Diver UK – August 2019

WRECK DIVER

treaty that limited the quantity, size and

armament of ships each country could

have over the next 10 years. The

Washington Treaty was signed in 1923.

There wasn’t room in the US

allowance for the two part-completed

battle-cruisers. Construction of the two

hulls resumed with a repurposing and

major design change.

In 1927 the USS Lexingtonand USS

Saratogaentered service as the biggest

aircraft-carriers so far.

Even then, it took some dubious

wrangling of the treaty rules on

maximum size of carrier for them to be

allowed. At 36,000 tons each, they were

9000 tons over the agreed limit – most

aircraft-carriers were smaller, or only

lightly armoured.

Lexingtonand Saratogawere as big as

battleships and almost as well-armoured.

It gave them a big edge in survival during

the Pacific campaign. In the Battle of the

Coral Sea, Lexingtonabsorbed a

tremendous number of bomb and

torpedo hits before being scuttled to

prevent capture on 8 May, 1942.

Through many battles Saratogawas

hit and then repaired.

Many times reported

sunk by Japanese

propaganda, she

survived the war.

The heavy battle-cruiser

armour made her so

much tougher than other

carriers.

In 1946 Saratogawas

pensioned off as a target

for the atomic bomb

tests at Bikini Atoll – and

still survived the first air-

blast of the Able bomb.

It was the second

underwater blast from

the Baker bomb that

sealed her fate, squashing

and cracking the hull.

As well as being the

world’s largest warship

wreck, Saratogais also

one of the most exclusive. A dive-centre

was established at Bikini in 1996 and ran

successfully for 10 years, but the business

had to close in 2007 when the supply

chain became untenable.

Diving is currently possible for a

couple of months of the year, through

liveaboard trips from Kwajalein.

Also among the Bikini wrecks is the

Japanese battleship Nagato, the flagship

during the attack on Pearl Harbour.

Laid down in 1917 and completed

in 1922, she was the only Japanese

battleship to survive WW2, and another

target in the atomic bomb tests.

Before WW1 Bikini was a German

territory. Japan then took over and in

WW2 the atoll was largely unused.

The six soldiers of the garrison

committed suicide rather than be

captured by the American island-

hopping advance of 1944.

The USA wasn’t the only nation to

repurpose capital ships as aircraft-

carriers. In Britain, a battleship under

construction for Chile was requisitioned

in 1918 and completed as the aircraft-

carrier HMS Eagle. She was sunk by

torpedoes from U-73in August 1942,

while escorting a Malta convoy.

The Japanese Akagiwas laid down as a

battle-cruiser in 1920, but completed as

an aircraft-carrier in response to the

Washington Treaty limits.

Like Nagato, Akagiparticipated in the

Pearl Harbour attack, then in April 1942

contributed to sinking the British carrier

HMS Hermesoff Sri Lanka.

Hermeswas herself a Great War

legacy, ordered in 1917 specifically as an

aircraft-carrier. Construction was slow

through many design changes until she

was eventually commissioned in 1924.

The wreck lies in 54m and can be dived

from Sri Lanka.

A few months later Akagiwas sunk

in the depths of the Pacific at the Battle

of Midway.

Treaty cruisers

& sharks

It wasn’t only battleships and aircraft-

carriers limited by the Washington

Treaty. The USS Indianapoliswas a

cruiser built in 1930 to treaty limitations.

In 1945 the Indianapoliswas used to

transport the Little Boy atomic bomb to

Tinian from where the B29 Enola Gay

subsequently dropped it on Hiroshima.

From Tinian, the Indianapoliswent to

Guam, and was then dispatched

unaccompanied to Okinawa.

Just after midnight on 15 July, 1945,

the cruiser was torpedoed by Japanese

submarine I-58, sinking in 12 minutes.

With no escort and no distress call

received, survivors were adrift for four

days before being spotted by a patrol

aircraft, most of them in the water.

Of the crew of 1200, only 317 were

eventually rescued. Of the fatalities,

about 300 went down with the ship and

the rest died in the water awaiting rescue.

The deaths were mostly due to

dehydration, exposure and drowning,

with direct shark attack being a minority

cause. Sharks, oceanic whitetips with a

few tigers, largely fed on the bodies of

those already dead. But the Indianapolis

story was to fuel decades of frenzy

against sharks.

In August 2017, the late Paul Allen,

retired founder of Microsoft, located the

wreck of the Indianapolisand filmed it

from an ROV.

Combat swimmers

Looking back to 1 November, 1918, two

Italian swimmers rode one of the first

human torpedoes into the Austro-

Hungarian naval base of Pola and sank

the battleship Viribus Unitiswith

magnetic limpet mines.

Through the inter-war years the

Italian Navy continued to develop

human torpedoes, created the first

diving watch and contributed to the

development of rebreathers and other

diving equipment.

By the start of WW2 the Italian Navy

had become a specialist in this form

of combat, attacking British ships in

Alexandria and Gibraltar.

It was during the defence of Gibraltar

that Lionel Crabb became famous as a

clearance-diver, searching ship’s hulls for

limpet-mines.

Initially Crabb used British

equipment, but later used kit captured

from the Italians. The remains of an

Italian human torpedo can be dived in

Gibraltar harbour, although there isn’t

much left.

In response, Britain developed the

Chariot, a slightly larger vehicle used in

similar operations, principally in the

Mediterranean.

Following the surrender of Italy in

1944, Italian frogmen worked on a joint

operation with British charioteers to sink

the Italian cruiser Bolzano, trapped in the

German-held port of La Spezia.

The legacy of such commitment has

led to many of our leading diving brands

originating in Italy.

So ends our annual review of the Great War

from a diver’s perspective. Much of our

diving results from this war’s conduct and

consequences, and let us never forget those

lost crews, as their legacy to divers rusts

beneath the sea. The next time we run a

series of features like this, it will be 2039...

Above:Crockery in the galley of the

Shinkoku Maru, sunk in Truk Lagoon

during Operation Hailstorm.

Below:The armoured bridge of the

Nagatolies stretched across the

white sand in Bikini Atoll at 54m.

She was the Japanese flagship for

the attack on Pearl Harbour.

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