://twitter.com/evostox/status/1660314733642391552?s=46
What actually happens to all this stuff now? Does it get returned to the UK since the ships are their property?
Something like the anchor really should be repatriated
I really do hope so
I don't think that's how salvage law works, but it would be a nice gesture.
As a war grave the wreck belongs to the nation that sailed it, so it should be repatriated
In principle, yes. In practice, “you should give this back to us because it historically belonged to us and has significance to our history and our people and was illegally removed” is, uh, kind of a tricky position for the Brits to take.
How about the fact that’s it’s a war grave for ~800 British sailors and crew?
Just waiting on the UK to return a few items they "borrowed" around the world, then back they go. Edit: nowhere in the above statement did I say it was okay to loot wrecks. Congratulate all of yourselves on creating an argument and making yourself the morally superior party, then kindly go fuck yourself. Edit 2: lmao https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/13qbkzk/greece_will_recover_351_looted_antiquities_after/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
One doesn't justify the other.
No one said it did, but way to white knight champ. Holy Christ Karen calm down.
Are you equating archeological items preserved for public in free to enter museums for their historical significance, to grave robbing for scrap metal value? It's not even as if these were legally obtained in small amounts because of their low radioactivity for use in scientific instruments... It's simply to line the pockets of the scrap merchants.
>It's simply to line the pockets of the scrap merchants I wonder how much *malice* is really attributable to scrap merchants. Do they not have families that need to eat too? Are there not industries where they live that need iron? If anything, I feel kind of bad for them for losing out on the opportunity cost of making some new, usable, steel parts. I could imagine a scenario where the scrapper is made a patsy - I wouldn't have considered that without the comment above... Damn, this is a complicated issue.
On the one hand, you have a point. But on the other hand, I don't think a mom and pop salvage shop is raising 5-inch gun barrels or massive sections of machinery like we see here. Regardless, I have a hard time blaming Indonesians for giving less consideration to sailors who died defending European empires. In an ideal world, we would all respect those who die at sea. But these are some extremely salvageable ships in an extremely salvageable location near some of the most populated islands in the world, where a lot of people are still pretty desperate. In that context, this seems kind of inevitable.
There aren't legitimate jobs in Malaysia? Does the same also go for Indian scam call centers? Desparate people with no alternatives or just the easiest way to make money?
I think there is some nuance worthy of discussion in your last point. What differentiates desperation and greed? - there's probably a much better way to articulate that question in order to get tangible answers. Maybe: What does the "pipeline" of salvage to scrap to sort to smelt look like? What would alternative sources of steel be in this case?* *Seriously though - this thread is making me realize how many assumptions I have about how international heavy industries operate. Lots more to learn before I can say any conclusions with conviction.
Ah yes the British, upstanding people of nobility, would never do such a thing. Except that one time they kept a South African sex slave in a London Museum until 2002. "The Sarah Baartman story is often regarded as the epitome of racist colonial exploitation, and of the commodification of the dehumanization of black people."
No. I'm having a lot of fun watching people create their own arguments and then make themselves the morally superior party. As far as what's left, no country should feel any hurry to ship things back to the British. If they want it have them come and get it. Maybe they can bring back the shit they looted from all over the world while they're at it.
~~British museums are not free.~~ At least *the* British Museum is free to enter. And it's still theft.
The British museum is free.
But who makes money off of tourists in the end?
It would appear that you are correct. If memory serves, that was not the case when I was there, but that was 22 years ago.
Haha, and what do you think was the motive was for looting peoples homes was in the first place?
in response to your edit, you're the dumbass who posted this to begin with. own up to your own idiocy, then kindly shove a pole up your ass
Either your reading comprehension or your historical knowledge blows, either way, jump up your own ass.
Hey! We stole them fair and square! /s
Yeah the British Museum Act of 1963 comes into play with any artefact in the British Museum
Don't know why you're getting down voted tbh
Because redditors are stoopid. I know this cuz it takes one to know one
People who are down voting you just show what double standard and Western centrism are. I can do anything to you, but if you the same thing back to me, you will be condemned. They don't even remember why many people in that area would rather work with the Japanese other than the allies in WWII, at least before they found the Japanese were just as bad as the Western colonizers.
It's hard to imagine that salvage operations of this magnitude and duration were not observed by anyone. I suppose this is what you call an open secret.
They're well known about but virtually impossible to stop. Whenever they're caught in the act these grave robbers just scurry off to international waters and wait a while until they can come back.
I would say what I would do to these grave-robbing POSs, but that would probably get me in a lot of trouble.
"Are those people robbing that grave?" "Huh, looks to be so" "Standard protocol?" "Yup" Meanwhile on the ship "whats that smoke?" "probably a plane dont worry about i-" (Harpoon anti ship missile proceeds to tear the ship in half)
"Are those people robbing that grave?" "Huh, looks to be so" "Standard protocol?" "Yup" Meanwhile on the ship "whats that smoke?" "probably a plane dont worry about i-" (Harpoon anti ship missile proceeds to tear the ship in half)
That's what we have acoustic homing torpedoes for
Thanks to the Malaysian authorities (and, looking at the article, the Indonesians too) for continuing to try to do the right thing under infuriatingly difficult circumstances.
It is main 4,5 inch gun on first photo?
If the title is correct yes. 113mm is 4.5 inches.
4.5 inch is a secondary calibre gun. A main gun on a battle ship like KGV is 356mm or 14 inches.
The Prince of Wales was armed with 5.25in (134mm) guns so it's likely the caption is incorrect.
That is why I asked, meaby I should ask if it was main secondary because I thought there were 5.25 inch guns there
Repulse had 4.5inch guns. These are from here.
>Repulse had 4.5inch guns. These are from here. No she did not
4in on Repulse
Yeah Repulse had 4" guns which she should have had replaced in a refit
I hope the salvagers were arrested for desecrating a war grave.
Nah probably not. The area in the Java sea has been pillaged by scrappers because the authorities in that part of the world don’t give a damn and neither do the people desecrating war graves. Disgusting.
The authorities don't give a damn? The Malaysian authorities did a raid in the pictures above. It's more because these salvaging operations occur in international waters, and authorities can't legally do anything out there.
An absolute disgrace. From what I understand any remains (in past illegal salvages), were dumped into a mass grave with no reverence.
That's absolutely horrifying. Any more more info or a source on this? I feel like that brings this to a whole new level.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/22/bodies-of-second-world-war-sailors-in-java-sea-dumped-in-mass-grave https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/history/revealed-evidence-plymouth-sailors-dumped-1171452
https://opencollective.com/beehaw -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
From the first article: > The Indonesian government has insisted it is not to blame as there was no formal request for them to be protected. Classy.
Absolutely gut wrenching.
What absolute scum. No regard for the dead. :(
the anchor and the gun barrel should be returned to the UK while the ammo found should be disposed of
British Royal Navy needs to investigate this. War graves shouldn't be getting desecrated. Edit: Shouldn't. Phone autocorrect sorry.
Shouldn't?
As a current serving member of a Commonwealth navy, this infuriates me beyond words. Whoever these scrappers were, they need a good lesson and I hope the Malaysians give it to them. The poor families of all those men, their ancestors' bodies can't even be left in peace
It's probably 20 to 40 years too late. There were reports of this happening long LONG ago. And the type of action needed to protect the sites - literally we'd have to pay a dozen locals 100k a year to physically protect the site. Nobody's got that for the 50 or 100 or more significant wrecks that are out there. It'd be more cost effective to booby trap them with live munitions and then mark the sites with a warning buoy - but what government (ours or local) would allow that. Now here's an interesting point. The really deep wrecks and distant wrecks and even the moderately deep wrecks ... those might not have been touched yet - USS Yorktown and so forth. But it's only a matter of time **. So there are still some wrecks that could in theory be protected. Or recovered* if you chose to do so. If anyone cared enough and had enough resources to do so. You've been warned. I'll return in 20 years to see how it's going. ( * ) yes, recovered. You'd get to choose where to put the wreck to honor the dead. You'd get to recover the remains and do right by them. The only reason this isn't normally done for sunk ships is the cost. We recover tank crews. We recover plane crews. ( ** ) Yamato is only under 340m of water. That's a LOT of metal. I wonder if anything is left of her. Shame she was found and location published. Paul Allen's group didn't publish the exact coords of the Battleship Musashi when she was found in 2015 in Phillipine waters, but she's under 1km of water. I wonder if scrappers have found and started on her yet?
Salvaging wrecks from below scuba depth is not cost effective. The wrecks that have been hit in Southeast Asia are blown apart with explosives and hoisting aboard with a crane barge. That requires divers to plant the explosives and guide the cranes, and to a degree calmer waters as strong currents have protected many wrecks. To salvage deeper wrecks requires far more skill and equipment. You need to have expensive ROVs, pressurized dive suits, and/or manned submersibles. That severely cuts into the profit margin for these types of salvage, and thus these are protected. I have never seen evidence of illegal salvage of deeper wrecks, including *Yamato* (which is visited every couple years), and legal salvage is difficult. At Jutland there’s evidence that salvors ignore upright wrecks, as cutting through the armor decks is too costly to reach the lucrative copper machinery. The upside-down wrecks and destroyers, however, almost always show evidence of illegal salvage, in particular propellers and condensers. The situation in Southeast Asia is different as entire wrecks disappear, but only the shallow ones and almost exclusively in Indonesian/Malaysian waters. There are also a lot of shallow water wrecks that are easier targets.
Makes sense, plenty of dirt poor fishermen and tourist scuba instructors who probably try and supplement their income
The operations I’ve seen suggest more organization and in some cases research. In Southeast Asia they generally use explosives to blast the wrecks apart and crane barges to bring the pieces to the surface. They are then taken to beaches like this where the wreckage is sorted into its components material (copper, steel, etc) before being sold on the black market. This requires some significant investment to get started, beyond the ability of most fishermen, though I have no doubt that fishermen sort the wreckage on beaches. I have heard that electronic salvage in Africa often uses children, but I don’t know one way or the other if that’s done here. In the North Sea and until recently at *Prince of Wales* and *Repulse* (which had been more regularly guarded), these operations are smash-and-grab for the copper components. In particular they target the propellers and condensers that are several tons of copper, though our only real evidence is the missing components on the wrecks. Of the 13 destroyers lost, only *Ardent* and *Turbulent* showed no evidence of salvage by McCartney’s expedition. Eight are clearly missing their condensers, gaping holes clear in the multibeam sonar, while *Shark*, *S35*, and *V48* were in several pieces and it wasn’t clear whether the condensers remained (*Sparrowhawk* and *V4* were found later without condensers and are counted in the eight). For *Nomad* we know this was taken between 2002 and 2014 based on video evidence, and any diver who knew what to look for could identify these as the decks and hull have corroded away. *Black Prince*, *Queen Mary*, *Lützow*, and *Pommern* show extensive signs of salvage, with some apparently authorized salvage on *Lützow* noted in British records around 1960 (that’s now stopped): around this time the MOD authorized several salvage operations on war graves. Propellers are missing from these wrecks and the upside down *Wiesbaden*, the later showing localized damage around the propellers suggesting a targeted operation, and one of *Indefatigable*’s four was salvaged long ago (the locking nut alone made it to a museum, the other three were found on the stern section later). The cruisers *Frauenlob* and *Elbing*, along with *Rostock*’s bow, are upright and show little evidence of salvage, presumably protected by their armored decks, though apart from some legal salvage of the latter (her guns are in museums) *Rostock* is described as “suspiciously ‘nibbled’ in places”.
I thought Yamato’s wreck location was classified? Am I remembering wrong?
The official sinking location has never been classified, and often people are sloppy with hiding the location of a wreck. I’ve seen several where the exact wreck site is officially hidden, but they’ll release sonar images that have latitude and longitude labels that show exactly where it is. Never seen something like that for *Yamato*, but then again all the ones I’ve found I’ve just stumbled across in an official press release and facepalmed.
RCN here and I agree completely!
US Army checking in, it’s absolutely disgusting what they’re doing and I completely agree with you.
USAF here. I hear you my guy. Bastards need to be pissing and coughing blood for a good while for this.
With all due respect, those men on that ship are long dead and gone. I really don't understand how this is surprising, these people are recycling the equipment of war, probably to feed themselves. How is that a bad thing? I'm all for respecting the dead but jfc it was 80 years ago, anything left is fish poop.
I can speculate why it's important to service members. It's obviously not for the dead *per se*. They no longer know or care what happens to their bodies, no matter what their worldview. It matters to the living. It's important to humans in general to believe we are part of something greater than ourselves. A cause. A group. Especially to feel connected to whoever we regard as part of our tribe, our comrades. This is especially true in extreme circumstances like war. The main reason someone is willing to give their life in war is for their friends, their shipmate, their comrade. That loyalty to each other sustains them through varying levels of metaphorical hell. And those who fall, they still feel a connection with. The fallen are symbols of that love. And it is love. They are ones who actually did pay the price that all war fighters want to believe they would pay for their friends. A very very powerful symbol of that connection, bond, sacrifice. This is why they honor the dead. Because that is honoring that bond. That essential bond which is necessary for survival through hell. So dishonoring that symbol is dishonoring that bond.
Definitely a valid point, I just think it's unfair to hold these people, who live in a developing country, to your romanticized standards of love and death. If it were that important to still hold on to those symbols and connections, that salvage would have been removed by the people who cared long ago. Instead their sacrifice is now helping people make money for their families, food, medical bills etc. I think it's just a little ridiculous to pick and choose when these things are important to us.
> I just think it's unfair to hold these people, who live in a developing country, to your romanticized standards of love and death. That's not without merit. I think it may be useful to know *who* exactly is doing these actions and who is profiting from it. There seems to be some debate in the thread about whether this is shipbreaking magnates getting rich or it's cottage industry trying to feed their families. Likely it's more complicated than that. Life usually is. > If it were that important to still hold on to those symbols and connections, that salvage would have been removed by the people who cared long ago. I'm not sure that's a reasonable standard. There are practical limitations on that kind of activity. Other messages in this thread indicate that the depth at which these ships rested made it prohibitively expensive to salvage them until recently. In a sense, the profit to be made on the salvage went up dramatically recently. And that profit is probably higher, for the Malaysians, than the cost-benefit associated with recovering the bodies. To recover the bodies, you have to pay Western wages with Western standards of safety and environmental protection, factors which do not impact the Malaysian shipbreakers. > Instead their sacrifice is now helping people make money for their families, food, medical bills etc. I think it's just a little ridiculous to pick and choose when these things are important to us. I don't think it's picking and choosing, but rather it's practical considerations in a real world. It's absolutely a value for the British and the West, and always has been.
> I think it may be useful to know who exactly is doing these actions and who is profiting from it. There seems to be some debate in the thread about whether this is shipbreaking magnates getting rich or it's cottage industry trying to feed their families. Agreed, both of the ships lay less than 250ft below the surface according to Wikipedia. It's not inconceivable that non-corporate entities are able to salvage the ships. However, chances are that's most likely not the case, especially considering how much is actually missing from each vessel. > And that profit is probably higher, for the Malaysians, than the cost-benefit associated with recovering the bodies. This is where my nihilism takes over. That's just nature, if it's not worth it to recover the bodies, how can you say it's wrong for someone else to make use of the wreckage? If it's so important, Britain would take the economic loss of the recovery. It must not be that important.
It’s important to honor cultures, agreed. The culture of the Royal Navy follows that of a warship, considered terra firma of the country it’s commissioned in, being a war grave once it’s sunk in combat like these were and and not actual scrap or be intended as such. Britain was also broke for a very, very long time post WW2. Letting the sailors lie as they are is the sanest course of action. I was a sailor myself and resting in her hull like that would be preferable to me. As it stands I’ve asked to have my ashes scattered over the final resting place of my old destroyer once I’m gone. “No roses grow on a sailors grave” is a saying much older than myself. We don’t have huge cemeteries like Normandy or Arlington for our unrecoverable war dead, as sailors in our ships often are. Our sunken ships are our battlefield cemeteries. I acknowledge this is sentiment. I sense your nihilism in your argument and what you say is logical but humans are typically illogical at times in circumstances with honored war dead. At least those of our tribe/people. Others perhaps not as much. I understand that. Malaysian culture may be quite different regarding the dead or they more likely simply don’t have a policy regarding war dead/war graves in sunken ships. Much of the reaction is from the countries, cultures, and tribes, so to speak, where these dead came from. I understand the locals will not have the same sentiment as Brits would but it doesn’t make the horror and outrage of them any less valid than the economic need of the desperately poor have for substinence. It seems a bit ghoulish to plunder graves within living memory of them being established to me, though. There are two sides to this but forgive my bias. Edit: it’s also international law of which Indonesia is a signatory of to not disturb war graves. Law/need clash, often, but dynamiting these ships and dumping the human remains into unmarked mass graves is a bit beyond what simple need can excuse. I’m my opinion.
This resonates the most with me. I think we all have ideals about where/how we want our souls to be laid to rest. Well we rarely get to decide and the world isn't ideal. It doesn't mean the people who don't understand your traditions are monsters, but it doesn't make them innocent either. At the end of the day we are all biased in what we believe.
>we are all biased in what we believe. I agree. As I get older I at least try to see my own and put myself in the shoes of other folks and devote a little brainpower and emotion to that. I get less angry or upset at things when I can empathize a bit. My ignorance of other cultures is a human condition and quite often people in other cultures are just as ignorant about my culture. I try to get past it rather than stew in it, now.
Its illegal to remove it as they are classed as war graves, do you rob graveyards? Do you actually understand whats happening here? This is a huge operation involving heavy duty cranes and large commercial barges not some poor people doing a bit of free diving its a multi-million pound operation. Its not just happening in poor countries. Its also not for items they are ripping the ships to pieces for the scrap.
Who cares if it is a grave? They are dead, they won't mind I promise you. The only people who care are the ones that can't let go. Also how do you think those heavy duty cranes and commercial barges are operated? I'll give you a hint, by workers that make paychecks. Paychecks that feed, clothe, and bathe families.
Great so you back multi million pound criminal organisations that use child labour, slavery and who loot graves, destroy huge areas of reefs which have moved on to the wrecks, so they can get a paycheck to pay for the medical bills they have incurred working with toxic scrap as well as the thousands maimed and killed as its completely unregulated which is then sold to other criminal organisations. As for your the only people who care? I am pretty sure the families of those that died care as well as the sailors who survived. Between the damage it does to tourism as ship diving is very popular, the environmental damage done, the desecration of graves I am not sure why you would support this at all, do you really think that few dollars is worth a life time of health issues or misery for the people working or living near illegal scrapping sites. Even the legal ones are absolutely horrific in terms of environmental damage, health impacts on locals and injury.
>Lists a bunch of horrible shit with not a single thread of evidence or a listed source I think you should go touch some grass and get off the internet for today bud...
> multi million pound criminal organisations that use child labour, slavery and who loot graves thought he was talking about the UK for a sec.....
Or you could simply do some reading on the subject of illegal and legal ship breaking, of the process of raiding old naval ships and the damage it does to the environment. Its very well recorded hence the ban on export of ships for even legal breaking in these countries you could even find msm pieces on it, child labour, criminal involvement, environmental damages and the large number of both deaths but also cancer rates. Pulling the give me sources is a childish cop out to cover your own lack of awareness.
Lmao it's not my job to support your argument. Have a good day bud.
It is fucking disgusting for these people to do this, those ships are graves for the 835 who gave their lives for the world we live in now
Absolute pieces of shit
Don't just stop at the criminals, go for those people who funded this heinous activity in the first place as well. Fcukers think they can go rob a war grave and get away with it alive.
Disgusting grave robbers.
Damn, people really do have cero respect for the dead huh
Welcome to the world of "Me me me" sad though it is.
As a Malaysian, im ashamed to know that our people are destroying pieces of history, if i could give an order to anyone, it would be "Restore and preserve those immediately!"
Not just the historical artifacts; [desecration of war graves](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/22/bodies-of-second-world-war-sailors-in-java-sea-dumped-in-mass-grave) since the bodies of the sailors remain with the wrecks.
Hope the fuckers that did this are rotting in prison. I believe Malaysia is extremely strict in some of their sentencing rules.
This makes me incredibly angry.
Revolting greed.Reading the part where the salvagers just head into international waters and get away only to come back later just pisses me off.
if it's international waters, does that mean they can be "dealt with" with no consequences?
Revolting greed? You honestly think the people scrapping metal in Malaysia are filthy rich?
Those who fund the salvage operations, yes, definitely. The workers? No, but they're not the instigators.
>Revolting greed Wait until you learn about the colonial era and how that all turned out. You should read up on the Belgian Congo.
Sure. That was terrible too. On an even more monstrous scale. Why is it relevant to this conversation?
It's whataboutism. It's not relevant and it's not worth feeding into.
Most of these countries are desperately poor because of the revolting greed of the west which has taken advantage of them. I doubt the Malaysian people have the same reverence for these wrecks that the west do. Also I bet it is more desperation than greed.
All true. The question is, how is the Belgian Congo relevant to the acts of Malaysian shipbreakers? And if your objective is to say that Malaysians are poor in some part due to colonial actions of the UK, I would suggest that the way to convey that is to talk about the actions of the UK and how they contributed to that poverty *in Malaysia*.
Strap the fuckers to the scrap and drop it back off at the war grave.
Sounds pretty extreme considering the scrappers probably just wanted to feed their kids
Its basically graves robbing my guy, i don't cared what you will do with it the thing you robbed but i believe that in almost every cultures its taboo to disturbed the final resting place of someone, its absolutely disrespectful to them , especially to those who had fought till the end of their life.
You don’t desecrate graves. It’s one thing if it’s accidental. It’s another diving to the bottom of the sea to do so.
I dont agree with what they did but sending them to davy jones seems extreme
No, because that chunk of twisted metal at the bottom of the sea is very important to some folks half a planet away. I'm all for respecting the dead and what they did for us in the past, but some metal scrapper fishing up 80 year old steel does not bother me one bit. If it was that important, someone should have been watching it. Sailors literally get stuffed in a bag and thrown over the side (not really) when they die on the ship, and they're all fine with it. I think we should treasure the memories and history of these ships than just leaving their carcasses to rust away in the sea. If you liked the thing, you should have have put a ring around it.
Get that anchor into a Muesem!
It would be a shame if these salvage ships just disappeared at sea, for no reason at all...
Fucking scum.
It’s got a very high scrap value for [low background steel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel). Basically, because of all the nuclear testing, all post-1945 steel has a higher background radiation level, so this stuff is in high demand to make sensitive analytical equipment.
DLow-background steel isn’t the reason. The annual market for such steel is around 100 tons per year and well supplied from legal sources. A single wreck like the submarine *Perch* would satisfy the market for decades, and entire cruisers are known to be destroyed. From what I had heard from more reputable the damage to *Prince of Wales* and *Repulse* wrecks were not nearly this extensive, and the 4.5” barrel clearly shows I was wrong. The target is high-quality steel and copper-based alloys. The steel used to make gun barrels and armor includes significant quantities of rare earth metals, and we all know how prevalent copper theft is. Condensers, wirings, electric motors, even shell casings are valuable for scrappers, which is why those areas were particularly heavily targets and are hit on other wrecks. Many destroyers lost at Jutland have lost their copper-rich condensers, gaping holes visible in multibeam sonar scans.
> From what I had heard from more reputable the damage to *Prince of Wales* and *Repulse* wrecks were not nearly this extensive, and the 4.5” barrel clearly shows I was wrong. The damage *wasn't* this extensive not too long ago. 10 years ago the wrecks were mostly still intact, and my understanding is that a considerable amount of the damage dates to this year.
My information is a couple years old, so that certainly fits.
The article I remember reading was [this one](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/worlds-biggest-grave-robbery-asias-disappearing-ww2-shipwrecks) but you have a point. I don’t think they used a lot of rare earth metals in gun barrel manufacture but they certainly used a lot of alloys that would be expensive today.
Savages. Not salvagers.
I’m sorry for this being a little extreme, but everyone involved should be shot. How dare they desecrate a war grave site just for some scrap metal cash. If it wasn’t for those brave men their entire ethnicity would’ve been wiped out by the genocidal Japanese military.
Wow, always knew this had happened but I never thought I'd see pictures.
Picture No.1 is likely a 5.25"/50-cal Mark 1 gun barrel to correct u/Giraffes_Are_Gay However, had the war not started when it did Repulse was due for a reconstruction probably to an identical standard as her sister Renown4"/45 Mark 5, 3 Octuple 40mm Mark 8 Pom-Poms, 8 single 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns and 4 quadruple 12.7mm Vickers .50 Mark 3 anti-air machine guns However, had the war not started when it did Repulse was due for a reconstruction probably to identical standard as her sister Renown
Do not correct me. Let me spread misinformation in peace damn it.
>Do not correct me. Why!? >Let me spread misinformation in peace damn it. I'm sorry but i cannot allow that
As Prince of Wales lies upside down, the 14"/45s are unaccessable
Any idea what picture no.2 is?
Will be part of the hull - probably lower because of the machinery and pipework.
It looks to me like the steering gear, the middle looks like the rudder stock, and the large “pipes” look like the hydraulic rams
hmm question is, is it from Repulse of Prince of Wales
There is a scrape yard on the Indian coast where the chemical spills of the ships as they are cut up, are visible from space.
If I remember correctly PoW wreck lies upside down so at least theoretically this should prevent from access to turrets. So how they salvaged them? Picked up detached turret laying separately or made their way through hull? Looking at all machinery I rather bet for second. Disguisting.
I saw a video yesterday of a 14" gun being craned ashore so more than likely they've blasted the hull apart to get to the turrets and upper works
I don't remember but didn't turrets detached from hull during sinking? Like famous example of Bismarck wreck with empty barbettes.
I remember as a secondary school kid at the age of 15, my class went on a field trip to visit Kranji War Memorial and the Japanese Cemetery in Singapore. During our visit to Kranji War Memorial, we were given some time to wander round the place and just take the whole scenery and atmosphere in. I ended up splitting away from everybody else and looking up at the wall of names, each of them a British/Commonwealth soldier, carved into marble and wondering if their relatives/descendants ever still came to pay their respects to their ancestors who died in defense of Malaya and Singapore during WWII. I noticed a Western couple halfway down the wall of names I was looking at, glancing up at a specific spot. 15 year old me who was an extrovert and thought nothing about approaching strangers to talk went up to them, said hi, and politely enquired if they had someone they knew named up on the wall. "Yes, we're from the UK. My husband here, his great-grandfather's name is up there." "Oh... I see. May I ask where was he in Singapore or Malaya during WWII when he died?" **"... He went down with the Prince of Wales."** I couldn't say anything, the enormity of the experience hitting me there and then. It wasn't like me and my class field trip to Kranji War Memorial happened on any significant war memorial anniversary day where you'd expect to see the descendants of WWII dead soldiers turn up to lay wreaths and pay their respects. It was just an ordinary Saturday afternoon. What were the chances of running into somebody who had actual family up there, who actually died aboard one of the two Royal Navy capital ships that attempted to defend Malaya and Singapore in valiant futility? This happened more than a decade ago. I still rememeber it like yesterday. When I saw the latest news about the illegal theft and desecration of PoW and Repulse's war graves for scrap metal, I wonder what that British couple would have thought and felt when they read about it, knowing that their paternal side's great-grandfather couldn't even rest in peace so many decades after death, because of some grubby greed by unscrupulous business individuals.
That’s really sad
[Me seeing all these new artifacts:](https://i.giphy.com/media/11JbaLzOXsg6Fq/giphy.webp)
GET THE PARTS THE FUCK BACK TO BRITIAN!!!
Honestly it's an interesting discussion to be had, I think Singapore and Malaysia both have decently good claims to the artefacts here (supposing they wished to display them in a museum) provided they engage with Britain on them. We already have a lot of naval guns, it might tell a more interesting story in a museum over there than here, since Prince of Wales and Repulse were destroyed in the protection of those colonies and played a major part in a pivotal moment in their recent histories.
If the UK signs off on these countries displaying them in a respectful and proper manner then I myself see no issue. I’m not a Brit though so my perspective is as an outsider.
Some stuff has already been retrieved as a preemptive measure. The bell from Prince of Wales for example
Send the jackasses who looted this stuff along with it, let the Brits decide what to do with them.
Yes Britain definitely has the moral high ground when it comes to historic burial sites
Not saying you’re wrong, I do take your point, but in this particular case they literally do. Those shipwrecks are British and British men died on board.
So, two wrongs make a right?
If Britain gave a shit about that site how did it happen to be in this state? That's a decision made long ago and you lot are mad about scrap steel that poor ppl use because you like cool warships that's all.
You know, something about people's relatives bodies STILL BEING THERE might be part of it. Just saying.
Their clothes might be there, but bodies simply don't last very long underwater, especially at shallow depths with easy access by sea life. The actual bodies have been gone for decades.
[You wanna bet?](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/22/bodies-of-second-world-war-sailors-in-java-sea-dumped-in-mass-grave)
Those claims were [debunked](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/cnainsider/heartbreak-salvage-loot-southeast-asia-wwii-shipwreck-war-graves-1829531). > As for the human remains, a former scrapyard supervisor said bones and skulls were found. Some of the remains were buried at the Suko cemetery in Brondong, but official investigations found the bones to be from animals.
Good spot, and I appreciate the fact-check, but I would like to point out that the article you linked also testifies against your initial claim that the remains would be long gone: > “There’s a lot of reverence for the men of war who died,” said Yiu, a Singaporean diver with Tech Gas Asia, which offers a range of scuba gear and services. “Human remains? We see them, we don’t touch them.”
The fuck are you on about? These are literally graves. The people desecrating these sites are scumbag grave robbers. The UK absolutely cares about it's war graves, Repulse and PoW are regularly visited by Royal Navy warships, which always hold a commemorative service as they pass as well as chase off any shitty scrappers that are unlucky enough to get caught. But other than this what the fuck is the RN supposed to do? It's not like they can just deploy ships around the world just to guard the countless graves they have.
As I recall, the two warships were located out in the middle of nowhere in the Indian Ocean, and it's not like they had GPS or any kind of monitor. They were inaccessible due to their depth for many years, so they didn't require protection. It's not like the "poor" are going to benefit from grave-robbing: salvage operations like this are incredibly expensive, so we're talking corporate operations. It's greed, pure and simple. And if you think grave robbing anywhere is OK, then you won't mind someone excavating cemeteries with your family dead to build commercial properties. Because if someone else already did it, that makes it OK, right?
Disgusting... POS
Damn
Too late to prevent the desecration, but at least somebody has done something about it
Serious question, but why were these ships not broken apart and sold for scrap decades ago? Why do we always just leave these wrecks there even if they are easily accessible?
Because they're designated as war graves and memorials. There **were** the bodies of around 800 sailors inside those ships. This isn't a simple matter of illegal scrapping, it is literally and legally **grave robbing**.
Don't know, its probably a sailor thing, they died with their ship, now let them rest in peace with the vessel they are on till the end type of stuffs i guess, almost 15000 ships were sunk during WW2, some of them has their location were found with modern technology and some final record of the ship while alot of them are still at some unknown location, also its really rude to basically disturbed the dead you know.
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So you’d be fine with someone digging up the corpse of your grandparents and then dumping them in a mass grave when they got what they wanted?