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Lost Nazi U-Boat: Found undersea near Karimunjawa
Indra Harsaputra - Jakarta Post
After finding Ming-Dynasty ceramics in 2009 (and again in 2011), divers from the Yogyakarta Archeological Center said in November that they made another discovery: a sunken Nazi U-boat.
The discovery prompted Priyatno Hadi Sulistyarto, leader of the underwater archeologists, to examine historical documents on the German military presence in Indonesia during the World War II following the submarine’s discovery.
“This is a major find in the history of World War II, during which the German forces backing up Japan turned out to have stopped over in Indonesia,” Priyatno said.
The wreck of the Nazi U-Boat was first discovered by a local fisherman, when clearing his net off the coast of Karimunjawa.
A team from the Yogyakarta Archeological Center, the Yogyakarta Diving Center and local divers quickly hired a vessel to survey the place where the debris was discovered, about 10 hours’ sail from Karimunjawa.
“The shipwreck was muddy, with its stern already missing,” Priyatno said. “On board the wreck, were 17 skeletons and two German military plates bearing Nazi symbols, estimated to have been produced in 1939.”
Other items found on the vessel included uniform buttons, binoculars, diving goggles, breathing tubes, batteries, shoe soles and various pieces of electrical equipment.
“We believe the submarine had been shot because we found it in already severed,” Priyanto continued. “Of its normal length of 76 meters, only 47 meters were left, without the rear part. We’ll be diving again for further research in this year.”
France watches for signs of Lafayette shipwreck
By Bo Petersen - Post and Courier
France will be closely watching the renourishment dredging here and the Charleston Harbor dredging about to take place. That's because somebody rooting through trash in Paris found a scrawled, historic link:
"The ... La Victoire, of and for Bordeaux," the document reads, "commanded by Jean Baptiste Le Boursier (who some time ago brought over the Marquis de LaFayette with other French noblemen and others) on the 14th unfortunately struck upon the bar, where the vessel and cargo were entirely lost, but none of the people."
The bar might well have been off Folly Beach. La Victoire was departing Charleston on June 14, 1777, after carrying Lafayette to the Colonies and a fabled place in the American Revolution.
It evidently grounded trying to clear the channel, which at the time wound south along Morris Island and the north end of Folly.
Since the documents' discovery tied Lafayette to Bordeaux, France, French journalist Jean-Michel Selva, of Sud Ouest, and others in Bordeaux have hoped to find some remnant of the ship lost more than two centuries ago.
The dredgings might be their best chance.
"It's possible the workers will find one of two cannons or the bell of the ship," he wrote in an email.
There's not much possibility. The harbor channel has been dredged several times since it was first dug, and any remnants likely are far gone.
But there is a tantalizing chance, at least, with the Folly Beach dredging.
The Lafayette story is a curious but often overlooked bit of Lowcountry lore. As a 19-year-old French junior officer, he defied orders, sneaking out of France aboard the ship to join the Revolution with some like-minded troops.
They sailed for Charleston, but feared they would be seized by British ships offshore, so they landed at North Island, today's Yawkey Preserve, in the Santee Delta.
Largest shipwreck discovered in Sri Lankan waters
By Lankinda Nanayakkara - Daily News
The wreck of a steamer discovered off the coast of Batticaloa has been identified by the Galle Maritime Archeology Unit (MAU) to be the largest such shipwreck discovered in Sri Lankan waters.
Official records indicate that the wreck is that of the steamer Sir John Jackson, which was wrecked on Brennus Shoal in the Navaladi Lagoon off Batticaloa on September 26, 1908, according to Galle MAU's Rukshan Priyandana.
The unit was initially alerted to the wreck by a local diver named G. Yogaraja, he added. The steamer weighs 4231 tons and had been built in 1905 by the Northumberland Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. It had been registered with the Westminister Shipping Co. Ltd in London.
According to official records, the steamer was enroute to London via Colombo from Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in Vietnam, carrying a cargo of rice and wheat, when it struck the Brennus Shoal and sank.
It is believed the Captain of the vessel had made a mistake and taken the steamer too close to shore while trying to use as a guide, the lamps put up by fishermen on shore in order to make their fishing activities easier.
The vessel had five boilers and two propellers. However, one propeller had broken off when the vessel sank and was found some distance away.
Maritime archaeologists said the shipwreck of another vessel was located in close proximity to the Sir John Jackson.
Over the course of time, the shipwreck had become a home for corals and many species of ornamental fish. It has been attracting local and foreign diving enthusiasts for some time and Priyandana said it has the potential to be developed as a tourist attraction for divers.
The Galle Maritime Archaeology Unit has so far located 17 shipwrecks along the country's eastern coast.
Historic sentence for diver who salvaged metal off historic shipwrecks
In a first for South Africa a diver will be sentenced for salvaging scrap metal from old shipwrecks lying off the Eastern Cape shoreline.
Paul du Randt (53), an experienced diver from Port Elizabeth, admitted transgressing South Africa’s heritage resource laws, which effectively determine that no part of any shipwreck that is older than 60 years may be removed without a permit.
This is the first time that anyone has been prosecuted in terms of South Africa’s heritage laws, said Colin Urquart, author of Coast of Storms, which recounts tales of shipwrecks along South Africa’s coastline.
Du Randt was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for five years. He is one of three men who stand accused of illegally selling scrap metal salvaged from three shipwrecks.
The three men appeared in the Humansdorp Magistrate’s Court yesterday, where Du Randt indicated that he would plead guilty and that he would testify against his co-accused.
His case was then moved to Port Elizabeth for sentencing. His co-accused, Jimmy Uys and Alan Withers, who respectively own an explosives and salvaging company, are however both pleading not guilty and they again appear in Humansdorp today.
Du Randt, who owns a diving business in Port Elizabeth’s harbour, admitted that he had removed scrap metal from three different shipwrecks between March 2011 and May 2012.
The first wreck was the Norwegian SS Lyngenfjord, which sank in 1938 near the Tsitsikamma river mouth. Du Randt said they removed three blades from the wreck’s prop without explosives.
At Tsitsikamma they used explosives to get scrap metal off the British SS Bosphorus, which sank in 1867. The third wreck, the American Western Knight which sank in 1929 near Cape Recife, was also partly demolished with explosives.
Du Randt said in his statement that the scrap metal was sold to Power Metal.
His legal representative pointed out that none of the wrecks was “in perfect condition” anymore and said it was not as if bone china was stolen off the Titanic.
No treasures were removed, only scrap metal.
The state pointed out that permits to salvage wrecks were relatively easily obtainable and added the wrecks were important for the area’s tourism.
Navy halt treasure raider ship in Riau Islands
The Indonesian warship, KRI Teluk Gilimanuk 531, of the Navy Western Fleet (Koarmabar) halted a local flagged KM Trianis ship carrying treasures salvaged from a shipwreck in the Mapur waters, Bintan District, Riau Islands.
"The ship, weighing 82 GT, was secured, as it was carrying 546 pieces of ceramics that were allegedly retrieved from the ocean floor, without seeking legal permission," Spokesperson of Tanjung Pinang VI Naval Main Base Major Josdy Damopolii stated here on Wednesday.
The ceramics, recovered from the seabed of the Mapur waters, were believed to be from the Ming Dynasty.
"The officers are still investigating the case," Damapolii noted.
He further added that there might be other ships involved in this illegal treasure hunt operation.
The treasure raider ship was commanded by Salman Lubis and has eight crew members and five passengers on board.
Besides the ship, the Navy also confiscated diving equipment such as a compressor, goggles, a diving suit, and a 300-meter long hose for delivering oxygen.
The ship was escorted by the KRI Teluk Gilimanuk 531 warship to the Tanjungpinang IV Naval Main Base for further investigation.
Shipwreck points to 18th-century race to colonize New Zealand
By Ewen Gallaway - Nature
Scraps of wood salvaged off New Zealand’s coast probably come from a Dutch ship built in the early 1700s, a study based on carbon dating, tree rings and historical research reports.
The recovered vessel is the country’s oldest-known shipwreck — dating more than 50 years before Captain James Cook’s landing — and hints at a 'space race' among colonial powers to reach the remote isles.
“It was a period of European expansion and exploration, and there were many countries that were competing against each other, particularly for resources,” says lead author Jonathan Palmer, a climate scientist who studies tree rings at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
The research has been published in the current issue of theJournal of Archaeological Science.
Dutch explorer Abel Tasman put New Zealand on the map in 1642, but he never landed on the isles and Cook is credited being the first European to land there, in 1769.
“There’s nothing written about that intervening time period, and that to me has always been a bit of a mystery,” says Palmer.
“Why hadn’t anybody gone in the intervening 130 years ? Maybe there were some efforts and maybe this was an example of one that didn’t return home.”
Shipwreck treasures sold at South Yorkshire auction house
Treasure found in a 16th century shipwreck has been sold for £250,000 in a South Yorkshire auction house.
The 230 pewter plates and bowls were among 1,200 items of high-quality English tableware recovered from the wreck of a Spanish galleon off the Dominican Republic.
It is believed the unnamed ship was carrying Spain’s new ambassador to its colony of Hispaniola, now the Dominican Republic and Haiti, when it sank in about 1540.
A diplomat is thought to have been the only survivor after he swam ashore.
About a third of the tableware bears the mark of Sir Thomas Curtis, one of the most important pewterers in London in the 16th century, and mayor of the city in 1557.
His mark also appears on much of the pewter recovered from the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s flagship, which sank in the Solent in 1545.
Highlights of the 230 items sold at Wilkinson’s auction house in Doncaster included a set of octagonal plates by Sir Thomas that fetched £27,000.
Another set made by master pewterer Edward Cacher was sold for £22,000.
Three-quarters of the items found will remain in the possession of the Dominican Republic. The rest has been given to the divers who have been recovering them for the past two years.
Auctioneer Sid Wilkinson, said: “These items are as good as, if not better than, the pewter found in the wreck of the Mary Rose.”
HMAS Perth: WWII warship grave stripped by salvagers
By Linton Besser, Dan Oakes and Norman Hermant - Yahoo News
Australian authorities have tried to keep the scandal a secret, fearing the issue might add fuel to the ongoing diplomatic tensions between Australia and Indonesia.
The warship, which sank in the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java, is the last resting place of as many as 355 Australian sailors who went down with the vessel after it was struck by multiple torpedoes.
But it has never been protected as an official war grave.
Australia and Indonesia are yet to ratify the UNESCO Convention on Underwater Cultural Heritage, a binding national treaty which would oblige both countries to protect such sites.
Since at least September, scuba divers have made official reports of large-scale damage to the wreck from a massive floating crane equipped with a salvage claw.
These reports have been made to the Australian embassy in Jakarta and to local officials in the Department of Environment and Heritage, and the Department of Defence.
Several salvage barges have been spotted in the area, and one was photographed in October dredging up the carcass of a Dutch submarine - the O-16 - which sank off the coast of Malaysia.
Sam Collett, a professional diver based in the Philippines, told the ABC he last visited the wreck in September.
"Compared to previous trips I had made, the extent of commercial-scale salvaging was immediately obvious," he said.
"On the boat trip back to the marina in Anyer we passed a salvage barge with a crane and claw and a large pile of what appeared to be wreckage on the deck."
Andrew Fock, an expedition diver with a keen interest in HMAS Perth, said there was "extensive damage".
"As best we can tell from the video footage supplied, most of the superstructure - if not all of it - is gone, the guns from the forward turret, the A-turret are missing.
"The gun houses for the two front turrets are missing, and most of the upper deck... is missing.
"The catapult has been removed, the bridge has been removed, the crane has been removed."
An official report was lodged with the Department of Defence in October detailing the damage. The report, seen by the ABC, said there was a strong possibility that human remains still exist within sections of the ship and that they risk being disturbed.
It warned action must be urgently taken to prevent further mass salvaging.
"It is probable that unless action is taken the salvers will return and continue to pull apart the wreck, especially if their previous efforts have been remunerative," the document said.
"It should be noted that any attempt to remove the exposed starboard armour belt would likely involve its supporting structure and prove catastrophic to the integrity of the remaining hull structure."
The ABC has seen other reports of the use of explosives by salvagers to break up the ship and make it easier to dredge.
In September, an Indonesian-based diver wrote: "The mid section above deck, where the bridge was, has been completely removed, the bow guns have been damaged by what appears to be explosives with the barrels missing and the tops peeled of [sic], the bow has collapsed completely."
"Although it is hard to be certain, but as the metal that was the superstructure is all missing and is not lying around as debris it looks although we could be wrong like purposeful attempt to salvage the steel."
The Defence report also made specific mention of risks posed by the fuel oil and ordnance on board the Perth.
The Indonesian-based diver did a second dive in September to confirm his findings. In an email, he reported that the vessel is now too "unstable" to allow divers to penetrate the interior of the ship.