Heartbreak as large-scale salvagers loot Southeast Asia’s WWII shipwrecks, war graves

via Channel NewsAsia, 03 June 2021: A longer feature-length story accompanying the previous video on the looting of World War II shipwrecks in Southeast Asian waters.

Two wrecks that he has often visited are the British Royal Navy battlecruiser HMS (Her Majesty’s Ship) Repulse and battleship HMS Prince of Wales. They sank off the coast of Kuantan, Malaysia on Dec 10, 1941 under Japanese attack.

On a trip in 2013, he noticed a propeller missing from the stern of the 242-metre-long Repulse, which lies about 50 metres underwater at its shallowest point.

“We’re talking about a huge propeller, bigger than the size of a bus,” he told the programme Undercover Asia. “It’s gone. We used to see small-time salvagers, and they just dive for scrap metal, but this is something else altogether.”

Source: Heartbreak as large-scale salvagers loot Southeast Asia’s WWII shipwrecks, war graves – CNA