- Submerged

Truk Lagoon: Setting the scene

Truk Lagoon is simply the best place to see shipwrecks anywhere in the world. The wrecks are virtually intact and the Lagoon’s water is gin clear.

Truk Lagoon is a vast body of water fifty miles long by thirty miles wide, and it is stuffed full of wrecked ships and planes.

Truk Lagoon.

Here you can swim through holds full of Zero fighters, or explore a ships bridge complete with ships helm, compass and telegraphs. Superlatives are meaningless. Truk is the Diver’s Mecca.

This book by Klaus Linderman is the definitive book on Truk. I used it whilst I was out there diving, and have found it invaluable as and aid to jogging my memory of those great days.

If you want to get a copy, it is published by Pacific Press Publications. ISBN:981-00-2968-3. It’s out of print, but you can find it secondhand on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Truk Lagoon Dive Trip Report:

Truk Aggressor – Dive the Dream

After years of talking about it, there we were standing on a sandy beach underneath swaying palm trees gazing out over the ruffled waters of Truk Lagoon. Steve, Paul, and I had finally made it to the wreck divers heaven. Just off shore, gently at anchor, lay a large steel boat its white paint gleaming in the sunshine. This was the Truk Aggressor, our home for the next six days.

The Truk Aggressor.

If you are going to fly thousands of miles to dive your dream then you might as well do it in style, and the Aggressor has plenty of that, though it does not come cheap. However the price includes just about everything including all the beer you can drink, and an unlimited air supply. Well that’s what the brochure said though not having been on a live aboard before I was apprehensive. If the brochure was wrong my dream could soon turn into a nightmare. After a punishing flight from Guam, Steve, Paul, and I, had been met at Truk International Airport, (more a collection of lean-to sheds) by Lenny the skipper of the Truk Aggressor. He exuded efficiency and friendliness and we all took to him straight away. Soon we were bouncing down Truk’s only road in a battered Combi en route to the Intercontinental Hotel (motto, friends are also customers) were we would have a few cold beers and a snooze whilst Lenny and his crew finished refueling and cleaning the boat ready for our arrival. The outgoing passengers had said hullo at the airport, so it was a pretty tight schedule.

Nice big ladders for easy exit.

Once on board all my fears were immediately put to rest, we were introduced to the gorgeous Linda who besides taking all the P.A.D.I. courses and processing all our film, acted as the Mate and generally made our lives very comfortable. The lounge was huge, carpeted and panelled in a light oak, which with its large windows made this ‘room’ very relaxing and welcoming. Across the forward end was a large bar area with fridges containing wine, beer and plenty of soft drinks. At the other end the room was furnished with two huge semi circular sofa’s surrounding a video screen and a stack of the latest movies.

Down below were the cabins. We had thought that we would have to share, but with only fourteen guests on board,( they only take twenty when they are full ) we each had our own cabin with a double bunk, en suite shower and toilet, and a full sized wash basin. Dotted around the walls were lots of underwater photos. Everything was paneled or carpeted and whilst very practical the boat had the ambience of a good quality hotel. Up top was a vast sundeck with chairs and loungers. This area was also carpeted so that the deck did not fry your feet and had another bar area complete with coolers containing beer and soft drinks.

Nice big diving platform at the rear.

At the stern was the business end of the boat, the diving platform. This was on two levels and extremely well thought out. The main deck level had individual lockers for your fins and mask etc, with the tanks racked up all along the sides. A high pressure air system fed air to four hoses so that the crew could fill up all the tanks where they stood. A wire with hangers was fed around the underside of the sun awning, which allowed you to hang up all your gear to dry in between dives. Just outside the main lounge door was a large three tiered camera wet table and a large briefing board. To get into the water you kitted up, handed your fins and camera to one of the crew, usually Charlie, and walked down three steps to the jump off platform which is only about a foot above the water. When you are ready you just step into the water, take your camera from the ever helpful Charlie and swim down to the wreck. After your dive you just reverse the process and climb up one of the two huge diving ladders. Your gear has already been placed in a large freshwater tank at the rear of the platform and you are left washing the salt out of your hair under one of the freshwater showers. Nothing could be simpler, which is just as well because on our first dive brief Lenny told us that, if we wanted to, we could do five dives a day. Well, we certainly wanted to do that.

The wrecks have just enought coral to enhance them.

Over the next six days we dived thirteen of the twenty five wrecks inside the Lagoon, and on most days did four day dives and one night dive. This might seem a little relentless, but believe me, it wasn’t. The quality of the diving,(the wrecks were simply stunning) combined with the excellence of the dive boat, and the organization of Lenny, Linda , and the boys just made the diving seem effortless. A typical day started at around seven o’clock with a huge breakfast. Some of the choices were a bit unusual .Ham and eggs is ok, but porridge sprinkled with drinking chocolate ?? At eight o’clock the cry, dive brief , echoed throughout the boat , and Lenny or Linda would then tell us the dive program for the day and describe in detail the wrecks and any wrinkles that might be helpful to us. We were left pretty much to do our own thing dive wise. They did not even insist on us diving in pairs, and there was none of the herding around that we had all worried about. The only things that they were really strict on was drinking and diving, and they more or less insisted on you doing a ten minute safety stop. Since the nearest pot was at Guam this seemed to be a reasonable request. Diving insurance was obviously mandatory. There was also a large log board which Lenny liked us to use to log ourselves in and out of the water. This was a really good idea as it meant that he knew exactly where we all were and allowed us to dive at different times, so that quite often we had the wreck completely to ourselves.

One of the islands that dot the Lagoon.

There also seemed to be an agreement between all the dive boats in the Lagoon not to dive on the same wrecks so there was no crowding at all. We usually had a two hour interval between dives and if the boat needed moving to another wreck that’s when Lenny would do it. In order to manoeuvre the Aggressor over the wreck, Lenny had a small pad linked to his bridge controls that allowed him to wander all around the boat whilst steering it at the same time. He did not anchor on any of the wrecks for fear of damaging them . Instead, when he was right over the wreck he would send down Charlie who would look for a pre-arranged bollard, or a rope strop already in position. When he found it he would purge his mouthpiece, and when Lenny saw his bubbles coming up he carefully lowered the mooring rope down to Charlie who then secured the Aggressor to the wreck.

Part of the Officers accomodation on Etan

All through the day food of one sort or another appeared in vast quantities produced by our local cook, Tai. All bread and cakes were made on board, and his mission in life seem to be to add at least a stone to every ones body weight. At about eight in the evening the night diving commenced and by ten o’clock most of us were tucked up in bed tired out The boat stayed moored over the wreck at night to ensure a sound sleep. Your wake up call in the morning was the Aggressors diesels starting up at six forty five. Occasionally we would land on one of the islands to look at some of the old Japanese buildings, and one day we were very lucky to meet Kimio Aisak who came on board and gave us a talk. He was the first person to start diving on the wrecks, and had been on the islands when the Japanese invaded.

Some people still live in the ruins.

The diving conditions in the Lagoon were perfect. Water temperature was about eighty degrees Fahrenheit and the air temperature never less than ninety, but the boats air conditioning kept us all very comfortable. Although quite a wind blows through the islands, and torrential rain storms can come and go in a flash, the water is usually completely flat, so visibility stays around the sixty, to a hundred foot range. With no pollution the water stays extremely clear. Most of the wrecks are in just over the one hundred foot mark, with their main decks and superstructure in about fifty to seventy feet. Because of this you really will need a dive computer to take full advantage of the diving. Telegraphs and helms in the bridges are the norm, and a great abundance of crockery, shells, bullets, gas masks, Zero fighters, lorries, and even a tank lie scattered around the various wrecks in such a way as to give you perpetual heart failure. The ‘no take’ rule is strictly enforced and after a while you just do not want to take anything because somehow it would spoil it all.

Lanterns, just some of the many artifacts on the wrecks.

Strangely some of the wrecks that we dived on were British ships bought by the Japanese before the War and converted to supply or repair ships. On one in the boiler room was a large brass plate with the makers name on it, and some of the pressure gauges still had English tally’s on them. Apart from the stunning beauty of the wrecks (there was just enough coral to make them pretty, but not enough to distort their features) it is their completeness that really amazes you. Racks of spanners neatly laid out in the engine rooms, blocks of drill bits in the machine shop, Medicine chests full of bottles, bath houses with their toilets and wash basins, submarine periscopes laid out in companionways. Some of the temperature gauge’s still have the mercury inside them, and in one compartment steel lampshade complete with bulbs still hang from the deck head. It was better than all our dreams and when the last dive had been done, and it was time to go, we had to be prized away from the Aggressor like spoilt children from a sweet shop.

Truk Lagoon Dive Trip Report:

Truk Lagoon: The Reason

On 7 Dec 1941 the Japanese, in an unprovoked attack, bombed Pearl Harbor completely destroying most of the American Pacific Fleet. This act finally pushed America into the war and made the outcome inevitable.

In the fierce fighting that ensued, American sea power, especially the Carrier Task Forces, were to prove crucial. Out maneuvered, outgunned and lacking sufficient air power Japan fell back before the onslaught until the Americans stood at the gates of the Caroline Islands (now Micronesia).

Gas masks, ammo, and pottery on the Fujikawa Maru

Here lay the Truk Islands, a near atoll of twelve volcanic islands inside a huge lagoon fifty miles long by thirty miles wide. This was Japan’s second most important base outside its homeland and was home to the Combined Fleet and strategically used as a supply base on the 17 Feb 1944 operation Hailstorm was launched. At last revenge for Pearl Harbor was at hand. 450 planes bombed, strafed, and torpedoed the lagoon and its islands for two days. Over fifty ships were sunk and 270 planes destroyed. oil storage tanks were set ablaze, the runways, workshops and barracks severely damaged. Close to eight thousand people were killed or injured. It was Pearl Harbor in spades and the end of Japan as a sea power.

Today the islands live on their past history. A population off thirty two thousand ekes out a poor living growing coconuts and servicing the thriving tourist industry. For all that its development is slow, it is still an idyllic tropical island and its people are very friendly. A typical tropical island. With out the treasure of its wrecks it would have been long forgotten Cheaper air fairs and mass tourism may still ruin the islands, but the undersea areas are treated as a mass war grave and very well protected. Apart from Scapa Flow in Scotland, there is nowhere on earth that you can see this amount of shipwrecks in such a total state of completeness. The wrecks have been rusting quietly for fifty years now, and in fifty more years, they will have collapsed and become meaningless piles of scrap. If you want to see the eighth wonder of the world, go now, later will be too late.

Truk Lagoon Dive Trip Report:

Nippo Maru

One of the deepest wrecks that we dived during our stay, was the Nippo Maru. She was only discovered in June 1980 by Klaus Lindemann, and is one of the most interesting wrecks in the Lagoon. (Klaus Lindemann wrote Hailstorm Over Truk Lagoon, the definitive work on the shipwrecks and associated history of Truk Lagoon.)

Engine telegraphs in the bridge.

The Nippo Maru was a medium sized freighter, some three hundred and fifty feet long with a fifty-foot beam. She was built by the Kawasaki Dockyard and launched in September 1936. At first she was used as a fruit transporter, shipping bananas from Taiwan to Japan. Then she was converted into a water transport ship and munitions carrier. She would frequently stop at Truk to take on water and then distribute it and any munitions around the garrisons on the smaller coral islands that did not have enough of their own supply.

Nippo Maru

Whilst on one of these round robins on February 16th 1945 she was bombed and torpedoed and sank in 160 feet of water. She now rests upright with a heavy list to port, and her stern almost buried in a sloping reef. The Nippo Maru is often called the ” the million dollar wreck ” because her five holds are packed full with ammunition and armaments of all kinds. Hemispherical mines, cannon barrels, gun mounts for shore batteries, machine guns, gas masks, bronze rangefinders and small arms ammunition of all kinds lie scattered all around this wreck. The bridge is almost intact with its ships compass and engine telegraphs. Nearly all the wrecks that we dived had these instuments in their bridges, but it was still such a thrill to see these artefacts still in situ.

Yes its a tank.

Near number 4 hold are three field howitzers still mounted on their wheeled carriages. These are a fantastic sight but the best was yet to come, and it is what the Nippo Maru has become famous for. A tank. That’s right a tank just standing on the main deck near number 2 hold at a depth of about 130 feet. This tank is a Type 95 Ha-Go or Ke-Go, built by Mitsubishi. They weigh about seven and a half tons, were powered by 120 horsepower diesel engine, and had a crew of three. The tank is a great sight, and as you drift back up to the dive boat you get to see the whole wreck laid out, but you keep your eye on the tank until it fades from view.

A field howitzer

Truk Lagoon Dive Trip Report:

Rio De Janeiro

This wreck is one of the standard dives in the Lagoon because it is so huge, nearly 500 feet long. Because its bows are in 130 feet, but its sides in 50 feet, it is a good dive for people of all abilities. The Rio de Janeiro was built in 1929 by Mitsubishi in Nagasaki as a passenger and cargo liner. She could accommodate up to sixty first class passengers in considerable comfort in cabins grouped around the Bridge deck area. The one thousand and seventy six third class passengers were located on A deck, and the main deck level.

A huge bronze prop.

Although there were eight or twelve passengers to a cabin, the accommodation was quite spacious for the time, with a smoking saloon and medical facilities made available as were eight wash houses and five Japanese type baths. The Rio had five holds with seven watertight bulkheads, and a maximum speed of 17.6 knots. Between 1925 and 1929 four sister ships were built and cruised between Japan, Honkong, Singapore, South Africa, and South America. In October 1940 she was taken into the Navy dockyard of Sasebo for conversion to a submarine tender and depot ship. Later she was reclassified as a transport ship and based at Truk, where on the first day of Operation Hailstorm, she was bombed by planes from the aircraft carrier Yorktown.

Yes its another one.

The Rio de Janeiro burned for most of the day and gradually sank slowly by the stern. The Rio is a great dive and you could easily spend a week on it. Although the wreck lies in 130 feet it rises to just about 30 feet below the surface so you can spend quite a long time on it. The wreck lies on its starboard side and exposes what for me is its best feature, two massive bronze props. These were a fantastic site, and almost made us go hoarse as we shouted to each other in our excitement. The ship is very accessible, and you can easily swim along the passage ways and into the holds. There are masses of coal, bottles and pottery lying all over the place, and if you are not careful you could easily spend the whole dive sifting through all these fascinating bits and pieces.

Sifting through all the pots and others bits.

At the bow is a large gun with its barrel pointing down over the starboard side, and then you see the anchor chain running out through the starboard hawse hole. The anchor is supposed to be about 150 feet off the bow but I never saw it as I was to busy trying to get my heartbeat down in the bridge where there is a fantastic (I am beginning to over use this word) helm and telegraph. Some of the wooden decking is still there as well. I am not normally one for looking at fish, but on this wreck in particular the fish are particularly pleasing, with lots of iridescent colours. The coral is also pretty spectacular, again with just enough to give colour and vibrancy to the twisted steel. I did two dives on the Rio de Janeiro and just saw the highlights. One day I hope to come back and do it all again and see the rest.

I will never see a sight like this again, a complete helm.

Truk Lagoon Dive Trip Report:

Hoki Maru

The Hoki Maru was originally the British – New Zealand ship Hauraki, and was a cargo ship with accommodation for twelve passengers. She was built by William Denny and Brothers at Dumbarton in Scotland, and launched on 28th of November 1921.

The Hoki Maru

In 1942 the vessel was owned by the Union Steamship Corporation of New Zealand, and whilst on a voyage from Freemantle to Colombo, she was seized by the Japanese auxiliary cruisers Aikoko Maru, and the Hokoko Maru. She was renamed the Hoki Maru and rated as a ‘special transport’. Early in January 1944 the ship left Yokohama loaded with a full cargo of coal and other defence materials bound for Truk. When she got there she had no time to offload her cargo before she was bombed and sunk.

Parts of the wreck are only 30ft below the surface.

It is about 120 feet to the sea bed where the Hoki now lays, but only 80 feet to the main amidships section. The wreck is well broken up and a large piece of her stern has disappeared altogether. The wreck is famous for its cargo of intact trucks and tractors, which rest partly on the hatch, cover beams on the second ‘tween deck. The trucks are all complete with mudguards, headlights, and tyres. Some still have glass in their side windows. There is also a steamroller and a sort of bulldozer. They are all packed closely together and it is a bit spooky to see them all sitting there in the yellow green light. Soon however clouds of silt obscure them so it is time to move on. The Hoki is littered with rice bowls, glass containers, mainly bottles, and some interesting toilet bowls.

The ship is strewn with great piles of crockery.

Another unusual factor is a maker’s plate. This is a brass plate showing the ships details and launch date. The dive brief had given us precise instructions on how to find it in the amidships section, and it was strange to see those British details on a ship sunk so far away from home.

The hold is full of trucks.

It is also a sobering thought to realise, that of the original crew who were captured by the Japanese, only the Captain, a Mr. A.W.Crease, and twenty three others survived the incessant beatings, malnutrition and hard labour of the Mitsubishi dockyards, and the Ofana prison camp.

God bless them all.

Its really just too much,three lanterns.

Truk Lagoon Dive Trip Report:

Fumizuki

The Fumizuki is a Japanese destroyer of the Mutsuki class. She was built in 1925, and launched in Feb 1926 at Osaka. At the time of her sinking she was getting on for eighteen years old, and was already considered obsolete, even though she could reach speeds in excess of 35 knots.

The Fumizuki.

The Fumizuki belonged to the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla and was part of 3 Blockade and Transport Fleet based at Formosa, now called Taiwan. All members of this group saw extensive service in the Solomon Islands between 1942-43, and most of the Flotilla ended up sunk there. The Fumizuki also formed part of the famous ‘Tokyo Express’ which tried to relieve the Japanese forces at Guadacanal. By the end of the war none of this class of destroyer survived.

Bow Gun

On the 4th of January 1944 the Fumizuki was attacked by planes from American aircraft carriers operating in the Stephens Straits, but managed to escape only to be severely damaged three weeks later by B52 bombers. She finally arrived in Truk six days later to undergo extensive repairs. When the raid on Truk started, she was moored helplessly near a repair ship with both her turbines and boilers partially dismantled. In between the lulls in the bombing the crew managed to get one of the turbines working, got up steam, and on one propeller slowly eased her way out to open water.

I just love this stuff.

The next day the Fumizuki was extensively bombed, but they all missed. One however dropped very close to her port side, and because it had a delayed action fuse, it exploded underwater, blew a great hole in the hull, and her one engine was put out of action. The crew worked feverishly to patch up the hole in the hull, but in the end the ship developed such a list to port that they had to give up. The Captain put out an anchor to stop the boat stranding on the reefs, but it was all too late. The boat continued to list heavily, and the Captain ordered every one to abandon ship. A few hours later the Fumizuki slipped beneath the waves.

An engine telegraph in the bow.

She now lies on the bottom with a fifteen-degree list to port, with her starboard anchor lying on the sand with its thick chain leading up to a windlass on the bow. The wreck is in quite good condition, except for the bridge, which sort of fell off and now lies upside down on the sand. Also at the bow is a 3 or 4-inch gun with an open turret, which is quite nicely covered in soft coral, and a bit further back are the remains of some torpedo launchers. Where the two funnels were, is another gun like the one on the bows, which is also encrusted in coral. The whole wreck is very compact and there are lots to see. Plenty of portholes and all the usual paraphernalia of gas masks, ammunition and china that I never get tired of rummaging through. I did not have long on this wreck as our next one was the enormous Shinkoko Maru, and I needed to save some time. That was a shame, because although the Fumizuki is not a spectacular wreck, it certainly is interesting.

There is so much to look at.

Truk Lagoon Dive Trip Report:

Fujikawa Maru

Of all the wrecks in Truk Lagoon, the Fujikawa Maru is probably the most famous, and rightly so. For sheer size, intactness, and heart stopping diving it takes some beating and is possibly in the top three most exciting wreck dives anywhere in the world.

Built in 1938 by Mitsubishi for the ship owners Toyo Kaiun, the Fujikawa Maru was 450 ft long and nearly 59 feet in the beam, and was used as a liner on the North American run. Later she saw service in India and South America, where she not only carried passengers in comfortable accommodation, but also cargo’s of raw silk, cotton, jute and flax. In 1940, a year before Pearl Harbour, the Fujikawa was taken over by the Imperial Japanese Navy and converted into an aircraft ferry. During this conversion she was fitted with six inch bow and stern guns cannibalised from old cruisers which had last seen action during the Russian Japanese war. She also had anti aircraft guns mounted on her boat decks close to the bridge wings. Originally stationed with the 22 Air Fleet in Indo China, she ferried aircraft all over the Pacific. On the 12 Sept 1943 the Fujikawa Maru was hit by a torpedo from the American submarine Permit, but despite extensive damage she managed to avoid further action and limped into the safety of Truk Lagoon.

Yes, its a propellor blade.

She was back in service by Jan 1944, and continued her role of ferrying aircraft all around the Pacific Islands. On 17 Feb 1944 she was back at Truk discharging 30 Jill torpedo bombers, when she was hit by a torpedoed launched by a strike bomber attached to the carrier group which included the U.S.S. Monterey and Bunkers Hill. The torpedo’s trail ran true, and struck amidships just aft of the bridge superstructure. The Fujikawa was anchored at the time, and as she filled with water she began to slowly sink stern first and ended up on an almost even keel 110 feet down at the bottom of the Lagoon.

The cockpit of a Zero Fighter.

Today, most of the dive boats anchor somewhere on the forecastle’s and the first thing that you see is a large six inch gun mounted on the bow. Interestingly this is an English gun made in 1899. Bolted to the breach is a makers plate with all the details and scattered around the gun are plenty of shell cases and a few live rounds. Just behind the gun platform is the forward hold, and if you thought the gun was exciting, wait until you get inside the hold. Here you will find huge amounts of ammunition all clipped up ready to be loaded into the Zero fighter planes stored further down in the hold. Yes that’s right, a hold full of Zero fighters. Of course they are all in pieces with wings, nose cones and whole fuselages jumbled together with tail assemblies and propeller blades, but even so its enough to give you heart failure. In the second hold is a complete cockpit of a Zero. None of the glass in the window frames and the control dials is fitted, but you can clearly see where all the switches should be and where the guns are to be mounted. It is a breathtaking sight, especially when you get used to the gloom and see all the shell cases and propeller blades mixed together with radial engines and their cowlings further down at the bottom of the hold.

This one came away in his hand, but was was placed carefully back on the deck.

Further back towards the middle of the superstructure, the bridge has been partly blown away, but you can clearly see the wooden decking to which is bolted the brass telegraph. Portholes are everywhere and very loose because the metal has rusted away. This means that the portholes can come off in your hand. Do not be tempted, as the dive operators take a very dim view and can levy huge fines on the spot. All around is the rubbish of shipboard life. Old bottles and small plates with the initials T.K. (Toyo Kien) lie scattered along side old gas masks and brass lamps. The coral is terrific. Not enough to obstruct the features of the wreck, but enough to give it life and color, and to support the hoards of small brightly colored fish. In the passages are plenty more artifacts. Bottles,plates and mounds of rice bowls are commonplace. Around this area is situated the galley which has a large coal burning cooking range with various pots and pans lying around. Further along the passage is a bath house with tiled baths built up from the deck, with a row of urinals bolted to the bulkhead. All these areas are coated in a fine sediment, so any unguarded movement can send up clouds of muck which make photography extremely difficult. Also there are masses of old electrical cables hanging down from the deck head so you have to move carefully to avoid becoming tangled up.

Gas masks, ammo, and pottery.

Because there are so many portholes you soon transfer your affections to the huge brass navigation lanterns and the smaller but extremely well made bound brass deck lights Going into the murky gloom of the vast engine room was an experience I shall never forget. It is not the size that amazes you but the completeness of the place. You can actually walk along the metal companionways and trip up and down the ladders. All the gauges and instruments are still there, and many have the mercury in the thermometers. Tools lie all around but mostly they are neatly racked in their proper stowage’s on the bulkhead. The boilers with their switches although coated with sediment look almost unused. You feel that if you could throw a switch the whole engine room would burst into life. Soon, in you haste to see everything you stir up the muck and even with a torch you cannot see a thing. so its back up to the deck to look at the after gun, and pick around the gun platform at the spent cartridge cases and the odd little plate or bottle lying buried in the sand.

There is always something to find.

All together we did three dives on the Fujikawa Maru and one of those a night dive. Night dives are always a bit special, but this was to be a truly magical experience We went in about twenty minutes before the rest of the crowd so that we could explore the forward gun and part of the bridge. When we had finished this we repaired to the huge foremast that rises from the deck of the Fujikawa to within ten feet of the surface. The mast is covered in beautiful yellow and orange cup corals, which in the torchlight looked absolutely stunning. But the best was yet to come. As we sat on the mast’s crosstree we could see the rest of the divers swimming down the rope nearly seventy feet away.

Nearly did not see this telegraph.

Their powerful torches bathed them in shadowy light and every so often their safety strobes flashed on and off like aircraft beacons. We switched off our torches and could see the wreck lit up below us. As the divers bubbles rose to the surface they caught in the phosphorescence and set off great trails of light like millions of fireflies and every so often a diver would become completely outlined so that his body seemed consumed by fire. With the strobes blinking away and their torches flashing in the gloom, the whole effect was like something out of Close Encounters.

We sat there entranced, but soon it was time to leave and swim back up to the boat and reality.

Truk Lagoon Dive Trip Report:

The Betty Bomber

After a couple of days diving on the huge heart stopping wrecks in Truk Lagoon, it is nice to pause, get your blood pressure under control, and dive on something smaller and more manageable. This is probably why the wreck of the Betty Bomber is one of the most popular small dives in the Lagoon. ‘Betty’ was the code designation for the Mitsubishi G 4 M bomber, was used by the Japanese Navy mainly as a tactical strike plane, but it could also be used to drop torpedos against surface ships.

The tail of the Betty Bomber.

In the early days of the Second World War Japan had no independent Air Force, so the Navy pushed the whole project through and got mass production started in the early 1940’s. By all accounts she was a good aeroplane, with a long range which revolutionized air operations by the Japanese in the Pacific. At first she was well liked by her pilots, but soon she became known as the ‘flying cigar’ partly because of her shape, and partly because her fuel tanks were unprotected, and so when she was hit they would immediately burst into flames.

The cockpit.

The Betty Bomber that we dived on had crashed just short of the island of Etan’s runway. Whether it was shot down or just made a error of judgment we do not know. However what ever happened, she must have come in very low and slow because she did not disintegrate as she hit the water, but sort off gently slid under. Her engines were probably still going as well, because they became detached and continued underwater for about another hundred yards. Today, the ‘Betty lies in about fifty feet of gin clear water on a sandy bottom surrounded by coral outcrops, and provides a magnificent sight. lt is not often that you get to see an almost intact aero plane, and what’s more one that you can easily get inside. The wings and tail section are intact, but it is the nose section that grabs your attention even though it is quite badly bent and twisted. You can sit in the pilot’s position, the actual seat is lying out near the coral, and then swim out of the nose and back to the gunners bay located just aft of the wing

You can get right insde the Bomber.

Here you can easily swim into the main hold of the aircraft. There is a machine gun, parts of a radio, some small boxes and other bits and pieces to poke through. The inside and outside are remarkably clean and show that coral really cannot get a grip on the aluminium of the plane’s body. Outside on the sand are various bits of the plane that have broken off and more parts of a machine gun. Most peculiarly there was also a portable toilet. Further out from the nose, lying on the coral were the engine pods, but they were quite bashed up and really not very interesting. It is the ‘Betty’ that takes the eye. The visibility is so good that you can see her from all angles much as you could view a plane on the surface at an airport. The difference is, that underwater, it is you that can fly right over her. The ‘Betty’ is an excellent dive and provides a sight that will remain in my mind for a very long time.

You can just make out the whole bomber.

Truk Lagoon Dive Trip Report:

U.S.S.Arizona

I have put this ship here because it was the ultimate reason for Operation Hailstorm, and because many divers going to Truk, feel that it is right that they should visit Pearl Harbour and see this memorial for themselves. Most find that it is an extremely moving experience, and well worth the effort.

The Arizona Memorial.

I don’t know about you, but I was never very good at learning history dates at school. Some of course are easy because they refer to some great national event. I066 for instance is, as everybody knows, the date of the Battle of Hastings, and the 4th of July is the American Day of Independence. Easy so far? well what about Dec 7th I94I? It does not mean a lot over here, but if you ask any American he will come right back with Pearl Harbor and the ‘ Day of Infamy’. It was on that date that the Japanese launched an air strike that completely destroyed the American Pacific Fleet and finally brought America into the Second World War. one of the first ships to be sunk was the U.S.S. Arizona, a thirty two thousand ton Battleship. she was hit by an Armour piercing bomb, which landed near her forward turrets, and penetrated down five decks starting a massive fire which soon spread to the forward magazines. Nearly two million pounds of ammunition was stored there, and when it detonated it was with all the force of a one-kilo ton nuclear bomb.

The U.S.S.Arizona sails down the East river, on her way to sea.

The explosion pealed back the main deck like a banana skin and hurled bits of the Arizona all over the Harbor. As her fuel oil poured out of her ruptured hull it ignited and burned so furiously that it took two days to burn out, and left the hull so hot that it was three days before anybody could set foot on what was left of the vessel. Within nine minutes of the bomb striking, the Arizona had sunk in an upright position, with only her masts and superstructure left forlornly poking above the water. Of the fourteen hundred and forty six crew, all but two hundred and sixty nine were engulfed in the cataclysmic explosion, many being trapped below deck, only the huge billowing mass of smoke from the burning Arizona marked their passing, and this soon joined with the smoke and fire from all the other burning ships until it seemed, from the air, that all of Hawaii had disappeared under an enormous black cloud.

The Day after.The Arizona from port bow looking aft.

In the aftermath only one hundred and five of the dead were recovered, and with America now up to her neck in the war , salvage teams were urgently needed elsewhere. Everything above the water was removed, and the Arizona, still with eleven hundred of her crew entombed, was left to her watery grave. The Navy however did not forget her completely, and soon she became the unofficial memorial to that terrible tragedy. As warships passed the wreck they would fire salutes and dip their flags, and their crews would silently remember their dead comrades. After the war, in 1950, the Arizona was put back on the active list ( rather like our H.M.S. Victory ) and a small wooden platform with a flagpole was erected so that she could fly the stars and stripes.

The Arizona memorial rests over the hull of the sunken battleship.

With tourism to Hawaii increasing, many more people became interested in the Arizona, and in 1962 the striking white concrete structure you see today was erected, and the whole wreck dedicated, not only to the crew of the Arizona, but to all the men that died in the attack on Pearl Harbor. By I980 the Arizona was attracting over a million visitors a year and the Navy, swamped by all these civilians, decided to give up the task and pass over the administration of the memorial and the new multi million dollar visitor’s complex to the National Parks Service. The Parks Service soon realized how little was actually known about the Arizona, and they spent a lot of time and effort tracking down survivors and interviewing them, as well as gathering all the information they could on the building and operation of the Arizona ( she was well over twenty five years old when she was sunk ) so that they could give accurate answers to the many questions asked by the visitors. When this task had been accomplished, they then turned to the wreck itself, and discovered to their horror that in the three years since they took it over substantial decay was already evident in the pieces of superstructure that they could see.

The roll call of all those brave souls lost.

Three large ventilators for instance had collapsed just from corrosion, and the Arizona itself had settled by almost a foot since her sinking. Since the concrete memorial was over twenty years old, any further settlement could be disastrous, so the Parks Department decided on a full underwater archaeolog- ical survey. Since this would in effect take some years they decided to carry out a preliminary survey to set the data parameters. Visibility in Pearl Harbor is only about seven feet at the best of times, and at first the divers had great difficulty orientating them on the wreck. Some of the gun turrets had already been removed, and with the deck plating all peeled back, and great lumps of corral sticking out all over, things were a bit confusing to start with. Soon however the divers got their bearings and the survey ‘ proper’ got under way.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto,architect of the Japanese victory at Pearl Harbor.

The bows and about twenty feet of the hull are still intact, but where the explosion took place in the forward magazine, the hull had splayed right out and a fourteen inch gun turret had collapsed downwards, ending up almost thirty feet below where it should have been. About halfway down her length the Arizona started to look more like a ‘normal’ ship and less like a scrap yard. Her stern is virtually intact except for her turrets which were removed in the original salvage. Here also were plenty of portholes, most still with their glass intact. where deadlights had been secured, air was still trapped between the glass and the steel lids. The divers were not allowed to penetrate the hull because it is still very much considered as a war grave, and for this reason also, no artifacts were brought up.

The Arizona at Puget Sound on Jan 1941.

However looking through the portholes gave the divers some fascinating insights into those last terrifying moments. Machine gun ammunition is scattered all over the deck, a hose reel neatly laid out only minutes before the bomb detonated, and maybe most poignant of all, in the galley, scattered on the floor, the broken crockery of that final breakfast. All the divers found the experience very moving. It seemed to them so right that the Arizona should be left in peace to guard the bodies of its once proud crew For the millions of Americans who come to visit her, the Arizona is far from being an inanimate lump of scrap, just another war memorial. For them she has become a symbol of pride in their country, and of their hope for a future that will exclude disasters like the Arizona and the war that caused it.

Truk Lagoon Dive Trip Report:

Kimio Aisek

Kimio Aisek is Truk’s oldest and most experienced guide. He was born and raised on the island, and as a teenager he witnessed the attack on the islands and watched the destruction of many of the ships that we now dive on. He helped locate most of the wrecks in the lagoon and largely due to his efforts the wrecks of Truk Lagoon were brought to a wider audience.

Kimio in his glory days.

In the 1960s, the crown of thorns starfish had made its appearance in huge numbers and proceeded to lay waste to the coral reefs, so much so that it was feared that they could destroy all the reefs in the Pacific. The Fisheries Department embarked on a program, to first check their growth, and then try to eradicate them. To this end local men were recruited and trained as scuba divers. This is how Kimio first learned to dive. What happened next is the stuff of fairy tales.

One day when coming back from a day battling with the starfish, he saw through the clear waters of the Lagoon a small discolouration on the sea bed. Curious, he stopped the boat jumped into the water and found himself hovering over the wreck of the Yamagari Maru. It must have been a fantastic sight. Soon he found a few more wrecks, and word of this amazing discovery soon spread, and an increasing number of divers, professional and amateur started to visit the Lagoon. Only a few wreck locations were known and most of these were relatively shallow.

The man himself signing my book.

Some of the deeper wrecks were found by a man called Sam Redford. Using recently declassified material from the U.S. Government archives, Redford started in 1972 and managed to locate several wrecks including the San Francisco, Aikoku Maru and the Amagisan. Meanwhile Al Giddings had arrived to do a shoot for National Geographic and got to know Kimio well and eventually persuaded him to open Truk’s first dive shop called appropriately, The Blue Lagoon. Kimio now started to look for wrecks in earnest. Recalling his teenage years as he watched the ships being sunk, he showed a remarkable ability to locate these wrecks and soon became the pre-eminent figure of diving in Truk.

By the end of the 1970’s, the locations of about thirty wrecks were known. In the mid eighties Kimio got to know Klaus Linderman an enthusiastic wreck diver who had decided to try and document all the wrecks in Truk Lagoon. Together they painstakingly searched the Lagoon and succeeded in finding another sixteen new wrecks. Many of these wrecks had human remains on them and Linderman and Giddings documented many these gravesites. Later the Japanese Government sent out teams of divers to remove these mortal remains so that they could be given a proper religious funeral service.

When I met Kimio Aisek in 1996 it was the 50th Anniversary of Operation Hailstorm and he was starting to get on in years. Even so he delighted in regaling us with his memories, which still seem as fresh to him as yesterday. He gave us a real insight into what it was like to live under Japanese occupation during the War (not to bad-we eat quite well and most of them were quite friendly) and was very descriptive about Operation Hailstorm. He said, ” The bombs came down like heavy rain “. To meet a man that virtually discovered one of the Underwater Wonders of the World was a real pleasure, especially as he seemed to get as much fun out of telling us his stories as we got from listening to them. However all things must pass. Many of the wrecks as they age are becoming extremely fragile. On some, the metal plating is so thin that you could easily put your fist through it. Eventually these wrecks will collapse and in another fifty years they could be completely hidden by coral.The Underwater Wonder will be no more. See it while you can.

Photo of Kimio’s grave courtesy of Dianne.M.Strong

Sad News: Since I wrote this I have been informed of Kimio’s death on Jan 4th 2001. Apparently he suffered a heart attack half way between his home island of Dublon and Weno. He was 73. God bless him.