Mystery over Dutch WW2 shipwrecks vanished from Java Sea bed

November 16, 2016 9:30 AM

Three warships sunk in the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942 have largely disappeared from the sea bed.

The wrecks of cruisers Hr.Ms. De Ruyter and Hr.Ms. Java and destroyer Hr.Ms. Kortenaer were found by divers in the waters off Indonesia in 2002 and declared a war grave.

Diver Vidar Skoglie says that the wrecks were towed to Surabaya and sold as scraps (site in Dutch).

posted by Pendragon (50 comments total)

This sounds so much cooler when Nathan Drake does it.
posted by biffa at 9:49 AM on November 16, 2016

Other "holes" in the sea bed also discovered...

...the wrecks of HMS Exeter, a 175m heavy cruiser, and destroyer HMS Encounter have been almost totally removed.
---
A 100m destroyer, HMS Electra, had also been scavenged, the report found, although a “sizeable section” of the wreck remained. The 91m US submarine Perch, whose entire crew were captured by the Japanese, had been totally removed, the report said.

Shipwrecks have been "disappeared"

posted by Mister Bijou at 9:54 AM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

I have a hard time believing that the scrap metal value would justify something so difficult. Does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing? (I mean I know there are some really esoteric specialties on MeFi, but really?)
posted by Naberius at 9:56 AM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is a criminal violation of archeological and grave sites. I don't see how you can prevent it though. Considering the amount of unexploded ordinance aboard these ships it has to be damned risky too.
posted by Bee'sWing at 9:58 AM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

Low-background steel?
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 10:04 AM on November 16, 2016 [36 favorites]

The Sea is losing its memory.
posted by jamjam at 10:20 AM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm with Naberius. The scrap value of the ships must be extraordinary to justify that kind of effort. The last time that I checked, scrap value for steel in the US was ~$50 per ton. Granted, that's for retail recycling, but that's before you pull up the boat from 200+ feet below, and deal with unstable unexploded ordinance and other nasty stuff, not to mention that getting the wreckages recycled would be a huge undertaking. Wouldn't someone have noticed... something?

It seems like it is a task that is economically impossible to perform for any reasonable return.

When I was 20, I had an internship at the Smithsonian, and I recall a talk that I attended that addressed how sunken Spanish galleons were a special target because of the treasure that they carried. The point that sticks with me is that we know more about sunken Roman vessels than those from Spain. The Romans were not carrying precious metals, and therefore are not as 'interesting'.

Anyway, I am off on a tangent. Fascinating stuff in a 'I weep for humanity' kind of way...
posted by dfm500 at 10:22 AM on November 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

Underwater landslides can bury wrecks (one apparently narrowly missed the wreck of the Titanic), but I'm having a hard time imagining a landslide burying such a shallow wreck. OTOH, I'm having a very hard time imagining the cost/expense thing pencilling out, too.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:41 AM on November 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

they got better and left on their own
posted by KChasm at 10:48 AM on November 16, 2016 [30 favorites]

I think thegirlwiththehat has got it, the value of the steel, being manufactured before the advent of nuclear testing, would make it worth the expense of clandestine graverobbing.

Low-background steel is used in medical, scientific and aeronautic equipment, and the demand isn't going away.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:06 AM on November 16, 2016 [9 favorites]

Low-background steel is used in medical, scientific and aeronautic equipment, and the demand isn't going away.

Nice governments will presumably want provenance records.
posted by BWA at 11:38 AM on November 16, 2016

I can imagine an alternate hypothesis: earthquakes burying the wrecks under silt.

But that being said, the Java sea is comparatively shallow. Add to that rumors of evacuated gold (the De Ruyter was said to be carrying the gold reserves of the Dutch East Indies administration).... also, we're talking tons of low-background, high quality armor steel plate. And even the explosives, while dangerous, have an illicit value (500lbs of untraceable TNT?).

I hope ghost curses get the lot of these scummy Malaccan wreckers.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 11:39 AM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

There is lots of brass and copper on a ship; probably several times the value of the steel.
posted by Mitheral at 11:59 AM on November 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Obviously it made economic sense to salvage the ships and someone stole them. On the ranked list of human depravity I think it is pretty far down. If you have a chance to watch the documentary about Cambodian bomb salvers (http://www.bombhunters.com) you will see a guy cutting into a 500lb bomb with a hacksaw to get at the detonater to diffuse it. The casing is worth something, the explosives are worth something. I think the western world's metrics for valuing human life and labor against the price of commodities are out of step with most of the globe. I should say that the "public's" metrics are out of step, I think it is fairly self evident from the last couple centuries that in deed the west has often plumbed the lower depths of valuation when it comes to the price of commodities in terms of human life.

I think this is one of the scary things about globalization, it might be a boogeyman but there it is.
posted by Pembquist at 12:08 PM on November 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

Meanwhile, in a secret government facility, construction of the wave motion gun proceeds on schedule.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 12:19 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

Wait, wait, in 1945 we ruined steel forever?

Damn, I have never heard of low-background steel before. This is...fascinating.
posted by Naberius at 12:27 PM on November 16, 2016 [21 favorites]

This is old steel, that is, steel that was run through the blast furnaces before the Trinity nuclear test and everything that followed.

It is more valuable than ordinary steel.
posted by ocschwar at 12:28 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Wait, wait, in 1945 we ruined steel forever?


Ironically, we ruined steel for geiger counter casings.
posted by ocschwar at 12:29 PM on November 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

Naberius: "in 1945 we ruined steel forever?"

We could make uncontaminated steel; it would just cost a lot more than recovered steel.
posted by Mitheral at 12:39 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

The article mentions that the imprints remain, and one wreck is only partially gone, which would seem to rule out underwater landslides.
posted by ckape at 1:00 PM on November 16, 2016

After the German High Seas Fleet, interned at Scapa Flow, was scuttled in 1919 most of the ships were salvaged for their scrap value. As some here have noted, pre-Atomic Age steel used to be of value for applications requiring very low intrinsic radioactivity.

More recently there have been incidents of illicit salvage from the wrecks of the Battle of Jutland, despite such wrecks being protected as war graves. That happened in the North Sea, a very busy maritime area, so it's apparent both that there is a commercial market for such salvage and that it can take place under the noses of the authorities that ought to be controlling it.
posted by Major Clanger at 1:02 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

Given the number of new or recent cargo ships going to scrap these days, I can't imagine this being economical. Do big pieces of ships have value to some kjnd of militaria collectors?
posted by wenestvedt at 2:11 PM on November 16, 2016

Warships have a lot more metal than modern cargo ships.

I wondered about selling artifacts too. It's a big business in the former Soviet Union, German WWII stuff is worth a lot of money. I remember seeing M1 Garand rifles for sale for $25 at Woolworth's when I was a kid. They're more like $750 to 1000 now.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:40 PM on November 16, 2016

Given the atrocities the Dutch visited on Indonesia during its colonial occupation, I can't cry too many tears if some locals made off with the steel. Human remains are more troubling though.
posted by Nelson at 2:47 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I looked up the two cruisers mentioned in the FPP. They're both lightly armored, fast vessels but had 2 or 3 inch thick steel belts (hull at torpedo depths) and 1.5 or 2 inch thick steel decks. That's a lot of steel.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:55 PM on November 16, 2016

There can't be that much demand for low-background steel, and the Wikipedia article implies that the problem today is recycled steel in the supply chain, not atmospheric contamination. I presume that it wouldn't be too hard to make a batch of steel without any recycled metal in the mix.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:00 PM on November 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Presumably there's substantial amounts of rust, though. But it looks like this isn't a new thing: the USS Houston was already partially salvaged by 2014, as was the HMAS Perth.

So I'm guessing there's at least one salvage company that has started specializing in these wrecks. Presumably if you master the expertise to recover one at a economical rate, then the Java Sea is great hunting ground. The Houston is only at around 40 meters, which doesn't seem too crazy a depth.
posted by tavella at 3:09 PM on November 16, 2016

I'm not an expert, but I work in a peripherally-related field. There's lots of scrap value in old vessels. Hundreds of thousands of ££££s worth. I was a conference a few weeks ago where we were discussing the problem.

These are war graves. For no other reason, they shouldn't be disturbed. The salvaging is also damaging any historical data we could get from the wrecks, but that's by the by, these are war graves.

There is a similar problem with alleged looting by salvage companies of ships from the Battle of Jutland. I don't know much about WWII boats, and whats on them, but this article has a picture of a huge copper condenser from a WWI ship from Juland. With lots more detail about the alleged looting there and the company that's allegedly doing it.
posted by Helga-woo at 3:12 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

Jeez. I thought that the bridge thieves were the top of the tweaker scrapper food chain. Shows what I know, amirite?

No, but seriously, seems to me that the guys who steal the metal covers off of our water meter are the spiritual kin of the people pulling WWII wrecks off the ocean floor for money.
posted by BrunoLatourFanclub at 3:18 PM on November 16, 2016

Doesn't look like Friendship Offshore BV is too worried about the UK taking an interest in the Jutland destruction, given they are happy enough to take photos of themselves with loot from the Queen Mary. And given this said photos have been out for six months and the MOD has shrugged their shoulders, it seems a justified confidence. Doesn't seem likely that the Indonesian government is going to be much more proactive.

I guess there's a case to be made that not every war shipwreck should be preserved, given the sheer numbers, but still sad to me.
posted by tavella at 3:23 PM on November 16, 2016

I wonder if it is China.
Aren't they doing a lot of underwater mining around there as well as disputing ownership of rights.
posted by Burn_IT at 4:17 PM on November 16, 2016

This is fascinating, thank you for posting about it. I'd also never heard of low-background steel.
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:11 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I once was terrified I would be living in a William Gibson novel, a technocratic dystopia. Then I became fearful I would be living in a Douglas Adams novel, a cold and uncaring universe that is perpetually having a laugh at my expense. Now it's clear I'm in a Jules Verne novel, because why not?

Nemo needs material for the Nautilus. Container-ships burning bunker-oil ferrying slave-wage manufactured goods to America will taste his wrath...
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:18 PM on November 16, 2016 [9 favorites]

"I wonder if it is China.
Aren't they doing a lot of underwater mining around there as well as disputing ownership of rights."

The Chinese stuff is nowhere near that area - this is smack-bang in the middle of the Indonesian archipelago, in one of the busiest sea routes (lots of freight shipping & multiple daily passenger ferries between Java and Kalimantan) and short-hop aviation routes in Asia.

Unless the Chinese are somehow doing it all by submarine, the most likely answer would seem to be lots of industrious locals deep-diving from small boats.
posted by Pinback at 6:46 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd be interested in seeing a comparison between the sunken ships mentioned and neighboring sunken ships. That would inform me.
Salt-water and oxygen consume iron via rust quite well. I don't consider this to be gravesite-robbbing even it is salvaged metal. I wouldn't mind being disinterred myself so that might be informing my "Oh well". Not everything is "sacred".
I don't want pain for the families though.
There are billions of us and the planet is paved with graves - recognized and not. You ate something today that contained molecules from dead people.
posted by vapidave at 7:58 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

I thought that mayo tasted a little off...
posted by Naberius at 8:08 PM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

Exeter went toe-to-toe with the 60% larger Graf Spee earlier in the war, getting plastered by its 11" guns, but doing the duty of a heavy cruiser attempting to harry a commerce raider -- attack, and hope to give as bad as you get.

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

The British had just finished patching her up before sending her out to battle the Japanese in the opening moves of the Pacific part of the war.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:11 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I find the war graves argument a little thin.

I live in Hiroshima. People died in a place and time. The things they left behind are ashes on the wind. All ground is sacred.

I think most places in Europe would be uninhabitable if cleaning up after wars was verboten.

That they are underwater is significant? Possibly. I am much more concerned over the disturbance or destruction of marine habitat. Wrecks make good reefs, right?

That they are being salvaged by the wrong sort of people is significant? Probably, but isn't that how salvage law works?
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 9:50 PM on November 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

The sea will reclaim everything in time, and so far as I know there are no mariners in my family history so I have no personal stake in this. But this still seems like a terrible violation on both personal (for the sailors and their families) and historical levels.

I'm too old to be surprised that people will do absolutely anything for money, but here I am anyway.
posted by bryon at 9:51 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well what would YOU use to build a secret underwater lair, mister smarty pants? All the good volcanoes have been taken.
posted by bigbigdog at 10:27 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

They're legally protected as war graves. Or should be. I'm not one to say that the past should be preserved at all costs. If they're to be scraped, fine, change the law, and do it respectfully and responsibly.
posted by Helga-woo at 11:24 PM on November 16, 2016

the lot of these scummy Malaccan wreckers.

Hey now, don't mess with Malacca.
posted by BinGregory at 3:12 AM on November 17, 2016

I didn't have a chance to read the article yet, but might this be a foreign example of "fake news" leading up to Dutch Elections and far-right tensions as reported by the BBC?
posted by xtian at 5:19 AM on November 17, 2016

This article suggests that some propellers, made of phospor bronze, are worth $4700 a ton, at 15 tons each, along with other high value metals throughout the ship.
posted by Brian B. at 5:55 AM on November 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

So the Dutch, British, Australians, And US turn up literally half-way around the world to stop Japan from taking over a Dutch colony.

Years later the locals clean up after them.

Works for me.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:19 AM on November 17, 2016

Where'd I get these rusty hunks of old ships? Uh...found them.
posted by gottabefunky at 9:59 AM on November 17, 2016

This is the UKs law on military wreckages and vessels. Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.
The average wage in Indonesia is US$100 per week. Many people in Indonesia survive on way less than that. Those wrecks were like free money waiting to be picked up and somebody picked it up.

I doubt any of the salvagers were aware of the above mentioned UK law, and if they were aware I don't think they'd care.

Unless a government is patrolling around a "war grave" there's not much that can be done.
posted by DelusionsofGrandeur at 1:55 PM on November 17, 2016

it was prolly just a side quest in uncharted 4
posted by poffin boffin at 7:09 PM on November 17, 2016

Fascinating post, Pendragon. Sounds like an unreleased 60's Bond film that got shelved because it was too close to the truth.

Perhaps the Hughes Glomar Explorer has been secretly refloated.
posted by cenoxo at 3:04 AM on November 18, 2016

I think that if you want a sacred monument to the fallen, build one on land. The sea is no place for a war grave; the bodies have long dispersed, the wreck is at the mercy of the elements, and the vast majority of lives lost at sea don't even get the option. Mark the place on the map to keep the memory; write their names among their comrades in a place where all can read them. It's a decent way.

Graves can be moved, physically and symbolically. Graveyards can be deconsecrated. These are things that we do, with due respect and care and honour, for pragmatic reasons.

And I'm hard pushed to say to people - those powers that colonised you, that caused the war that wrecked your land, that took your resources and left so many scars, and have not finished yet? No, you can't have the stuff they left behind. You have no right to it. You must respect their higher moral ground.

How many of the indigenous dead of colonial wars, of global wars, have no grave at all?

Which is not to say that pirate scrappers and uncontrolled wreckers are a good thing - for all the reasons others have said above. Just that my moral outrage is very muted, and that to put the interests of our dead over their living is perhaps not the best way forward.
posted by Devonian at 5:28 AM on November 18, 2016 [2 favorites]