There is something funny about the Musashi though as there have been numerous reports of a company wanting to raise it as a tourist attraction being in negotiations with the Japanese government and there is supposed to have been scans done in 2008 but as yet nothing has come of it.

The thing I find odd in all this is that even though the ship is supposed to have been detected twice by explorers and apparently it is in "shallow water" ie about 1/3 as deep as the Titanic it is still listed as missing and no pictures of the wreck have shown up.

Originally Posted by MontyB

There is something funny about the Musashi though as there have been numerous reports of a company wanting to raise it as a tourist attraction being in negotiations with the Japanese government and there is supposed to have been scans done in 2008 but as yet nothing has come of it.

Every major shipwreck to hit newreels for a few seconds is always talked about being raised at least once. Over the years reporters have questioned explorers about even the most ridiculous salvage idea's.

I remeber watching an old clip showing the Sonar Scan of Titanic from 1985, and one reporter asking Ballard

"It's amazing to find her in two pieces after all these years, are their any plans to raise the ship?"

If I was Ballard I'd lost it right there. Saying something like

"Yep, after over half a century of rotting on the bottom of the sea, and blown clean apart, we are going to dive down with a fishing net to scoop her up and deliver her to the Hollywood branch Hard Rock Cafe, next week we patch up the collasped bow of the U.S.S. Arizonia with epoxy glue and sail her straight to New York for Fleet Week..."

I am just starting to read a couple of books on the expeditions to find and document the Bismarck and hope to make a post about it in the WW2 at some point but it actually amazes me that the Teak Decking is still in place given earlier talk of the decks becoming red hot etc.

There are a lot of pictures so hopefully I will be able to post a few.

Originally Posted by MontyB

I am just starting to read a couple of books on the expeditions to find and document the Bismarck and hope to make a post about it in the WW2 at some point but it actually amazes me that the Teak Decking is still in place given earlier talk of the decks becoming red hot etc.

There are a lot of pictures so hopefully I will be able to post a few.

I know, or even how bits of Hood's wooden decks were present on her decking upon her larger parts during her discovery.

Originally Posted by Yossarian

I know, or even how bits of Hood's wooden decks were present on her decking upon her larger parts during her discovery.

These are books about the Ballard expeditions to the Bismarck although it does mention the later one by another group that rediscovered the Hood there is as you would expect nothing in them about the wreck of the Hood.

I am in two minds about his habit of not accurately recording the location of these wrecks as well, his argument is that it is done to protect them from others essentially grave robbing which I agree with however I am not sure I see the point in rediscovering them only to give false information on their location.

Originally Posted by MontyB

These are books about the Ballard expeditions to the Bismarck although it does mention the later one by another group that rediscovered the Hood there is as you would expect nothing in them about the wreck of the Hood.

I am in two minds about his habit of not accurately recording the location of these wrecks as well, his argument is that it is done to protect them from others essentially grave robbing which I agree with however I am not sure I see the point in rediscovering them only to give false information on their location.

Exactly, I do believe furthuremore, that especially for many of the Axis ships, it would bring a bit of closure to those who served on them, even the crews of the biggest threats to the allies during the war at sea such as the Scharnhorst, which was disovered by the Norwegians were human.

Also I agree to the full nothing should be mucked with any wreck, Warship ship or ill fated commericial or passenger vessel. Being as they are all graves at sea, and the wreck it'self should be treated with the same respect a grave on land is.

But exlporing them for the purpose of finding out how they got there and adding to the pages of history should also be done to shed light on the lives of those who sailed them. To bring their stories back alive, that's why I feel it's such a shame that the Hood got so overlooked in this respect.

We know where she is, we know her story during the war, yet very little is mentioned about her status today.

In a strange sense during the war, she was the Royal Navy's Titanic, thought to be almost indestructible and it was not well recieved when she went down so catestrophically. Possiblly not even by a battleship, but a smaller heavy cruiser (Prinz Eugen).

So it made sense for the time for the British to label it a victim of the "Nazi Supership" in order to make it seem like it took the biggest threat the Nazis could muster to sink the mighty Hood. The UK was not the only country to do this in the war.

But even for Musashi and Yamato, better exploration to find out how they were built internally to fill in the blanks on their lost design charts and original blueprints.

You would think Yamato even, discovered in somewhat shallow water (for a deep dive), would have been expored as such. Being broke in half unlike Bismark it would be easy to see her internal strucures and get a clue of what her internal layouts were.

This may finally put an idea on how "mighty" these two super battleships really were.

Because in all actually they can look fearsome on the outside, but a terrible internal layout and poor damage control and fire suppression would have made them time bombs under fire at sea, thus negating their heavy hitting size and armaments.

It would nice to know how much of a chance both ships crews really had.

That's why I feel archaelogy in this field is just as important as scouting the fields of Waterloo almost 200 years later.

Because during the war, even the Axis were people to. I may not like some of the things their goverments did, but that doesn't warrant a grudge on my part about those who simply served their country just like my forefathers did.

Hmm there is one other ship out there which may give some insight into the Yamato and Musashi's construction and that is the Shinano which was meant to be the 3rd in the class.

It sank slowly and in a rather more controlled fashion.

Originally Posted by MontyB

Hmm there is one other ship out there which may give some insight into the Yamato and Musashi's construction and that is the Shinano which was meant to be the 3rd in the class.

It sank slowly and in a rather more controlled fashion.

It illustrated the poor counter flooding that may have plagued the entire class.

Shinano was stripped of some armor but was extremly well armored for a carrier.

However, poor damage control and mismangment by the ship's officers spelled her doom. I would love to investigate how exstensive the damage was on her causing her sinking.

This also proved another point, that aircraft carriers themselves were vulnerable to submarines. And to this day remains the largest warship sunk by one.

These lessons resonate throughout naval deployment even today.

All true but it is still basically the same hull as the Yamato and Musashi and should be in relatively good shape.

Originally Posted by MontyB

All true but it is still basically the same hull as the Yamato and Musashi and should be in relatively good shape.

Exactly, it would be paramount to find her as well in order to fully understand how effective her metallurgy may have been.