By Ephraim Agbo
Metal is a constant presence in daily life—from stainless steel knives to cast iron pans—yet few pause to consider its origins. Behind these everyday objects lies a complex material history, one that in some cases stretches back to catastrophic wartime events. Today, a little-known scientific characteristic has turned the remains of sunken World War II warships into the focal point of a global, illegal, and deeply controversial industry. At its centre is low-background steel, a rare material whose scarcity has driven what experts describe as the largest grave robbery in modern history.
Sunken Time Capsules Under Threat
Inside a warehouse on an industrial estate in Portsmouth, England, artefacts retrieved from the ocean sit preserved. Giles Richardson, Chief Operating Officer of the Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust (MAST), moves between relics of the past: among them, a brass ship’s bell recovered from a World War I merchant vessel, its surface remarkably intact after decades underwater.
Richardson describes shipwrecks as “time capsules.” Unlike battlefields on land—where scavengers historically removed armour, weapons, and equipment—underwater sites often remain untouched. Everything lies where it fell at the moment of disaster. For archaeologists and families alike, these wrecks represent both historical records and war graves.
But across Southeast Asia, this sanctity is being violated at an unprecedented scale. From the Java Sea to the South China Sea, the submerged remains of World War II vessels are being systematically dismantled for scrap. A 2017 report estimated that warships containing the remains of as many as 4,500 troops may already have been destroyed. At least 40 wrecks—British, American, Australian, Dutch and Japanese—have been plundered or removed entirely.
The Metal Pirates and Their Methods
The operations targeting these wrecks are brutal. Illegal salvage crews deploy heavy dredging equipment, deep-reach cranes, mechanical grabs, and in some cases explosives to tear apart hulls that have rested undisturbed for over 80 years. What remains is not a wreck but a gouged cavity in the seabed—an erasure of history.
One vessel stands out as a symbol of this shadowy trade: the Chuan Hong 68, a 100-metre Chinese-flagged dredger with a 500-ton crane. In 2023, it was linked to the destruction of two of Britain’s most significant World War II warships: HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse. Both were sunk by Japanese forces in December 1941, claiming the lives of 840 sailors. The wrecks have long been treated as hallowed military graves.
MAST researchers tracked Chuan Hong 68 using satellite data and signals from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which ships use to avoid collisions. Patterns emerged: the vessel regularly departed Singapore for the wreck sites before its AIS transponder abruptly went dark. Days later, it would reappear sailing lower in the water—a sign of heavy cargo.
Satellite images captured the dredger stationed above HMS Prince of Wales, surrounded by an expanding oil slick from ruptured wartime fuel tanks. Malaysian authorities eventually seized the ship and detained its 32-man crew, discovering what appeared to be artillery shells and metallic fragments linked to the warships. However, by July 2024, the crew had been released over procedural violations. The broader investigation is ongoing, exposing gaps in enforcement.
Why the Plunder? The Science of “Pre-Atomic” Steel
The motive behind the destruction of these war graves lies in a unique scientific detail.
All steel produced after 1945 contains trace radioactive isotopes, a by-product of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. Although harmless for most industrial and consumer applications, this background radiation disrupts the accuracy of high-sensitivity scientific and medical instruments, including:
- whole-body radiation scanners
- Geiger counters
- neutrino detectors
- particle physics equipment
- certain medical imaging systems
These devices require steel with zero radioactive interference, something only available from metal forged before the atomic era. This material—called low-background steel or pre-atomic steel—is finite. One of the most abundant remaining sources lies in the thick hulls of sunken WWII warships.
A report on Chuan Hong 68’s activities put it bluntly:
“The value comes from the steel’s production before the use of nuclear weapons.”
This purity has created a black market in which historic war graves are treated as ore deposits, ripped open for their radiation-free steel.
A Legal Vacuum Beneath the Surface
Efforts to stop the destruction run into a complex legal landscape. According to maritime law expert Dr. Kim Brown, the issue hinges on the distinction between ownership and jurisdiction.
A sunken warship remains the legal property of the nation that built it—protected under sovereign immunity. However, authority to enforce laws at the wreck site belongs to the coastal state in whose waters the ship lies.
This dual structure creates a dangerous void.
A nation can own the wreck, but cannot directly police it. The coastal state can police it, but often lacks resources, incentive, or political will.
Brown describes it as a state of “underwater lawlessness,” noting that while war graves on land benefit from strong legal protection, “there is no equivalent law for war graves underwater.”
The Human Cost: Families of the Fallen Shut Out
For families of those lost in the sinking of HMS Repulse, HMS Prince of Wales, and dozens of other warships, the plunder represents a deep emotional wound.
Elaine, daughter of 19-year-old stoker Reginald John Greenham of HMS Repulse, articulated the profound loss:
“The fact that the war graves are being scavenged makes us very sad because we can’t actually go there. I can’t take flowers to a grave. I’m never going to be able to do that.”
The desecration robs families not only of history but of a place to mourn. What is being stolen is not simply metal, but memory and dignity.
Resistance Rising—Slowly
A patchwork of countermeasures is emerging:
- MAST monitors vulnerable sites through satellite surveillance and AIS data.
- The UK Ministry of Defence has deployed task groups and pledged ongoing observation.
- The Royal Navy publicly condemned the desecration as “disgraceful.”
- Regional governments are under pressure to intervene.
The Chuan Hong 68 is not only under scrutiny in Malaysia but is also wanted by Indonesian authorities for allegedly removing three Dutch warships—HNLMS De Ruyter, Java and Kortenaer—that have since disappeared from the seabed.
A Choice Between Memory and Metal
The technology required to locate and destroy underwater wrecks now outruns the international legal framework meant to protect them. Each plundered site represents a lost chapter of history and the erasure of a war grave that once held human remains, uniforms, personal belongings, and structural evidence essential to historical understanding.
The global black market for low-background steel has turned the seabed into a battleground between cultural memory and commercial greed.
The stakes are simple yet profound:
Will the world protect these submerged time capsules, or allow them to be dismantled and sold for scrap?
The answer will determine whether these underwater war graves remain preserved pieces of world history—or disappear forever.
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