Diving and Artifacts
by Richardson ~ December 20th, 2006. Filed under: Asia, History, Japan.Below are photos of just a few of the items I recovered from WWII Japanese shipwrecks in the Pacific.
↑ That’s me, about 90’ down, around the mast of a cargo ship.
↑ A sake cup (front and back, from a set) with a poem on one side, and a crossed rake and broom on the other. I’m told it’s an older form of Japanese (the Japanese students in my Korean language classes could not read it).
↑ Ivory dice.
↑ Rice bowl (front and back).
↑ A brass porthole from a ship what was made in England in the 1930s, but commandeered by the Japanese Imperial Navy at the outbreak of the war.
Finding, recovering, and restoring such items can become addictive!
For ancient artifacts recovered from Korean waters, see both the Kwangju and Taegu museums, both of which have some excellent displays, and charge only a few hundred won for admission.
December 20th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
Wow. Where did you find this stuff, Truk? Any UXO?
December 21st, 2006 at 7:11 am
Lots of UXO, but I never heard of any problems with it where I was at. Five decades of salt water and all – but everyone was still careful, just in case. I do have a large brass shell casing, found empty of course or I’d never have touched it.
Finding porcelain and the other small items (dice, buttons, cuff links, tie tack, etc.) was extremely rare for most ships, but for those that ventured out to visit remote wrecks, or find new ones, a lot to find. Most wrecks in the vicinity of where I was at had only beer and the occasional sake bottle left to find, with occasional surprises.
December 24th, 2006 at 2:48 am
Merry Christmas, Richardson.
January 2nd, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Where did you go diving? I’ve heard that the Truk atoll is littered with hundreds of Japanese ships.