Navy
Scrap Merchants Plunder Celebrated Second World War Battleships
llegal salvage operators are targeting the wrecks of battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse, the final resting places of more than 830 Royal Navy sailors.
The ships lie just a few miles off the coast of Malaysia, in up to 230ft of water and are being stripped for their scrap metal.
They were sunk by the Japanese on December 10, 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Habour, as they sailed without air cover to intercept enemy convoys in the South China Sea.
"We noticed the wrecks were being salvaged when we dived them in May 2013," Stuart Shaw, who works with the TechThailand dive company, told The Telegraph.
"They removed the remaining propellors from Repulse and the four propellers from the Prince of Wales sometime between September 2012 and May 2013."
The propellers provide a significant bounty and lure for the pirates. The scrap price for phosphor bronze is almost £4,000 per ton, with each of the eight propellers weighing an estimated 15 tonnes.
Royal Navy chiefs fear the incidents are the tip of the iceberg.
A Navy spokesman said: “The Government continues to work closely with regional governments and others with the aim of preventing inappropriate activity on the wrecks of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse.”
In May 2014 the Ministry of Defence stepped in at an auction in Australia and confiscated a number of parts stolen from the Repulse, including the ship’s Morse telephone.
"There are no longer any propellors or shafts left on either of the wrecks and there are now a number of locations on both ships that have been extensively damaged by the use of explosives," Mr Shaw added.
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