Charles Honours Diver Protecting Wreck Of HMS Prince Of Wales

Prince Charles has praised a British amateur diver who has been helping to safeguard two historic Second World War battleships sunk off the Malaysian coast.

Stephen Flew, 54, has regularly been diving to the wrecks to keep a look-out for scrap metal scavengers who have begun targeting the vessels.

Charles met Mr Flew at Malaysia's Butterworth airbase, during his tour of south-east Asia, saying his work in quietly preventing the ships - which are Crown property - being stripped for scrap metal was "marvellous" and "so appreciated".

The Royal Navy battleship HMS Prince of Wales was where Churchill and Roosevelt signed the Atlantic Charter.

It was sunk, along with HMS Repulse, near Kuantan, Pahang, on December 10, 1941.

They were part of Force Z which was intended to intercept the Japanese invasion fleet but instead, with no air cover, were attacked in open water and sunk by long-range torpedo bombs with a combined loss of life of 840 sailors.

The 54-year-old petroleum engineer, originally from Swansea, has voluntarily dived the wreck for 18 years while living in Kuala Lumpur.

He said of the HMS Prince of Wales:

"It's an amazing wreck, when you take people down to it, they are completely in awe of the magnificence of the ship and its history.

"It's one heck of an opportunity to meet Prince Charles in person, especially knowing he is a diver himself."

The military vessels have become man-made reefs, teeming with life and a real highlight for divers.

In recent years, however, they have become a target for looters who anchor small boats above them and use home-made explosives to loosen and then steal their metal.

The Royal Navy wrecks are Crown property and are watched over by the Royal Malaysia Navy, which co-operates with the British High Commission to protect them.

Mr Flew dives with the company Xtreme Divers which also help to keep a watchful eye out for salvage ships which are reported to the military.

The prince quizzed him on how the wreck is now, looking carefully at photographs and asking whether it was now covered in coral.

Proclaiming the work "quite remarkable", he was shown a map of where the ships lie off the coast.

He went on to shake hands with five members of the Malaysian military who work to protect the shipwrecks, asking them where and how they train.

He then presented Admiral Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmed Badaruddin, chief of the Royal Malaysian Navy, with a framed photograph of HMS Prince of Wales and its crew taken before it sank.

In September, the prince launched a £3 billion aircraft carrier also carrying his name, the first vessel to take to the seas as HMS Prince of Wales since the doomed Second World War ship.