‘Grave robber’ Chinese salvage ship is caught looting British WW2 battleship burial sites for steel

A Chinese salvage vessel has been caught looting the war graves of hundreds of British sailors for scrap off the coast of Malaysia in what Britain’s former naval chief described as “an absolute disgrace” and a “disgusting” act.

One of the Royal Navy’s most capable ships of World War II, the battleship HMS Prince of Wales was sunk by Japanese bombers in the South China Sea in 1941.

An older battlecruiser, HMS Repulse, was also sunk several miles away.

The The ships’ destruction – just days after the Japanese attack on the US base at Pearl Harbor – came as a major blow to the British in the Far East, claiming the lives of 840 sailors.

The shipwrecks, located in Malaysian waters, are now officially designated as war graves.

But a Chinese vessel – the Chuan 68 – has since been spotted lurking illegally above the site, attempting to dredge up the high-quality steel used in the manufacture of the warship’s hulls.

1939: HMS Repulse, a 26,500-ton British Renown-class battlecruiser at Portsmouth

News of the ship’s looting has outraged Admiral Lord Alan West, the former head of the Royal Navy – who lost 22 men when his frigate HMS Ardent was sunk during the Falklands War in 1982.

Destroying the scrap ‘grave robbers’, the former military chief told MailOnline: ‘This is an absolute disgrace.

“These are cemeteries where all the bodies are still. These Chinese wreckers or scrap men don’t give a damn about this.

“It’s a disgusting thing to do. It is very distressing for the families and relatives of the sailors who died on HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales.

“When I think of my ship that sank in the Falklands, I wouldn’t want people diving on it and taking things from it. This is disgusting what happened.’

And another former First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy, Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, told MailOnline: ‘These people are scavengers of the worst kind.’

The crew of the Chuan 68 are known as illegal scavengers.

They were temporarily detained in 2017 over allegations that they snatched parts of three World War II Japanese shipwrecks off Usukan, Malaysia before the Indonesian Navy intercepted the ship as it attempted to retrieve parts of a shipwreck off the Anambas Islands. flights to international waters.

The ship is also notorious for illegally salvaging World War II shipwrecks in Singaporean, Cambodian and Vietnamese waters.

Chaun 68 remains wanted by Indonesian authorities for looting the remains of sunken Dutch warships Hr.Ms. De Ruyter, Hr.Ms. Java and Hr.Ms. Kortenaer in the Java Sea.

A source told it New Straits Times the Chinese ship is known to the shipping community for its looting activity, which has been going on for about 10 years.

The crew scrambles over the side of HMS Prince of Wales before she sinks. Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse were sunk on 10 December 1941 by land-based bombers and torpedo bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy

British Royal Navy battleship HMS Prince of Wales, H 12911, at anchor in a secret naval port ca. 1941

‘Ten years ago it looked like a dilapidated ship. But it is now equipped with high-tech equipment,” the source said.

“They work mechanically and entirely from the surface of the ship, which is equipped with cranes with huge metal claws.

“The claws can dive more than 200 meters deep. It chops up the ship and pulls up a hundred tons of metal all at once.”

The source said the ship would evade detection by turning off the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Wi-Fi devices on board before submerging.

The coastline off Indonesia and Malaysia is littered with World War II shipwrecks, and Chinese-owned barges equipped with cranes have conducted illegal operations in the war cemeteries of ships belonging to several countries, including Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, India and Australia.

The scavengers are attracted to highly valuable non-irradiated steel – also called low-background steel – from the wrecks.

Steel produced before the detonation of the first atomic bombs in the 1940s – especially the high-performance steel used in the manufacture of warship hulls – is not contaminated with radiation.

It retains its quality long after being submerged under water and is highly sought after by manufacturers of surgical instruments and scientific equipment.

China’s scavengers can melt down the steel they recover and sell it for huge profits.

HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse are seen sinking in the background

In 1941 and 1942 a total of 10 British ships were sunk by Japanese torpedoes and aircraft off the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia, killing more than 1,000 sailors.

The battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse, accompanied by four British destroyers, were on a mission in December 1941 to intercept Japanese invasion convoys in the South China Sea.

But the ships put to sea without air cover, and the fleet was attacked by waves of Japanese aircraft, with eight torpedoes hitting their targets.

Both ships capsized as they sank – the remains of the Repulse lie at a depth of 53 metres, with the Prince of Wales even deeper at 70 metres.

The shipwrecks are designated official war graves under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 and the Protection of Maritime Relations Act 1986, and must not be disturbed.

In 2018, former British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson commissioned Royal Navy research vessels to examine the wrecks of British warships that had previously been plundered by pirates.

The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said it is in contact with local authorities following the latest looting of the wrecks.

A Ministry of Defense spokesman added: “We strongly condemn any desecration of a maritime military grave. Where we have evidence of desecration of Royal Navy shipwrecks, we will take appropriate action, including working with regional governments and partners to prevent inappropriate activity at such sites.”