When the Japanese invaded Indonesia in February 1942, the allies tried desperately to stop them. It cost them a number of warships that were sunk in the Java Sea. In recent years explorers have found a number of the wrecks and there were plans to return to them and honor their sacrifice. When they tried to relocate them they found large chunks of the wrecks missing.
While the brass, bronze and other metals are very valuable, they are also after what’s called low-background steel, i.e. steel made before nuclear weapons radiated the world.
Anyone who has ever spent any time in the Far East won’t be surprised by this desecration. It’s hard to believe that it wasn’t done with the full knowledge and connivance of some people in the Indonesian government. The Battle of the Java Sea was a tragedy of unpreparedness and a lack of appreciation of Japanese ambitions. Now we are witnessing the Red Chinese claiming islands 800 miles from their shorelines. Who knows what will become of their ambitions?
Many, if not most, of these sites are considered War Graves. Not that it means anything to these profiteers.
🙁
not like trying to steal an entire soviet sub, but only getting a portion of it like the CIA and Howard Hughes did with the Glomar explorer.
CWOW: Wouldn’t it be something if the CIA really got the whole sub, but said they only got part of it so that the Russians wouldn’t know the extent of their secrets that were compromised?
…Naah, the CIA probably wouldn’t do anything like that. That would be sneaky and deceptive. And underhanded, too.
🙂
Vet, old HH profited greatly from that old scam. The sub was an early nuke that they lost in the late 50’s. And by the time it arrived on our shores (pieces anyway) the technology was about as old as BW tvs and new flat screens. The CIA held a funeral for some of the remains brought up with the sub and had Soviets in attendance. I read this in a book somewhere in the house on nuke subs and hazards. They went into enough detail even describing a picture of the body of a sailor on the ocean floor. Amazing how preserved stuff is down there.
^^Three miles deep too.
Wow! I’ve long had an interest in the old US Asiatic Fleet that was destroyed by the Japanese in those long lost early days of WWII. I just picked up “Ship Of Ghosts” by James D. Hornfischer (the story of the USS Houston and the fate of her crew, especially their enslavement and building the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway [the Bridge on the River Kwai was part of it]) and a used copy of Edwin Hoyt’s “The Lonely Ships”, a more general history of the fleet. There’s another book, “The Fleet The Gods Forgot” by Walter Winslow (served on the Houston I believe) that due from Amazon soon. I’ve also just recently seen other articles about the scavangering and looting of these sunken ships in those waters. Disgraceful and disgusting – grave-robbing for all intents and purposes. And Marco’s correct – the current moves by the Chicoms (as Rush calls them) strongly reflects the same thinking of the Japs back in that time.
@CWOW: Actually, the K-129 was completed in 1960 and lost in 1968, so the technology may not have been quite as obsolete as it would have been in the 1950s. In any event, it wasn’t the sub they were after – it was the nuclear torpedoes (to study the design) and any operations manuals, code books, and/or coding machines.
Vet, I just looked it up too. I was just going by memory. I read the book about 2 years ago, so I did pretty well. I’ve got a good memory, its just short.
Jimbo i know what ya mean. I’ve been a WW2 history nut too. And then i’ve discovered all those documentaries and war footage on youtube. We have a used bookstore nearby and I’ve bought dozens of books from them, inside the covers are “prop of Maj. etc”. A Great source of reading. Dont get me going on WW2 espionage.
@CWOW: BTW, there were no Soviets at the funeral, which took place in secret, at sea, in 1974. However, a videotape was made of the ceremony and it was turned over to the Russians in the early 1990s, along with other artifacts from the recovery.
@CWOW: I hear ya on the memory situation. Mine’s no longer than a paper clip nowadays. When you get to be a certain age the data just doesn’t store like it used to.
🙂
@VEt, yeah, thats how it went. Forgot about that part. I knew there was a funeral involved somewhere. LOL Like i said, good memory. . .
Charlie WalksonWater “I’ve been a WW2 history nut too. And then i’ve discovered all those documentaries and war footage on youtube.”
WW2 history nut since 3rd grade. Was reading mostly about USN aviation battles and PT-109 🙂 Betting those books don’t exist in school library anymore.
Jimbo, I’ve read all those books and many more about the Japanese thrust south in the first six months of WWII. The very best is by John Toland, “But Not In Shame.” I’ve visited many of the battlefields and historic sites in the Far East where the Japanese overran the allied countries. Years ago I hiked along the Death Railway all the way to the Three Pagoda Pass. The best book on the Japanese conquest of Malaya and Singapore is Russell Braddon’s “The Naked Island.” Years ago I used to attend reunions of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, and I got to meet many of the people who survived America’s unpreparedness for the Japanese conquest of the Philippines. It angers me greatly that our country has forgotten the lessons learned in WWII already.
@ Marco. Thaks for the tip. Just ordered both those from AbeBooks.
@CWOW: “I read this in a book somewhere in the house on nuke subs and hazards.”
Would it be Blind Man’s Bluff? That book details the Glomar Explorer Soviet sub mission in a lot of detail.
Charlie W and Marco – Great stuff guys! Had Toland’s book years ago but it disappeared somehow. Braddon’s book sounds great, time to hit Amazon again.
Flip – You are correct on “Blind Man’s Bluff” by Sontag and Drew. Excellent book covering this and other undersea espionage acts.