The first of many from our recent dive trip to Chuuk - The Japanese Aircraft Wrecks of Chuuk (Truk) Lagoon August 2016 Andrew Lee & Nick Jeremy - Hope you enjoy it.
Love this video, so much information and the depth and aircraft type really makes me want to go there. As a 70's British kid I grew up on WW2 craft model making but seeing them like this is amazing/ combing all my hobbies now!!
Great piece of video, took me back to my trip in 2001. Waited 27 years to visit and was not disappointed; still the best diving holiday I have ever experienced. Recognise the Betty bomber and we used to snorkel dive the Zero during our lunch break. Good to see the wrecks in such good condition despite the diver traffic.
Very nice. I dove the Emily, the Jill, multiple Zeroes--mostly A6M5 versions--and the Betty, but I did not dive on the Judy. Makes me want to go again. The dive I recall with extreme clarity was on the Aikoku Maru. Over 2,000 Japanese and the three-man aircrew of a USN TBM Avenger died on this wreck. Gliding over the three holds where so many men died in order to reach the rear 120-mm gun, it's barrel still pointing at its last target in the sky, was an eerie feeling.
The video is really amazing not only for its high-quality images but also for the correspondent information displayed. As a minor suggestion, It would be nice to know at what the depth the wrecks are.
Thank you - as most of our dives were at depth into restricted place I stuck with a go pro and video lights and kept the unit as compact and easy to store as possible
Superb video! The identification of the wrecks isn't quite right though. The wreck you call a B6N "Jill" is actually a C6N "Myrt" reconnaissance airplane, while the one you call D4Y "Judy" is in fact a B6N "Jill". Lastly the Zero wreck is misidentified, this is in fact the D4Y "Judy" wreck. The bomb bay has been ripped off, making it very hard to identify. Thus: G4M "Betty" > correct H8K "Emily" > correct B6N "Jill" > C6N "Myrt" A6M Zero > D4Y "Judy" D4Y "Judy" > B6N "Jill" I hope it makes sense :)
Nice video, shame the info was not on for longer, I kept having to rewind the video😁 Also, it’s a shame your buddy “Nick” had to touch that fire extinguisher, it shows a real lack of respect. ☹️ but we’ll done on the video.
picking up a compressed gas canister at a 70+ year old war wreck....no. (There is a passage in the book Shadow Divers where an emergency escape air canister from a U-Boat blew up in the author's garage.)
Copy and pasted from the book. (Shadow Divers. A great book. www.goodreads.com/book/show/9530.Shadow_Divers) Regarding the incident: "“Richie, man, the oxygen bottle blew up my garage,” he said. “What?” “The escape lung. Remember the oxygen bottle? It was still charged. I let it dry in my garage. The corrosion must have caused it to blow. All my (Andrea) Doria stuff in the garage is destroyed. My garage is like a war zone...the bottle was examined and certified to be good.” He goes on to thinking back to how he just gazed upon this 1945 German U-Boat Emergency escape Aqua Lung that had been under 200 feet of water...might still be pressurized! Killing time at Decompression wait stations, It never occurred to him at the time that he may have been a danger to others as well. Nobody got hurt. Truk is also considered an underwater military graveyard/Cemetery. Looky! No touchy anything.
Kevin D. Herlihy thanks for the info he just lifted and put back in original place and no touch policy after that - first day diving and excitement got the better
No wonder the Emily was difficult to shoot down, since American fighters lacked cannon, only had .30 & .50 machine guns, unlike Japanese & German fighters with 20mm cannon & exploding shells.
xzqzq , The American fighters had .50 caliber machine guns by 1942 which had a firing rate of approximately 720 rounds per minute. Typically 6 machine guns per fighter, 350-400 rounds per gun.The 20mm fired at a slower rate of 360 to 600 rounds per minute and carried approximately 60 rounds on most versions in drum magazines. The Emily was more heavily armed than most Japanese multi engined bombers typically 5 20 mm cannon
And 5 7.7 mm machine guns. This made it a more dangerous target than the Betty bomber. But it had similar weaknesses as other Japanese aircraft a lack of self sealing fuel tanks which made them very prone to fires or explosions.
The .50 cal had no problem shooting down anything. The Emily was big and solidly built. The Germans had the same difficulty shooting down a Short Sunderland flying boat.
After Pearl Harbor and the barbaric way their treated prisoners and the Chinese, it is all but impossible for me to feel sorry for Japan's ultimate fate.
When you see stuff like this I think it really opens your eyes to how bad and deadly WW2 and the other wars in history truly were. Like we were all taught in school about WW2, some schools probably more then other's but regardless you see on paper a number and since we can only really comprehend things when we see it with our eye's, we don't really get the depth of how bad and deadly it truly was. Like there are 10s of thousands of ships, planes, tanks exc.. that were destroyed and there was so much fighting going on in so many different locations we're now just finding these things 70 plus year's later and probably will find more for the next 100 years. To me that's insane and so sad how many people actually lost their life cause of 2 sick men in our history from that time. Hitler and the Emperor of Japan actions and greed caused so many lives and it's just mind boggling to think about. How 2 men changed the course of life for their own personal and delusional agendas. The craziest part to find out is they would of won if not for 2 simple actions that changed the course of the outcome otherwise we would be living a different situation and whom knows if we would even be here today honestly. The 2 courses that basically changed the war for the US 🇺🇸 and allies to win ww2 was Hitler turning on Russia which caused them to join the allies to win and Japan attacking Pearl Harbor. People may not know this but if Hitler and the Nazi's were given more time they 2 were about to be armed with atomic bombs as well. Who knows what would of happened if these events didn't transpire the way they did. If Japan never attacked America and brought us into the war then they would of had months if not years to build and fortify their islands more then they already did. No amount of dropping bombs on them would of done anything with their cave systems besides atomic bombs. If Hitler didn't attack Russia an they stayed allies then England would of fallen and it would of been Russia, Germany and Japan vs the United States which when we went to war weren't even ready for a war. The attack on pearl harbor fueled the citizens and economy to come together to make what we did even possible. Hitlers plan was to invade the US 2 years after they exterminated the Jewish people. What's even more messed up is the United States knew about Hitler killing Jewish citizens and did nothing about it until they were forced into the war. Cause when the Olympics were held in Germany an this was first going on the Untied states found out and did nothing about it. To be fair no one knew the extent to the levels they were being slaughtered but that's still no excuse. My overall point to all of this is it's crazy seeing with your own eyes the damage and casualties ww2 caused and it's so sad. Thank you for whomever took the time to read this and I hope everyone has an amazing an blessed day.
