Second World War
The waters off the coast of Norway have unveiled a long-hidden secret. The wreckage of the British submarine HMS Thistle, which sank during World War II, has been discovered after 83 years. The discovery was made by Norway's Institute of Marine Research and the MAREANO program during a routine seabed mapping cruise. The submarine's identification was confirmed only recently, following a subsequent cruise.
The IJN Akagi, a Japanese aircraft carrier sunk during the pivotal Battle of Midway in World War II, has been surveyed underwater, offering a detailed look at the historic warship. The survey provides insights into the ship's condition and its final moments during the war.
Kostas Thoctarides told state news agency ANA his team had located the wreck of HMS Triumph at a depth of 670 feet at an undisclosed location in the Aegean Sea.
The HMS Triumph was a British T-Class submarine involved in military operations in the Aegean Sea and elsewhere in the European theatre of the Second World War. It carried out twenty missions, including attacks against Axis ships, landing British commandos and rescuing Allied soldiers, until it disappeared during a mission in 1942. Eighty-four submariners were killed when the HMS Triumph sank.
Malaysia's maritime authorities have detained a Chinese-flagged cargo ship amid reports this month that scavengers targeted two British World War Two wrecks off the coast of Malaysia—the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse—which were sunk by Japanese torpedoes in 1941.
USS Mannert L. Abele (DD-733), was an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer of the United States Navy, which was launched on 23 April 1944. On 12 April 1945, the Mannert L. Abele was operating 75 miles off the northern coast of Okinawa when enemy aircraft appeared on radar.
The Japanese transport ship Montevideo Maru, which was found at 4,000m in the South China Sea off the coast of the Philippines, was sunk during WWII on 1 July 1942 by a torpedo launched by Salmon-class submarine USS Sturgeon, not knowing that the vessel was carrying prisoners of war and captured civilians.
The project will promote underwater cultural assets and target tourism development by using a multidisciplinary approach to present and document the shipwrecks, navigation routes, harbours, anchorages, and other archaeological sites along the Montenegrin coast.
Greek portal ScubaHellas reported that the German plane was located and identified by the technical diver and explorer Nikolas Giannoulakis, who also happens to be the owner of Chania Diving Center.
(Photo credit, top image: US Naval Institute Photo Archive)
The US Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) confirmed the identity of a wreck site off the coast of Hokkaido, Japan, as USS Albacore (SS 218). The NHHC made the announcement on Thursday, after several months of examining Japanese surveys conducted on the site in 2022.
There is a huge potential for wreck photogrammetry in Kavieng and the neighbouring large island of New Hanover in Papua New Guinea, for it is here that one can find several notable wrecks of WWII aircraft. Don Silcock shares his experience working with technical expert Sean Twomey in an initiative to capture photogrammetry imagery of the wrecks before they succumb to the ravages of time and eventually disappear.
