There's only one long term solution to this problem if the countries involved want to assure that the remaining sunken ships aren't looted: salvage the ships themselves and put the wrecks in storage or museums.
Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts
31–40 of 96 posts
Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts
#32I am personally with the salvagers. They are making good use of an economic resource for themselves and for others. They are also cleaning the ocean of old debris, not getting lost in some misplaced sense of sentimentality. If the home countries of these vessels want them so bad they should simply salvage them themselves. It's stupid that we have laws that protect stuff that sunk over a few decades ago. If you can't…
I mostly agree with you. After 50 years untouched it should be up for grabs for anyone who cares. However as the article explains these old ships are one of the only sources of radioactivity-free steel (newer steel is contaminated by radionuclides due to the atmospheric nuclear explosions that took place from 1945). We should keep better track of it.
Do you have more info on this?
Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts
#33It's a really interesting story, but I don't get the general slant. Doesn't it make more sense for us to recover high quality steeel that's sitting there unused instead of carving up yet another mountain and burning tons of coal to make it from scratch?
Sunken warships are graves (graveyards maybe, not a sailor myself). So stealing them is grave robbing.
A grave is a designated burial site for a body. They aren't graves they are just places where people happened to die.
I am writing this right now in literally the exact spot where thousands died during the Battle of Brooklyn in the Revolutionary War.
We subsequently moved on, they built Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO and a rather notable bridge here. It happens.
Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts
#34It's a really interesting story, but I don't get the general slant. Doesn't it make more sense for us to recover high quality steeel that's sitting there unused instead of carving up yet another mountain and burning tons of coal to make it from scratch?
The article also discusses the fact that sunken vessels are home to a lot of marine life - local fisheries get their catch there, as the wildlife thrives in those locations.
Thus salvaging the steel robs local folk of their income.
Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts
#35I don't understand the arguments people are making that this is somehow grave robbing. Grave robbing you open up a grave and steal the personal artifacts and possibly the bones of the person interred there. Archaeologists have done a lot of this over the years and that activity is definitely grave robbing. It's a bit more restricted now in the US due to the NAGRA that restricts messing with human remains in some contexts.
In this case though the salvagers are not taking the bones out, nor the personal effects. They are taking huge amounts of steel, brass and copper, none of which were personal artifacts or property of a single one of the persons who died at the site.
To call this grave robbing, then removing a wrecked bus or truck from an accident site on the side of the freeway would have to be considered grave robbing as well. If the person removing the bus also took the body, wedding rings and gold teeth of the victims, that would be a crime. But the person removing the bus isn't doing that.
Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of the ships are final resting places for the crew that went down with them. You don't disturb them for personal economic gain. Just like you don't steal a 100 year old stone from a graveyard.
Eh, we loot people's tombs and put their grave goods in museums all the time. It's essentially the entire business model of the field of archaeology. The only difference is the amount of time that has passed.
>The only difference is the amount of time that has passed.
To me, your wording makes it sound like you think that is a minor difference.
I think it's a major difference in the negative direction.
These maritime war graves that are being robbed are of men whose children or grandchildren are alive.
(How many souls were lost aboard the HMS Electra alone, over a hundred ?)
A question I'm not sure I want to know the answer to - what are these thieving scumbags doing with the remains of the sailors who died aboard these ships?
Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts
#37I am personally with the salvagers. They are making good use of an economic resource for themselves and for others. They are also cleaning the ocean of old debris, not getting lost in some misplaced sense of sentimentality. If the home countries of these vessels want them so bad they should simply salvage them themselves. It's stupid that we have laws that protect stuff that sunk over a few decades ago. If you can't…
In doing so, they also destroyed an artificial reef that was aggregating fish for the local fishing industry. We should at least have a plan to replace that.
Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts
#38I find it fascinating that there is enough human introduced radioactivity in our atmosphere that it's measurable in steel and even problematic for the creation of some medical devices et al.
The presence of Cesium–137 and Strontium–90 can also be used to identify art forgeries[0].
[0] http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2008/jul/04/nuclear...
Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts
#39I am personally with the salvagers. They are making good use of an economic resource for themselves and for others. They are also cleaning the ocean of old debris, not getting lost in some misplaced sense of sentimentality. If the home countries of these vessels want them so bad they should simply salvage them themselves. It's stupid that we have laws that protect stuff that sunk over a few decades ago. If you can't…
I agree completely. Even worse is how some people (in the article) think that there should be regular patrols to prevent "illegal" diving at these sites. So we want to waste resources and fuel just patrolling some remote ocean site to keep people from messing with an old ship sunken decades ago, and also not let any non-salvagers just look at it? It's crazy. I'm all for museums and saving history, but this isn't it.…
Long-dead? This was only 75 years ago. My nan could have gone to school with some of the men that were killed on these ships. My nan is alive and well.
These ships are maritime war graves. The remains were of men that weren't vikings or ancient Egyptians. They were our grandparents generation. That's pretty damned recent.
Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts
#40I am personally with the salvagers. They are making good use of an economic resource for themselves and for others. They are also cleaning the ocean of old debris, not getting lost in some misplaced sense of sentimentality. If the home countries of these vessels want them so bad they should simply salvage them themselves. It's stupid that we have laws that protect stuff that sunk over a few decades ago. If you can't…
They are destroying historical artifacts, and impoverishing the local ecosystem.
It's unsettling that a local population can not sink some steel to create a rich fishery anymore.