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De Ruyter (and others) may have been salvaged!


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It's just the Morgana at work, I'm sure. ;)

 

In all seriousness I really can't see what value a couple of old battered half-rusted hulks would have salvage-wise. I'm of the opinion though, that if somebody wants it, they ought to be able to take it, especially if it's out in the middle of nowhere where nobody can appreciate it and it will just decay into nothing eventually anyway.

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The issue is idiots salvaging them for scrap metal that can be sold for a small penny. The real problem is that those are war graves to be honored. They need to be preserved, not salvaged. They're an important part of our history, and their disturbance is a great loss for us all.

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If they were sunk with that purpose in mind then yes, I'd have a problem with it. However, I seriously doubt coral reefs were a high priority in ww2.

They're a priority now. Coral Reef is disappearing at an alarming rate that if kept up would result in the ocean floor becoming a barren wasteland. So wrecks, unless salvaged by the original owners or containing hazardous materials, should be left for the ocean. It needs it more than we do.

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I'm of the opinion that war graves should have more effort put into preserving them than just a don't touch policy; mostly for the sake of thoroughly analyzing them. It would be nice to have more than just grainy sonar pictures of all the important Second World War wrecks, and maybe raising them as monuments rather than as salvage might do more to protect them than leaving them there and checking up every few years.

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Putting on my Devil's Advocate hat for a moment here...

 

The Dutch weren't exactly kind to the Dutch East Indies: it had been under colonial rule for over a century until the Empire of Japan showed up. Had the Japanese truly championed co-prosperity for the Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere instead of replacing one colonizer with another, the face of the war could have looked very different from what occurred.

 

It also seems the Brits have known about this for a good four years. It's against international law to mess with an undersea gravesite? So what? We're talking scavengers here, what do they care about international law?

 

These wrecks didn't disappear overnight. Only now, because a numerically significant anniversary is coming up does anyone bother to take notice.

 

 

Now, I take my Devil's Advocate hat off, and say I am saddened by the news. Not only were they the final resting place of many, but they are historical time capsules. In those chaotic times, misinformation, both intentional and unintentional ran rampant. Sometimes the best way to determine the most accurate story is forensics, and if the scavengers are blowing stuff off ships then what we see today may be more recent damage, not battle damage.

 

It is a shame.

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Those who do not study protect their history are forever doomed to repeat it.

 

*looks at world headlines*

 

We're screwed

 

 

It appears there is a reason why this steel is so sought after...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

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It's just the Morgana at work, I'm sure. ;)

 

In all seriousness I really can't see what value a couple of old battered half-rusted hulks would have salvage-wise. I'm of the opinion though, that if somebody wants it, they ought to be able to take it, especially if it's out in the middle of nowhere where nobody can appreciate it and it will just decay into nothing eventually anyway.

Well actually...

 

 

Those who do not study protect their history are forever doomed to repeat it.

 

*looks at world headlines*

 

We're screwed

 

 

It appears there is a reason why this steel is so sought after...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

Beat me to it!

 

There aren't dangerous levels or anything in normal steel we make today, but for instruments that are very sensitive to radiation you either need to take great care in filtering out contaminants in your production facility or salvage steel that was processed before nuclear weapons was used.

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