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In such a protected lagoon, as this wreck sits upright, it will be around for a good while yet. Wrecks on their beam ends tend to degrade more quickly as not how they were designed.

I was friendly with the salvor who owned the German ships in the ‘70’s and who took off the armour belts, torpedo tubes etc. He was a commercial diver - and had firm plans to lift the turrets. He didn’t think it would be too big a task to remove the encasing mud, strop, break free and lift. He reckoned they were 750 tons each, an easy lift for today’s equipment.

Thanks for the sub!

Thank you kindly - I try!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Cheers, ole buddy!

Indeed, much work has been done in recent years by Project Recover in the lagoon. I came back from Chuuk a couple of weeks ago, and heard there that the TF58 plane that hit the forward holds of Aikoku Maru, and was taken down in the subsequent huge secondary munitions explosion that almost vaporised the foreship, has been located in the last few weeks.

Who knows what happened - but they are all gone now, 80 years later. They may have been robbed out from the wreck once diving started in the ‘70’s - or perhaps the plane survived the war, was stripped out ashore and then dumped in the sea. Lost in the mists of time ..

Glad you liked it!

Glad you liked it!

Thankfully I’m not claustrophobic- and yes, it is tight and dark! No light from outside comes inside, so you’re reliant on your torches. All the best.

Never had cause to dive royal archer - I believe it was pretty shallow and as a result was dispersed by RN and salvaged in the ‘70’s

@@rodmacdonald6396 as far as I know all cargo still there moter bikes and two trucks I belive 👍👍👍😜🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🦕🦄😁🤞✌️

Hi - I haven’t been back to Truk since I shot that footage due to the pandemic - so no more progress made. I did get the kanji on the switching board makers plate translated, so I know that it was made by Kawasaki but that doesn’t take us very far. I’m going to give all the info I have and put a photo of the plate in the 2nd edition of Dive Truk Lagoon that will publish toward the end of this year. Then hopefully someone likeminded will take it on further and get an ID. All the best from Scotland. Rod

@@rodmacdonald6396 Hey Rod, Hi again from Aus - helpful this may be or not - if you have any Kanji you been assistance with let me know. I do have a little experience with the language - rusty now but may be able to assist with Kanji. Stay Safe, Di

Very kind of you to offer. If you can go through the Contact form in my website www.rod-Macdonald.co.uk we can look into this a bit further

Shelled and then rammed by British destroyer. Out of a crew of 29, only 8+ 2 officers got out alive. The others are likely still inside this poignant war grave.

Are any of the photos taken during internment at Scapa Flow? That would be part of the Orkney story of the German ships that hasn’t been seen before.

Destroyers are lightly built - and most unarmoured war wreck superstructures are disappearing naturally now. Also, this area of the Solomons suffers about 1,000 tremors a year, volcanic Savo Island is to the north. The wrecks around Ironbottom Sound are literally being shaken to pieces slowly

@@rodmacdonald6396 That area along the north coast of Guadalcanal became important to shipping, and a wreck sticking up is a hazard to navigation. Navy Salvage divers would go down and place charges to lower the wrecks. Draught was always a issue with wrecks, and anything less than 40 feet, or even near that, is ripe for remoldig. After the war the japanese had wreckers all over the Southwest pacific, but they could only salvage their own wrecks, of which there were many shallow and aground all over the Solomons and North and west for hundreds of miles, even more. I suggest it was lowered by intent. I know some of the American wrecks, like that destroyer with the Aluminum upperworks, that had some amature salvage done in the 60's or 70's. And a shallow sunk destroyer had a load of depth charges that in a unexpected detonation could be catastrophic. Any harbormaster would insist that be cleared.

@@lav25og83 Hi - thanks for interesting info. The Aaron Ward sits quite deep however in about 240-ft of water with about 200-ft to the deck. So whilst you may be right, I personally don't think given the depth they would go to the expense of lowering the deck houses, a big job. Usually for wrecks that deep they just cut away the masts with explosives if they are a hazard to navigation. I haven't heard any stories about Navy removal of ordnance on that wreck.It was rediscovered by sport divers in about 1995

@@rodmacdonald6396 Didn't know it was that deep. But I am sure the Navy knew where it was at, it probably leaked oil for decades at least.

Hi - thanks for the lovely feedback. I sourced the combat photos from the US National Archives when I was writing Dive Palau a few years ago. Lots of great photos - and staff were really helpful - it was hard to decide what to include and what to omit. All the best from Scotland - Rod

Hi Gregory - the wreck will have changed a fair bit since you dived it! The frequent earthquakes and tremors there seem to be literally shaking it to bits

The Girl Mina .. that’s a name I haven’t heard in a while - had many adventure on the Girl Mina. Terry was a legend.

@@rodmacdonald6396 ...skipper was Snipe Miller back in 1982. We stayed at the Sands on Burray for the week.

Indeed, Snipe was my first Scapa skipper on my first pilgrimage in about 1981. great character - and very kind to us. I stayed in the Sands many times so our paths maybe crossed in the bar!

Hi Eric - afraid I can’t help you with that query. Hopefully someone will see your post and be able to help. All the best. Rod

My grandfather John R. Brown would have been 97 this year. I bet they may have know each other.

Hi Steven - locally no one knew the Fernside had been sunk 4 miles out in the bay here. I’d dived a wreck called the Gowrie a number of times, an intact WWII loss. Despite being pristine there was a debris field of wreckage all around the stern which clearly didn’t come from the Gowrie. It was only when I tried to dive the Gowrie once again and snagged our anchor on something about 50m away I realised there was a 2nd wreck all smashed up and flattened very close to the Gowrie. The bomb hit the aft machinery area - the effect on such a small ship was devastating- the superstructure remains are upside down, blown like that by the explosion.

@@rodmacdonald6396 Hi Rod, thanks for your reply and message, most unexpected. In your video I think I saw the steam engine and boiler quite clearly. Jack's job is listed as "fireman", so that would have been his work area. I wonder why his body came ashore and no others did. Perhaps he had come off watch and was on the upper deck, possibly at night when no-one else was around? Coincidentally my cousin has lived in the Stonehaven area for years, working for the Met. office. Thanks for sharing the video. Steven

Indeed - hit around aft holds by 500-lb bombs from Task Force 58 Grumman TBF Avengers. Blew the sides of the ship out - brutal to be there and see the raw damage the hits did

Glad you enjoyed it!

chacun a son gout :-)

Hi Tim - I started out doing these, not for clicks or some narcissistic reason, but basically because I have all this footage of historic 20th century shipwrecks, which I thought would be good for posterity to have in the public domain. Over my time diving I have seen many large wrecks totally collapse. I wish for example I'd had a video in the 1980's in Scapa Flow - the German High Seas Fleet cruisers there are pale shadows of what they were. So I'm not out to make some shiny video that looks good, someone else wanted music - that would just wreck it for me. I'm just getting the largely raw footage out there as a marker in time in the life of these wrecks. They will be vastly different in 20 years time - so with what I'm doing, the armchair divers and historians then will have a benchmark. Were th masts still up, were the kingposts still up, was that gun still in position?? All these things change over the years. I have already done one with a bit of narration, Hanagawa Maru - but editing take a ton of time and given the raison d'être for the videos, I think I will just leave as is. You can enjoy the Seelonce of the Depths, you're a Captain - you'll get it! All the best.