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Discovery of famous British wreck confirmed
A dive team has announced that it has proved beyond doubt the identity of the celebrated British WW2 warship HMS Exeter, and that of its escort HMS Encounter, in the Java Sea.
Members of the project team, Java Sea Revisited - The HMS Exeter Expedition, found the wrecks early last year. But it was not until this April that they returned to the sites for extensive survey and high-resolution video and stills, 'so there could be no doubt whatsoever as to just which wrecks the group had discovered'.
On 3 May, the team declared that the finds 'can now 'officially' be revealed for the first time'. In the case of the Exeter, this represented the discovery 'of the last of the most celebrated WW2 warships whose wreck had yet to be located'.
The 2008 surveys included assessment of the battle damage sustained by both ships. The recordings of the hulls and superstructures are expected to contribute usefully to the historical record of the ships' plucky but ill-fated action in 1942 against a large Japanese fleet. Findings suggest, for instance, that the Exeter may have been scuttled by her crew to prevent capture, when all clearly was lost.
A Royal Navy ensign was left attached to the Exeter's port torpedo tube in memory of crew lost either in the battle or during internment in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps.
The wrecks were first located in February 2007, after five years of research and sea operations. The finds were achieved by a skeleton crew of project members who were on a dive-boat delivery trip from Australia to Singapore, scanning the seabed as they went. The finds occurred marginally outside a 90sq mile area searched in November 2006.
First to be located was the cruiser Exeter, lying on its starboard side in 60m of water - a good 30 miles from the Admiralty's estimated position, and about 60 miles from the sinking position given by the ship's captain.
The wreck was dived briefly by dive-boat owner and skipper Vidar Skoglie, his wife Alice Skoglie, retired US Navy captain Phil Yeutter and Australian photo-journalist Kevin Denlay.
HMS Encounter, a destroyer, was found and dived shortly afterwards, a few miles from the Exeter. More dives were made on both wrecks to take some stills and low-resolution video. A Royal Navy ensign was attached to what the team was sure was the Exeter for half an hour, before being taken home for eventual presentation either to 'the current HMS Exeter (D89) or to the Exeter's Survivors Association'.
The discoveries were kept low-key until, said the project team, 'on the group's return to Singapore in April 2008 the RN/MOD was immediately notified of the discoveries through the appropriate channels, as was the HMS Exeter Survivors Association shortly thereafter'.
A full report from the dive team is to be published shortly, detailing the diving operations, the wrecks' conditions and the observations which have proved their identities.
HMS Exeter is famous for her role in the Royal Navy's first major victory of WWII. In 1939, with the light cruisers HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles, she fought an action off Argentina's River Plate which forced the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee to hole up in Montevideo and eventually be scuttled there.
The Exeter was badly damaged during the exchange but, with just one main gun left working, scored a key hit on the Graf Spee's bridge.
Tables were turned three years later when the Exeter, Encounter and USS Pope were sunk by gunfire and torpedoes from the superior force of four Japanese heavy cruisers, HIJMS Ashigara, Haguro, Myoko and Nachi, and their destroyer escorts HIJMS Akebono, Ikazuchi, Inazuma, Kawakaze and Yamakaze.
The fight followed an even heavier engagement, the Battle of the Java Sea, 48 hours earlier between the Japanese fleet and a large group of Allied craft including the Exeter and, among other Allied craft that would be sunk, the light cruiser HMAS Perth, the heavy cruiser USS Houston and two Dutch light cruisers, Hr Ms Java and Hr Ms De Ruyter. |
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