"Last Shipwreck" from WW I Battle of Jutland found
The last missing ship from the Battle of Jutland has been found in the North Sea 100 years after it was sunk in combat with Germany.
HMS Warrior was recently discovered 90 yards under the sea a century after it was abandoned due to the heavy damage it took from enemy shelling.
The Danish diving expedition firm JD-Contractor, led by the Sea War Museum Jutland founder Gert Normann Andersen, located the wreck of the British cruiser HMS Warrior – just weeks after they located the wreckage of a German submarine. The wreck was discovered between Scotland and Norway on August 24 by survey vessel M/S Vina. The ship lies completely upside down, at a depth of 80 meters in an area of soft sea bed, up to the level of the upper deck
The HMS Warrior sank during the battle that was an attempt by the German High Seas Fleet to free itself from the Royal British Navy blockade in the North Sea, according to Live Science. The Warrior was one of 14 British ships that sank during the battle that lasted from May 31 to June 1, 1916, and 11 German ships were also felled.
Officials say the ship is in excellent condition because it flipped over as it sank, and everything inside has been preserved.
Metal salvagers pillaging wrecks
A former head of the Royal Navy has urged the Ministry of Defence to take action amid fears that the recently discovered wreck of HMS Warrior will be pillaged. More than half of the war graves from one of the first world war’s largest naval battles have been pillaged by illegal metal scavenging from sunken battleships. Lord Boyce, a former admiral of the fleet and head of the British armed forces, told the Guardian the practice was “vandalism” and was comparable to stealing headstones from a military cemetery.
Commercial metal salvage companies are believed to have been operating across the North Sea battlefield in recent years without being challenged by British authorities despite the wrecks being covered by the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986