Wreck of battleship Musashi said found off Philippines

[yuiyoshida]

Source: Ajw.asahi.com



By MANABU SASAKI/ Correspondent

MANILA--Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen announced he has found the sunken battleship Musashi, which with its sister ship Yamato was the pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II.

The wreck lies about 1,000 meters below the surface of the Sibuyan Sea off the central Philippines.

Musashi, commissioned in August 1942, was sunk by U.S. carrier aircraft on Oct. 24, 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

The billionaire businessman posted two photos of the wreck on his Twitter site. One is of the bow and the other shows a handle with the kanji characters “kai” (open) and “shuben-totte” (handle of main valve).

Allen, who has invested much of his fortune in ocean exploration, said the wreck is covered with rusticles but maintains its original shape.

Read more: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201503040050

[Sherman A1]

1. Interesting

I hope that it is left undisturbed. Finding and photographing are one thing, anything else involves a whole series of other issues both legal and moral.

[dembotoz]

5. at 3000 ft not going to be a touist diving site

admit i do not dive but that is way deep

[Historic NY]

7. They said that about the Titanic too....

but then they found it and have raided it for artifacts.


http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/10/travel/titanic-last-dive/

[Divernan]

11. Japan regards such sunken ships as military cemetaries

I've dived on multiple sunken Japanese ships from World War II, at Truk Lagoon in the central Pacific/Federated States of Micronesia. As a recreational, non-commercial diver with a standard single tank, my dives are limited to maximum 130 feet depths. More advanced divers, using rebreathers, have visited the deeper wrecks and reported human remains. Divers are instructed to regard the dive sites as museums and to remove nothing. This instruction is often ignored (not by me), as witness to the stripped condition of ship interiors.

Truk Lagoon (also known as Chuuk Lagoon), is home to one of the world's largest ship graveyards, courtesy of a surprise Allied attack during World War II on one of Japan's largest naval bases. The attack, known as "Operation Hailstone," sunk more than 70 Japanese ships, planes, and submarines. Thousands of Japanese sailors were killed. Those remains in the shallower depths were removed by the Japanese government, but wrecks at 60/70 meters in depth still contain human remains. (10 meters equals 32 feet.)

I was told that representatives from Japan hold a religious ceremony every year at Truk, on the anniversary of the attack.

CHU'UK LIES IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN, 1300 miles south-east of Japan and 1000 miles north of Papua New Guinea. Once an important island stronghold, its natural harbour of Truk Lagoon was a vital airbase and headquarters for the Japanese Navy's combined fleet.

The attack on Pearl Harbour in Hawaii was co-ordinated from here, and following amphibious assaults on the principal Marshall Islands, it became a major roadblock for the US Pacific Fleet in its advance towards the Japanese Empire. In a series of raids on 17-18 February 1944 known as Operation Hailstone, US forces wiped out the entire Japanese auxiliary fleet stationed at Truk, sending it to the bottom of the lagoon.

Today, more than 60 incredibly well-preserved wrecks lie, mainly upright, in the lagoon, including many of the Japanese aircraft that tried to defend the fleet. The sheer number of wrecks attracts divers to this remote location in their thousands - this is one of the most desirable dive destinations in the world.
Although many of the wrecks lie in shallow water, several came to rest upright in 60m or more, and it was on these that our attention was focused.

Nearly 70 years later, the lagoon has become a major tourist destination. Divers can explore what is now a legally-protected underwater museum. Disturbing or removing any of the underwater relics can draw fines and possible jail time, according to Pacific Wrecks, a non-profit dedicated to preserving the area's history
http://www.divernet.com/Travel_Features/pacific/157624/deep_wrecks_of_truk_lagoon.html

[Cooley Hurd]

2. I hope he raises it and turns it into Space Battleship Musashi!

[Historic NY]

6. Its considered a war grave.

[Cooley Hurd]

14. I'm aware of that. My post was referring to an early Anime cartoon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Battleship_Yamato

[blackspade]

9. Loved that show!

[BumRushDaShow]

10. Destruction of the Yamato

[yuiyoshida]

18. Death of the Yamato

[Enthusiast]

3. That is a big one!

[Hoppy]

4. Another argument for raising taxes on the 1%

[Divernan]

13. Absolutely! An obscenely rich man's obscene ego-tip

He's so morally bankrupt, jaded and indifferent to human suffering, that THIS is where he has chosen to
"invest(ed) much of his fortune in ocean exploration".

Then there are his other vast holdings - proof of world-class, unbelievably self-indulgent, out-of-control greed, witness his dozens of mega-estates, yachts, professional sports teams, etc. The world's richest hoarder. http://www.bornrich.com/paul-allen.html


Let me say this - the man is worth many (16?) billions and in his 50's. Yet he has never had a romantic/sexual partner whom he has seen fit to publicly acknowledge, and he has no children. He recently had a falling out with his only sibling. http://theseattleflash.com/2014/10/28/paul-allen-fires-sister-after-sex-claims/

It's fair to say that his life proves the truth of the Beatles song - Can't Buy Me Love.

His life is an endless round of buying and acquiring, but none of his possessions give him the inner peace to just relax and enjoy what he has. MORE - MORE - MORE!

[blackspade]

8. I always wondered if they would ever find this beast.

It was a beautiful, if deadly piece of engineering.
It is fortunate for the Navy that this ship didn't make it into Leyte Gulf.
I wonder if they will ever find the Shinano, the Carrier version of this class.
It was sunk by the Archerfish during it's sea trials.

[csziggy]

12. The Wikipedia article on the USS Archerfish covers that nicely

On 28 November, she received word that no air raids would be launched that day, giving her carte blanche to roam the waters near Tokyo Bay. That evening, lookouts spotted what looked like a tanker leaving the bay. It was later discovered that it was actually a large aircraft carrier screened by three destroyers.

Enright realized that a surface attack would be suicidal; the destroyers would blow Archerfish out of the water before he could get the sub into position. Even without the destroyers, Enright also knew the carrier was too massive for the sub's four-inch gun to have any effect. He ordered the carrier tracked from ahead in preparation for an attack from below. After six hours, the enemy carrier turned right back into Archerfish '​s path, and Archerfish got into an attack position. Archerfish fired six torpedoes. Enright deliberately set the torpedoes to run shallow (10 ft or 3 m) in hopes of capsizing the target by holing it higher up on its hull. He also wanted to increase the chances of a hit in case his torpedoes ran deeper than set. Even as Archerfish began to descend to avoid a depth charge attack, Enright and the crew saw the carrier was already listing to starboard. The crew also began picking up loud breaking-up noises from the target shortly after firing the last torpedo. The noises continued for 47 minutes.

The patrol ended at Guam on 15 December after 48 days on station. Initially, the Office of Naval Intelligence thought that Archerfish had sunk a cruiser, believing that there weren't any carriers in that stretch of ocean. However, Enright had made sketches of the target, and Archerfish was given credit for sinking a 28,000-ton carrier.

It was only after the war that the Americans learned the identity of Archerfish '​s quarry: Shinano, the biggest aircraft carrier ever built at the time. It was originally the third of the Yamato-class battleships, but had been converted into a 72,000-ton carrier after the Battle of Midway. Four of Archerfish '​s six torpedoes had hit, striking the carrier between the anti-torpedo bulge and the waterline at approximately 03:20. Although the ship initially continued under way, it lost power around 06:00. Due to serious design flaws and crew inexperience, the crew was unable to contain the flooding and the carrier capsized just before 11:00.[5] Archerfish received the Presidential Unit Citation, and Enright received the Navy Cross, for this action. To this day, Shinano is the largest warship to be sunk by a submarine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Archerfish_%28SS-311%29#Fifth_patrol.2C_October.E2.80.93December_1944:_Sinking_Shinano

My Dad served on the USS Spot, also a Balao class submarine, which began its first war patrol December 1944. So I am used to reading about the casualties the submarine fleet inflicted on Japanese shipping during World War II.

[sarisataka]

15. The sinking of Musashi

may have made Adm. Kurita a bit timid when he did encounter Taffy 3 the next day. With four battleships, including Yamato, nearly a dozen cruisers and escorts he had completely overwhelming firepower to tear through the light defense and savage the U.S. invasion fleet.

Instead he retreated from a handful of escort carriers and destroyers that he could have wiped out without even using the battleship's main guns. Had he pressed the attack Leyte Gulf would be remembered as one of the U.S. Navy's greatest defeats; possibly the one with the greatest loss of lives.

[blackspade]

17. Very true.

Kurita, I believe, thought he had encountered the entire US fleet which was in fact 100s of miles to the north.
It's one of those big misses in history for the Japanese, and a stroke of luck for the US....

[yuiyoshida]

19. WW2: Death of the Imperial Japanese Navy

[sarisataka]

20. A very good video

showing the desperate lengths the IJN went to attempting to slow the advancing Americans and the price it cost.

Last year my brother obtained a copy of Otoko-tachi no Yamato for my birthday.


It is a very moving picture from a perspective not typically covered in Western cinema. Though criticized by some as glorifying those who fought in the war, it also shows how those who survived were often broken. I see it to be an anti-war film akin to Hollywood's Saving Private Ryan.

[Blue_Tires]

16. There's actually a whole lot of Pacific theater shipwrecks yet to be found

Especially those deeper than 14,000 ft

[Major Hogwash]

21. Wow, that is very interesting.

Thanks for posting this thread, yuiyoshida.
I like to read stuff like this.