As I mentioned in my earlier blog “The Bicycle at War”, Truk Lagoon is no threat to cyclists but is a natural harbour in the Pacific about 800 miles north of Papua New Guinea and 2000 miles west of Hawaii.  It took over 30 hours to fly from London via Korea and the Guam.

 

Truk, now renamed Chuuk, Lagoon was initially a German colony before becoming Japanese after the First World War.  They built the harbour into a vibrant naval base with several airfields on the surrounding islands to provide protection for the many ships within its anchorage.

 

On the 17th and 18th February 1944 the American Navy managed to launch a massive aerial bombardment from a fleet of aircraft carriers that had sailed undetected to within 90 miles of the harbour.  50 ships were sunk, then and in later attacks, and sadly nearly 10,000 Japanese and local islanders lost their lives.  The ships were mainly merchant ships, with the designation Maru, that had been commandeered for the war effort.  Many had guns, planes, munitions, tanks on their decks and in their holds.

 

Following several requests, I have attached some more pictures that I took underwater. Not just featuring the wrecks but the corals, sponges, seaweeds and some of the many creatures that have started colonising them.   In general, the superstructures have become overgrown while the hulls seem to have less growth, possibly because of the antifouling treatment that they had.  Some ships are leaking fuel from their storage tanks but this seems to have dispersed by the ocean currents and probably, like the Gulf of Mexico, the bacteria in the warm water (29°C).

 

My son James and I stayed on SS Thorfinn and managed four dives a day for seven days, the deepest dives like the Aikoku, Amagisan and San Francisco were to a depth of over 50 meters.  I can recommend anyone who has taken up diving to leave the bicycle at home and venture to one of the best wreck diving locations in the world.