Prinz Eugen wreck at Kwajalein Atoll

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Karl Heidenreich
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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Ostriker:
Hello,
I looked for Mers el kébir too but the pictures are bad quality.
On top of that, there remain nothing of the military harbor
No memorial, no wreck, nothing.

35°43'50.68"N 0°41'13.84"W
There is a cementery there nowadays, isn´t it? No memorial there neither?

Best regards.
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ostriker
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Post by ostriker »

Oh yes, there still the memorial of 1940, where were added a mast of the battleship bretagne and the Darlan Admiral grave's after the war.

But, if it was very pretty in these time, now, all that has been destroyed by anti french algerian people. :(

The cemetery, in 1962, with the bretagne mast:

http://gronmeyer1.free.fr/drame_cimetiere05.jpg

Now:

http://gronmeyer1.free.fr/cimetiere_mar ... 05__01.jpg

http://gronmeyer1.free.fr/cimetiere_ossuaire.jpg

French government prefers give some lessons to other countries but forget the essential...


Come back to the original topic:

Does anyone knows if the HMS Royal oak is visible from the surface at scapa flow? I ask for the moment we will have better pictures.
We will be able to make a wondeful list of ships visible in GE...
And what about the russian navy? :?:
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Gary
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Post by Gary »

Hi Summoner.

Big J sure is impressive......................and huge :cool:

Hi Ostriker.

Thanks for the Arizona Coordinates.
She looks very "ghostly".
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Post by ostriker »

Gary wrote:Hi Summoner.

Big J sure is impressive......................and huge :cool:

Hi Ostriker.

Thanks for the Arizona Coordinates.
She looks very "ghostly".
yes, very ghostly, with her leak of fuel. Speaking of that, US army never thought to recover this fuel from Arizona tankers? I read somewhere that british tried it on the royal oak some years ago, but it was useless because of the wreck state...
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Gary
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Post by Gary »

Hi Ostriker.

The British DID recover oil from the Royal Oak.
Oil had been slowly leaking from the ship for years and it was damaging the wildlife in Scapa.
The Local council asked the Royal Navy to do something about it and I believe they did remove most of it in either the very late 1990's or the turn of the century.
God created the world in 6 days.........and on the 7th day he built the Scharnhorst
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Karl Heidenreich
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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Ostriker:
Oh yes, there still the memorial of 1940, where were added a mast of the battleship bretagne and the Darlan Admiral grave's after the war.

But, if it was very pretty in these time, now, all that has been destroyed by anti french algerian people.
A very, very sad sight :(
But I believe those people who destroyed the cementery are not just anti french, they are anti-western.

About Arizona, the part of the ship that seems completely broken, facing West, is that the ship´s bow or stern?
Another thought, regarding the skill of the Japanese pilots: the part of Ford Island in which Battleship Row was is very tight: how did they to put torpedoes into those ships? There is hardly room for dive, aim, fire and pull up before you´re over the island itself!
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Sir Winston Churchill
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Gary
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Post by Gary »

Hi again Ostriker.

Here is a link regarding the Oil removal from Royal Oak (sorry, the link is 4 years old)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2129250.stm
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Post by ostriker »

Gary wrote:Hi again Ostriker.

Here is a link regarding the Oil removal from Royal Oak (sorry, the link is 4 years old)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2129250.stm
Thanks. After a little research, i found a great article:

http://www.hmsroyaloak.co.uk/RO.pdf
Karl Heidenreich wrote: About Arizona, the part of the ship that seems completely broken, facing West, is that the ship´s bow or stern?
West side (Iowa class BB side): It is the bow, with the A turret still in place, but underwater.

The side with the C and D barbete is the stern.

http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/images ... erspec.jpg
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Summoner
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Post by Summoner »

FYI - In researching a post for another section of this forum, I stumbled across the history of the Japanese battleship Mutsu. Apparently, after the Mutsu exploded and later sank, the Japanese were so strapped for oil, they pumped the remaining 580 tons of oil out of the wreck for Operation Take (Bamboo).

Here's the link: http://www.combinedfleet.com/Mutsu.html

Not exactly sure why the U.S. didn't choose the same route with the Arizona. Perhaps it was out of respect for the dead, though sometimes in a war you do what you must do to achieve victory. Anyone got any info on how desperate the U.S. might have been for oil during WWII?
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_Derfflinger_
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Post by _Derfflinger_ »

I can speak from personal experience ..................

The sight of the fuel oil globules streaming up to the surface every few minutes from the hulk of the USS Arizona - when viewed from the USS Arizona Memorial - this being fuel oil that was loaded aboard her on December 6, 1941, is very emotional. The sight of it, and the smell of it, is very evident. It really affected me when we visited Pearl in 1987.

Derf
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Summoner
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Post by Summoner »

Thanks Derfflinger,

I suspect it is for the very same reason you described that the U.S. opted not to pump the oil from the USS Arizona et al. The salvage operations required to get the harbor operational again were grisly enough, I assume. Why have the sailors get additional fuel oil from what they considered a war grave at that point?

I guess it's all a matter of how desperate a particular nation is for resources that determines what lengths they'll go to get them.
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Ulrich Rudofsky
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Post by Ulrich Rudofsky »

There is also a steady oil leak from the submerged wreck of the cruiser BLÜCHER at Drobak, Norway (59 40 43.68 N 10 36 40.00 E). I read somewhere that there is a danger of the BLÜCHER braking apart soon.

Frode Groven wrote in the BS Guestbook:

I have allways been fascinated of the German warships, as the Caesar turret from Gneisenau, is mounted on land, near to wear I live (Ørland, Norway). Its really huge, and I can imagine how big these ships were. Also, Tirpitz was operating very much in Norway. The heavy cruiser "Blucher" even to day leaks oil, a oil slick can bee seen in the Oslo fjord. Blucher will continue to leak oil for at least 20-30 years more (30 litres each day!!) In september 2000, they found the wreck of SCHARNHORST, north of Norway. A documentary were shown on Norwegian TV a few weeks ago...
23 May 2001 - Trondheim, Norway
Ulrich
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marcelo_malara
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Post by marcelo_malara »

I guess it's all a matter of how desperate a particular nation is for resources that determines what lengths they'll go to get them.
It is an environmental issue, not an economic one.
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