Three Japanese ships that sank off the coast of Borneo during the second world war have been destroyed in an apparent illegal metal salvage operation, according to photos taken by divers and passed to the Guardian.

The sunken cargo transporters, believed by divers and historians to be the Kokusei Maru, Higane Maru and Hiyori Maru, were torpedoed during the 1944 Pacific War by US forces and are likely to still hold the remains of dozens of crewmen.

Collectively, they are known as the Usukan wrecks, and their near-pristine state and rich coral and marine life has attracted recreational divers to Malaysia’s Sabah state. All three are within a kilometre of each other.

The looting of Australian, American, British, Dutch and Japanese warships for scrap metal in south-east Asian seas has caused outrage, with veterans and governments arguing that the vessels must be preserved as underwater war graves for sailors.

Scuba diver Monica Chin said local fishermen called her late last month to say a large Chinese vessel with workers on board was using a crane to tear apart the Japanese ships.

Advertisement

Photos and video footage taken by the fisherman and passed to the Guardian show a large ship with a giant crane for hoisting underwater material. Ship-tracking websites describe the vessel as a “grab dredger”.

Chin arranged for a group of divers to visit the site, which she said was until last year in a “beautiful condition. It’s an underwater museum.”

She remained on the boat while a team descended to investigate. When they surfaced, they showed her the photos. “It totally broke my heart,” she said. “It made me cry. I just cant believe it ... I wish the pictures were wrong. I wish that it was not true.”

Locally, the three wrecks are known as Rice Bowl Wreck – named after its cargo of hundreds of bowls – Upside Down Wreck and Usukan Wreck.

Another diver, Mark Hedger, who works as an instructor in Sabah’s capital, Kota Kinabalu, used to make the 75-minute boat trip to the wreck sites with customers.

He wrote a statement on what he found during a recent dive, saying the Usukan and Upside Down wrecks were “98% and 99% gone”.

The Rice Bowl wreck, he said, was an unrecognisable “heap of metal piled up into a ball”.

“I was speechless ... There was what looked like a cable over the top of the pile of metal, maybe from the salvage ship.”

When Chin asked authorities about the salvaging, they showed her a letter saying the work was authorised as “research” by the local Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) archaeological unit.

The Malaysian New Straits Times reported that the vice-chancellor of the university said the Japanese cargo vessels contained three tonnes of “toxic materials” that were harming the environment. Local divers dispute this claim.

After the divers and residents of coastal communities complained, the Sabah Marine Department issued a withdrawal letter to the company commissioned by UMS to hire the Chinese-registered vessel.

Naval shipwrecks are granted sovereign immunity under international law and remain the property of their nations, in this case Japan. These protections makes it illegal to destroy them without permission from Tokyo.

A Malaysian fisherman had also filed a police report after he said the Chinese crew ordered him and others to pull up their fishing nets and leave the area.

However, by that point, the ships were destroyed. The Sabah Marine Department later sent a team of officers to the vessel and found that material from the wrecks were on the ship, including an anchor.

Tokyo has not officially claimed or identified the Usukan wrecks.

The Japanese foreign ministry said it was unaware of the wrecks and directed the Guardian to the health ministry, which deals with the remains of deceased Japanese soldiers.

“The government’s policy is to leave underwater war graves as they are if it has been confirmed that they contain the remains of crewmen,” a health ministry official told the Guardian. The official added that wrecks were considered the responsibility of the government of the territory where the sunken ships lie.

Over the past two years, the Japanese government has stepped up efforts to recover the remains of more than 1.1 million of its soldiers and civilians killed during the second world war.
The remains are spread across a vast area that stretches from Russia in the north, through East Asia and to Pacific islands and Japanese territories such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Veterans and marine historians warn that dozens of ships of historical and sentimental value sitting on the bed of the South China Sea are being desecrated by illegal salvagers.

Crews pretending to be fishermen have scavenged the waters around Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, looting the wrecks for parts, including steel, aluminium and brass.

Some of the propellors, often the first items to be stolen, are made of phosphor bronze scrap metal, valued at over £2,000 ($2,500) a tonne. The ships are also a source for highly desirable low-background steel, which is extremely hard to find.

Last year, the Guardian revealed that three British ships and a US submarine that sank in the Java Sea during the second world war had been blown apart and salvaged for metal. The UK’s Ministry of Defence said it condemned the “unauthorised disturbance of any wreck containing human remains” and requested Indonesian authorities investigate and take “appropriate action”.

The Netherlands defence ministry is also conducting an investigation into the disappearance of three of its own shipwrecks, all sunk in the Java Sea. “The desecration of a war grave is a serious offence,” it has said in a statement.

 Frazzled wrote:
On the flip side, this is a very poor area. Why not benefit the living?

 djones520 wrote:
This is pure piracy, plain and simple. These people should be treated as such, if caught.

 Ahtman wrote:
Between illegal secret salvaging and illegal zoo break ins to kill rhinos it seems there is some ill fated goofiness going on at the moment.

 Renesco P. Blue wrote:
I fully support these people stripping these ships. The reason people are salvaging these wrecks is because they need the resources and this is the easiest way for them to go about getting them. Yes they may be grave sites, but if the governments actually cared about such things as the "honor of the dead" they've had literally decades to re-inter their soldiers back to their homelands. Instead they've left warships that are nothing but hazards to native peoples. People who are so poor some scrap metal is enough of a resource to convince them to risk the extreme dangers of underwater salvage. It seems pretty privileged to me that a bunch of people who have the disposable income to have a hobby of playing with little plastic soldiers that cost hundreds of dollars and have the free time to complain about them on the internet are riled up enough to call for the deaths of people living in the third world, where this scrap metal may mean the difference between life and death for them.

 Renesco P. Blue wrote:
I fully support these people stripping these ships. The reason people are salvaging these wrecks is because they need the resources and this is the easiest way for them to go about getting them. Yes they may be grave sites, but if the governments actually cared about such things as the "honor of the dead" they've had literally decades to re-inter their soldiers back to their homelands. Instead they've left warships that are nothing but hazards to native peoples. People who are so poor some scrap metal is enough of a resource to convince them to risk the extreme dangers of underwater salvage. It seems pretty privileged to me that a bunch of people who have the disposable income to have a hobby of playing with little plastic soldiers that cost hundreds of dollars and have the free time to complain about them on the internet are riled up enough to call for the deaths of people living in the third world, where this scrap metal may mean the difference between life and death for them.

 Renesco P. Blue wrote:
If someone needed a home and the Arizona is several hundred tonnes of scrap metal between freezing in the rain and having a shelter to sleep in...I don't see any problem in destroying the grave of the dead to help save the living. But thanks for making the implication that I'm racist because you are trying to put words in my mouth about being culturally hierarchical. You on the other hand are the one who is advocating that naval vessels (military) fire on salvagers (civilians).

 Renesco P. Blue wrote:
I fully support these people stripping these ships. The reason people are salvaging these wrecks is because they need the resources and this is the easiest way for them to go about getting them. Yes they may be grave sites, but if the governments actually cared about such things as the "honor of the dead" they've had literally decades to re-inter their soldiers back to their homelands. Instead they've left warships that are nothing but hazards to native peoples.

 Renesco P. Blue wrote:
Whether or not it is a grave is secondary to the good that the materials can do after being re-purposed into something that can help the living.

 jhe90 wrote:
Check the article. The ship involved was a rather heavy dredger.

It also seemed to look pretty new. Cleanish paint, not battered, likely a good few million, plus its big that's gonna take some fuel.

No poor locals could ever afford to get there hands on those.
And any "pay" might last a few weeks max for locals at best. And low at that.

There taking the steel and propellers which on biggest weigh 15 tons, there's multiple. And 2,500+ dollers a ton.

Yeah there making peanuts off those wrecks localy.

 jhe90 wrote:

 Renesco P. Blue wrote:
I fully support these people stripping these ships. The reason people are salvaging these wrecks is because they need the resources and this is the easiest way for them to go about getting them. Yes they may be grave sites, but if the governments actually cared about such things as the "honor of the dead" they've had literally decades to re-inter their soldiers back to their homelands. Instead they've left warships that are nothing but hazards to native peoples. People who are so poor some scrap metal is enough of a resource to convince them to risk the extreme dangers of underwater salvage. It seems pretty privileged to me that a bunch of people who have the disposable income to have a hobby of playing with little plastic soldiers that cost hundreds of dollars and have the free time to complain about them on the internet are riled up enough to call for the deaths of people living in the third world, where this scrap metal may mean the difference between life and death for them.

So the Arizona is nice and shallow is it ok for a poor Hawaiian to take from her hull or are only your scared objects respected...
That's a extension of your logic right?

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Well, first, it isn't poor starving Malaysians who are doing this, it's scrapping companies. It's a way to make a quick buck, not some sort of life or death situation.

Secondly, steel is not so rare that these wrecks are the only way to get it or some nonsense. The idea that these things are "just metal doing nothing to help people" is secondary to the fact that it is both incredibly offensive and unnecessary.

The idea that you would just kick the bodies out of the way and loot these things is disgusting. I guess you would not be opposed to me digging up your parents or grandparents to use their marrow to feed starving dogs? Or pry out their fillings to donate to donate make a quick buck? All that land taken up by graveyards would be a perfect place to build another building, let's just dump the bodies in the ocean, it's not like they are doing anything to help people.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

Secondly, steel is not so rare that these wrecks are the only way to get it or some nonsense. The idea that these things are "just metal doing nothing to help people" is secondary to the fact that it is both incredibly offensive and unnecessary.

The idea that you would just kick the bodies out of the way and loot these things is disgusting. I guess you would not be opposed to me digging up your parents or grandparents to use their marrow to feed starving dogs? Or pry out their fillings to donate to donate make a quick buck? All that land taken up by graveyards would be a perfect place to build another building, let's just dump the bodies in the ocean, it's not like they are doing anything to help people.

 Renesco P. Blue wrote:
People who are so poor some scrap metal is enough of a resource to convince them to risk the extreme dangers of underwater salvage.

 kronk wrote:

 Renesco P. Blue wrote:
People who are so poor some scrap metal is enough of a resource to convince them to risk the extreme dangers of underwater salvage.

Ah yes. These poor people and their $30 million dollar recovery vessel... Wait.

 Frazzled wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 Renesco P. Blue wrote:
I fully support these people stripping these ships. The reason people are salvaging these wrecks is because they need the resources and this is the easiest way for them to go about getting them. Yes they may be grave sites, but if the governments actually cared about such things as the "honor of the dead" they've had literally decades to re-inter their soldiers back to their homelands. Instead they've left warships that are nothing but hazards to native peoples. People who are so poor some scrap metal is enough of a resource to convince them to risk the extreme dangers of underwater salvage. It seems pretty privileged to me that a bunch of people who have the disposable income to have a hobby of playing with little plastic soldiers that cost hundreds of dollars and have the free time to complain about them on the internet are riled up enough to call for the deaths of people living in the third world, where this scrap metal may mean the difference between life and death for them.

So the Arizona is nice and shallow is it ok for a poor Hawaiian to take from her hull or are only your scared objects respected...
That's a extension of your logic right?

Actually the Arizona is guarded, and of course its in the middle of the freaking US Navy. Try and die.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Well, first, it isn't poor starving Malaysians who are doing this, it's scrapping companies. It's a way to make a quick buck, not some sort of life or death situation.

Secondly, steel is not so rare that these wrecks are the only way to get it or some nonsense. The idea that these things are "just metal doing nothing to help people" is secondary to the fact that it is both incredibly offensive and unnecessary.

The idea that you would just kick the bodies out of the way and loot these things is disgusting. I guess you would not be opposed to me digging up your parents or grandparents to use their marrow to feed starving dogs? Or pry out their fillings to donate to donate make a quick buck? All that land taken up by graveyards would be a perfect place to build another building, let's just dump the bodies in the ocean, it's not like they are doing anything to help people.

These are good points. On the flip side neither the US Navy or the Japanese Navy appear to be giving a gak.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Grave sites on land are often re -used for housing, industrial use, to put a road through them, etc; It's hard to build anything in London without coming across a plague pit, Roman or Viking burial site, etc.

Civilian shipwrecks seem to be fair game - see the Titanic, any number of Spanish wrecks in the Caribbean; the only argument is who gets to keep the booty, not whether it should be done at all.

I find it hard to see what the difference is here. It's not like they're dredging these wrecks up to use sailors' skulls for wineglasses.