Wrangle over US wreck

[buksida]

Some of you may recognise the "journo" who wrote this:

HUA HIN, Thailand - Since the discovery in May of the World War II wreck of the USS Lagarto, a 1,500 ton Balao class submarine, in the Gulf of Thailand, a new skirmish on and under the seas is surfacing.

On one side are the divers who discovered the wreck and who are eager to explore and film it. On the other side is the might of the US military, which insists that the wreck should be left untouched out of respect for the 86 crewmen who went down with her.

For 60 years the Lagarto rested untouched on the seabed in 70 meters of water about 150 kilometers off the southeast coast of Thailand. Local dive operators on the tiny resort island of Koh Tao knew of the submarine's fate, but couldn't pinpoint her location until recently.

"We've always known that since the end of the war there's been a submarine missing around there," said British wreck diver Jamie MacLeod, who discovered the 110-meter submarine. "We went into all the war-time records, cross-referenced them with fishermen's marks and then searched with sonar and it came up trumps - we found a bump on the bottom, went down the line and there it was."

MacLeod said, "It looks to me like it's intact and it's sitting upright on the bottom in very clear water, so you can get a good idea of what it looks like. Everything is still on it - all the armaments, the brass navigation lights. It's beautiful."

The waters around Thailand are the final resting place for many warships that battled for domination of the oceans during World War II. Several well-known wrecks further north in the gulf are popular with recreational and technical divers.

At the time of discovery of the Lagarto, US officials unequivocally denied permission to local dive shop owners to dive the wreck, fearing that it would turn into a tourist attraction. A US Embassy spokesperson said the divers would never get permission to study the submarine because it belonged to the US Navy under international maritime law and was the final resting place for the people who went down with it.

Full Story: Asia Times Online