Mystery over Dutch WW2 shipwrecks vanished from Java Sea bed | Hacker News Reader

Mystery over Dutch WW2 shipwrecks vanished from Java Sea bed

bbc.co.uk

61 pointswillvarfar27 comments

The pre-nuclear era steel would certainly be more valuable than post-war steel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

This bit surprised me: "Illegal salvaging of the wrecks for steel, aluminium and brass has become commonplace."

I suppose it makes sense as these materials are easily reprocessed into a commodity that can be sold, but still the work involved relative to the available ships to be salvaged that are not underwater seems like it would make this financially infeasible to me.

Then there is the whole "How the heck do you dismantle a ship underwater?" that is a discovery television show I'd probably record and watch.

Edit: found this on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O5k5j7EpFQ which is an underwater cutting torch.

I've helped float a 70ft steel wreck off of the Caribbean Sea floor using second hand airbags that cost no more than a few thousand dollars (EDIT: You'll want to spend a bit more if this isn't just for fun). Physics is awesome, and the only cost is your time and the materials. Also, if you were only interested in the most valuable materials on the vessel that are accessible without entering a confined space, you'd just need a scuba rig (very low barrier to entry).

I would definitely not attempt extensive disassembly underwater. Far more dangerous than floating the vessel and breaking it on shore, dry dock, low tide.

EDIT: I thought I'd add why its not safe underwater. Help yourself to some Delta P nightmare fuel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEtbFm_CjE0 (also confined spaces, unstable underwater structures, etc)

Would you be willing to write up some more about your experiences with floating the wreck? I bet people here would find it very interesting!

Absolutely! It would be most interesting to hear some firsthand experiences.

I'll make the time to write it up and come back to HN with a post.

Thanks - I'm looking forward to reading it!

A 70 ft wreck is a bit different to a heavy cruiser though.

I'm amazed that they moved them without anybody else noticing.

I do agree they're different orders of magnitude of difficulty, I hope my comment didn't gloss that over. My point was that while complicated, it's not a "nation state only" sort of undertaking.

Regarding your second point: did anyone check marinetraffic yet for historical data re: AIS beacons in that area?

I'd look into anyone in the area who had ordered large amounts of ping pong balls.

Not really practical though (cite: http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2004/11/mythbusters_ping_pong_bal...)

Did they investigate garbage collection as a possible explanation?

Did not expect this comment but it made me smile :D +1 to that!

Wouldn't an earthquake have shifted the ships elsewhere? I'm just speculating here.

Edit: Never mind. Saw the Guardian link which provides more info. I'm surprised there's capability to salvage that deep for large wrecks.

Could also be time travelers.

According to a John Varley SF story, those time travelers work more in about-to-crash airplanes, replacing live passengers with puppets in the nick of time.

(I forget what they did with the recruits.)

You should check out the Wiki article on the Soviet submarine K-219.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-219

Short version: after she went down, someone went down and ripped off the nuclear missile doors, and took several of her missiles directly from the tubes, at 6000 meters. I don't imagine too many countries had the technology to do that.

> ripped off the nuclear missile doors

That's probably a result of missile(s) explosion, similar to explosion which resulted in her loss. Occam's razor, you know.

That's a good point, I didn't consider that. (Obviously!)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/16/british-second...

it isn't just steel, there is also brass, etc. Anyway, having at least 2 metal hungry countries - India and China - right near by and knowing how in 199x some entrepreneurial souls salvaged and sold for scrap to India some relatively modern (back then) USSR navy ships left in Africa after collapse of the USSR i'm not at all surprised .. i mean it is just 70m depth. And we're talking about area where ships are regularly "lost" - at least when it comes to registration paperwork - and where a whole large passenger plane was lost recently. So no surprise that one more illegal salvage operation went unnoticed or looked unremarkable if by chance there happened somebody around to look at it at all.

Or was done by the government itself.

Do you have a link about those USSR ships left in Africa? I'd love to learn more about them.

My favorite missing craft is the 727 cargo plane that was flown out of Angola and never seen or heard from again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Boeing_727-223_disappeara...

Satellite imagery? The salvage ships would be 10s of metres in length and would have loitered for days. Might give some clues (but I'm not sure what you could do with them...)

Wouldn't a ship underwater for 70 years be covered in coral and/or rusted or somehow otherwise modified so that it's hard to salvage?

That is messed up. What happened to the remains that were surely in the wreck?

So wrong.

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