Least Favorite Truk Wrecks?

[Centrals]

Besides, most of the wrecks in Truk are just merchantmen.

If the reconnaisance planes were not spotted perhaps we could be diving Musashi and Yamato instead!!

 

[Deep Water Dan]

If the reconnaisance planes were not spotted perhaps we could be diving Musashi and Yamato instead!!

How true. I've often had that same thought myself.

But you'd probably have to book a room years in advance.

 

[Akimbo]

If the reconnaisance planes were not spotted perhaps we could be diving Musashi and Yamato instead!!

Can you imagine what Chuuk would be like today if the battle fleet didn't escape? I doubt it would have taken until the 1970s for Truk to be “discovered” by divers. On the other hand, a lot of that steel may well have been salvaged before recreational diving got off the ground — like in Palau.

A neighbor who grew up in Palau in the 1950s told me that the Japanese salvage company planned to go to Truk next. They lost some re-floated wrecks (and ships???) being towed back to Japan in a storm so the rest of the Palau operations and Truk plans never happened.

He told me that a myth is floating around Palau that none of the salvaged metal from Palau made it back to Japan. Even thought he was just a kid, he remembers freighters full of scrap metal and refloated wrecks leaving the harbor for years before the salvage company’s loss in the storm. It has become a hobby to track down the details of what really happened.

 

[Kevrumbo]

A lot of bad juju at Palau back then during the salvage operations --also stories of welder's torches setting off underwater gas explosion accidents on the wrecks.
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Checkout link below on this 1986 four-part news piece "Ghost Ships of Truk Lagoon" from ABC Bay Area affiliate KGO:

--Earlier 1980's footage from the Japanese Gov't recovery & cremation of the majority of soldier/seamen remains from the troopship Aikoku Maru and other ships (divers literally stuffing skulls & bones in mesh bags), and a ceremonial Shinto Funeral on the grounds of the Blue Lagoon Resort.

--The late great Kimiuo Aisek giving a dive briefing and remembering events back on the day of the raid as a seventeen-year-old eyewitness. (And a very young Gradvin Aisek, his son, as an interpreter during a tour of Eten Island).

--Footage of Al Giddings prying the aft hatch open to get inside the I-169 Submarine. . .


Ghost Ships Of Truk Lagoon Part 1 of 4 - YouTube

 

[Akimbo]

A lot of bad juju at Palau back then during the salvage operations --also stories of welder's torches setting off underwater gas explosion accidents on the wrecks…

That was pretty common in the old days before electric torches, but can still happen today. They basically used a modified Oxygen-Acetylene style torch. Gas and unburned combustible gas can accumulate in a compartment or space on the back side of the burn. It can make a pretty nasty explosion when that bubble reaches the torch. It gets even more exciting when that space if full of munitions!

Today’s “burning” systems use a hollow electrode with pure oxygen blown down the center. You hear of commercial divers blowing themselves up every few years who didn’t get the memo.

They still had photos of dual gas torches in the Navy Manual when I went through school, but we only trained on the electric torches… thankfully!

 

[Kevrumbo]

The 70th Anniversary of the US Navy's WWII raid on Truk Lagoon is this coming weekend . . .whether favorite or least favorite wreck, nevertheless go see these historical artifacts still relatively intact (and marvel at the wonderful marine life on these seventy-year-old artificial reefs as well!), before they all become un-recognizable heaps of unstable corroded steel rubble. . .