Crew members leaving the sinking HMS Prince of Wales in 1941. Credit: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images
A Chinese ship has been accused of looting two British World War II shipwrecks containing precious, uncontaminated steel.
Malaysian authorities have opened an investigation into a Chinese-registered ship , suspected of plundering HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales in the South China Sea. .
The ships were sunk by Japanese long-range torpedo bombers a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, killing 842 people.
Pre-war steel in sunken ships is in great demand. — after it is not contaminated with traces of radioactive fallout from a manufacturing process that uses atmospheric gas.
The Malaysian Maritime Law Enforcement Agency (MMEA) opened a case after fishermen and divers reported suspicious activity of a foreign vessel off the east coast of southeast Asia near a shipwreck.
The agency reported. He later found artillery shells, believed to be from the war, on a bulk carrier registered in Fuzhou, China, with a crew of 32, mostly Chinese. The ship was detained over the weekend for anchoring without permission in Malaysian waters.
HMS Repulse leads the formation of warships on maneuvers in the 1920s
Shipwrecks off the coast of the central state of Pahang are considered war graves. The captain of the ship has been taken into custody while the Department of National Heritage investigates the origin of the shells and scrap metal found on board.
Photos and video released by the maritime agency show the aircraft carrier with a large crane and piles of rusty metal on board .
Pre-war steel from two warships is beneficial as it could be melted down for use in the manufacture of some scientific and medical equipment.
Also known as «low background» steel, it was produced before the explosion of the first nuclear bombs in the 1940s and 50s. It does not contain radionuclides such as cobalt-60, which give a weak radioactive signature, and is ideal for radiation-sensitive devices such as Geiger counters or sensor equipment on spacecraft.
The unique metal has made sunken warships prime targets for illegal scavengers. Both HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, as well as other ships resting on the bottom of the South China Sea, have been looted in the past.
«We strongly condemn any desecration of any naval war grave,» reads the ministry message. This was stated by The Telegraph by a representative of the Ministry of Defense.
«If we have evidence of desecration of Royal Navy wrecks, we will take appropriate action, including working with regional governments and partners, to prevent inappropriate activities at such sites.»
A Chinese ship anchored near Tanjung Siang in the Malaysian state of Johor. Credit: AFP A Chinese vessel anchored near Tanjung Siang in the waters of Malaysia's Johor state. Photo: AFP
The National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth said last week that it was «worried and concerned about the apparent vandalism for personal gain.»
First Admiral Nurul Hizam Zakaria, of the MMEA unit in Johor where the ship was detained, told the New Straits Times that authorities were investigating whether a «mother ship» was anchored outside Malaysian waters where the ship could have offloaded stolen items.
Last week, the newspaper reported that after an eight-year hiatus, the scavengers who had previously «eaten» the sunken ships had returned.
It said that in 2015 groups of foreign «treasure hunters» used improvised explosives to blast the heavy steel plates of ships for easy prey, but were stopped by the Royal Malaysian Navy and the MMEA.
Gazz Zane, a local professional wreck diver, said she reported the return of a suspicious dredger to the UK High Commission in Kuala Lumpur last week.
She said that in In 2017, when she showed the king videos of shipwrecks when he visited Penang in his capacity as Prince of Wales, he «looked upset» as the ships already seem to have been salvaged by 60-70% illegally.
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