Warship Wrecks - Found Or Not Found?

[Dowly]

Isn´t there any way to pump the tanks empty?? Or are they just too lazy to do it?

[Etienne]

It'd be a pretty simple operation for the US Navy. I don't exactly see why they don't do it...

If it was a merchant ship, the company, it's insurer and the Captain would have gotten sued fifty time over the leaking.

[Fitz505]

Pumping the bunkers empty was the option. If I recall, there is still almost 1/2 million gallons still aboard. Of course you are dealing with a government organization, so by the time they get around to doing anything, it will probably just collapse someday. Then add the fact, it is a wargrave (people are still be buried there (urns only), that probably compounds the problem as far as preservation is concerned.

Fitz

[AG124]

So, uh, has anyone heard about discovery of any of the wrecks way back from my first list? :P

[JSLTIGER]

As far as the Arizona goes, they're also concerned about what may happen to the wreck if they empty the tanks (i.e. they could collapse from the difference in pressure after 65 years). I'm also pretty sure that I've read that the Navy is planning to empty those tanks after the last survivor dies, so as to fulfill the legend that the ship will continue to "mourn" for its crew until the last of them passes on.

[Type941]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Or are they just too lazy to do it?

Yup, that's it.

[authorshop]

I know this topic was first mentioned a while ago now, but I am new to the site so here goes, I hope this is of interest to someone: With regards to the Nazi aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin; the wreck was located in 2006. It lies in some 85+metres in the Baltic sea. She is fairly intact, and stands tall off the sea bed. There are signs of extensive damage to her bow, superstructure and flight deck. If you are interested, I have written a book that is available through my website on www.withoutwingsonline.co.uk it contains 28 images and includes photo's of the wreck. I also provide a bit of background information on my site if you want to know more about the ship.

Regards, Steve Burke

[Stealth Hunter]

The USS Indianapolis has never been found and probably never will be. An expedition set out to find it in 2005. They found lumps of coal and a few deckhouses. Nothing else. It sank in some of the deepest places on Earth (Mariana Trench is 45,000 feet deep...), so as I said, it will probably never be found assuming it even survived the plunge (munitions and all inside might have gone off whilst being smashed around; water pressure alone on them may have set them off).

[authorshop]

Not sure what those guy's found, but it would seem very unlikely that the Indianapolis was coal fired. I have not looked in to this but I know she was only built in 1930's, I think everyone was using oil by then.
She will still be out there somewhere, and no doubt will one day be found. Remember, even large sections of HMS Hood still exists, and she had a magazine explode.

[Stealth Hunter]

They found coal. That's all I know. They're starting to suspect it may have come from a Japanese destroyer, but they're not sure.

The Hood sank in waters not nearly 45,000 feet deep (45,000 comes from a tiny crack that continues to run downwards inside the trench bottom; nobody is sure where it stops). We're talking the deepest point on Earth here, not a couple of miles (like 2 or 3). The Trench is over 9 miles down. At the bottom, the water column above exerts a pressure of 108.6 MPa, over one thousand times the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level.

That's 8 tons PER SQUARE INCH, more than enough to cause a sinking battleship to implode, let alone destroy munitions inside.

The speed that the Indianapolis would have gained during her fall probably would be what would set off the munitions inside. Assuming it wasn't smashed to pieces upon hitting the bottom like a wooden dollhouse falling off a 50-story building, then it's highly unlikely that anything survived the explosions of bombs and shells.

[bookworm_020]

If you want to add to the not found list HMAS Sydney, She went missing off the West Australian coast after fighting KSK Kormoran

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...d_HSK_Kormoran

[swifty]

Originally Posted by Type941

Yup, that's it.

She just has not started leaking enough to pose any major danger to the environment.

The Navy MUDSU 1 along with NAVSE SUPSALV recently offloaded 2 million gallons of oil from the WWII tanker USS Mississinewa (AO 59), destroyed by a suicide torpedo.

A Power Point of the salvage can be downloaded here: http://www.supsalv.org/essm/ppt/MISS_Web_Summary.ppt

As of 2007, 66 years after the explosion that destroyed Arizona, oil leaks from the hull still rise to the surface of the water. The USS Arizona continues to leak about a quart of oil per day into the harbor.[1] Survivors from the crew say that the oil will continue to leak until the last survivor dies. Many of the survivors have arranged for their ashes to be placed in the ship, among their fallen comrades, upon their death and cremation. The Navy, in conjunction with the National Park Service, has recently overseen a comprehensive computerized mapping of the hull, being careful to honor its role as a war grave. The Navy is considering non-intrusive means of abating the continued leakage of oil to avoid the further environmental degradation of the harbor. This abatement may very well occur when the last surviving crewmember dies.

[Prof]

Originally Posted by Stealth Hunter

The Hood sank in waters not nearly 45,000 feet deep (45,000 comes from a tiny crack that continues to run downwards inside the trench bottom; nobody is sure where it stops). We're talking the deepest point on Earth here, not a couple of miles (like 2 or 3). The Trench is over 9 miles down. At the bottom, the water column above exerts a pressure of 108.6 MPa, over one thousand times the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level.

The deepest point on Earth is thought to be Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, which is just short of 36,000 ft deep. That point is a good 500 miles from where the Indianapolis went down. The best information I can find says that the Indianapolis went down in water no more than 20,000 ft deep. That's certainly deeper than Titanic, Bismarck or Hood but it's roughly the same depth as some wreckage of the Kaga which was found recently.

That's 8 tons PER SQUARE INCH, more than enough to cause a sinking battleship to implode, let alone destroy munitions inside.

Only unflooded, sealed areas would implode. Ships sink because they're full of water, so generally there aren't many areas left which could implode.

The speed that the Indianapolis would have gained during her fall probably would be what would set off the munitions inside. Assuming it wasn't smashed to pieces upon hitting the bottom like a wooden dollhouse falling off a 50-story building, then it's highly unlikely that anything survived the explosions of bombs and shells.

I have no numbers to back this up, but I would think that a sinking ship reaches terminal velocity quite quickly. There are many examples of virtually intact wrecks which have fallen nearly as deep at the Indianapolis would be, so I don't imagine this would be a problem.

Edit: Another consideration regarding the leakage of oil from the Arizona is that, at present, the leak is relatively small and the oil dissipates without any problem. If the Navy attempted to remove the oil and it went wrong, there is the posibility that a large quantity of oil could be released in one go, which would be bad!

[bookworm_020]

Originally Posted by swifty

She just has not started leaking enough to pose any major danger to the environment.

The Navy MUDSU 1 along with NAVSE SUPSALV recently offloaded 2 million gallons of oil from the WWII tanker USS Mississinewa (AO 59), destroyed by a suicide torpedo.

A Power Point of the salvage can be downloaded here: http://www.supsalv.org/essm/ppt/MISS_Web_Summary.ppt

They are planning to do a simmlar operation with the Royal Oak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Royal_Oak_%2808%29

[Oberon]

http://www.wrecksite.eu/wrecksite.aspx