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Getting into the field

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 3:15 pm
by wreckology
I am in college right now going for a major in history. My real interest though is in exploring battlefields, especially WWII. I have been to Nomandy, Holland, Germany and other places but never the Pacific. Are there any jobs out there that deal specifically with finding WWII wrecks/battlefields? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Getting into the field

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:31 am
by spoerjm2
Any jobs out there would be contradictory to your beliefs. Salvage people are not interested in the history, their motivation is money. They will rip skulls from a wreckage, just to salvage parts and pieces. Museums want displays and are willing to dislodge history to get their showpiece. About your only hope would be to sign on with those wishing to film documentaries. They want the history, not the item.

Re: Getting into the field

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 12:25 am
by West-Front
spoerjm2 wrote:Any jobs out there would be contradictory to your beliefs. Salvage people are not interested in the history, their motivation is money. They will rip skulls from a wreckage, just to salvage parts and pieces. Museums want displays and are willing to dislodge history to get their showpiece. About your only hope would be to sign on with those wishing to film documentaries. They want the history, not the item.
Very well stated Sir - agree with you 100%

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 12:50 am
by Mr.Chris
Any jobs out there would be contradictory to your beliefs. Salvage people are not interested in the history, their motivation is money. They will rip skulls from a wreckage, just to salvage parts and pieces. Museums want displays and are willing to dislodge history to get their showpiece. About your only hope would be to sign on with those wishing to film documentaries. They want the history, not the item.
Nonsense, that's a generalized statement. You can have a salvor who loves history. If not, he would be digging ditches or something else.

Salvage is fine, so long as the item is salvable. Not many will rip the skull from the wreckage, most will gently take it out, and place it to the side.

As far as museums dislodging history, that's false too, since museums are all about history. It's interesting seeing how well you put a such a sort of we're good they're bad spin on everything. Now I've just spun it the other way, where you're bad, and they're good. What spin is next?

Getting into the field

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 6:23 pm
by spoerjm2
The biggest concern is that never before have we had battlefields that remain with actual equipment in place. Most places clean up the area, remove the wreckage and move on with their lives. In the South Pacific and Alaska, the Deep Seas and so forth are planes, ships, trucks and guns which people can tour and visualize what happenned and the scale in whic it took place. Truk Lagoon would just not have the same effect if all of the ships were refloated or chopped up for steel.
Any for-profit organizations have jst that, a profit margin in which to work under. Museums remove stuff so that people can view it in their area. If the Smithsonian in Washington DC took wreckage from Pearl Harbor, what would that do? In answer to your question, there are jobs out there, you just have to find the one that suits your interest. Sometimes, you might just have to go with Robert Ballard or Mel Fisher types to see the good sites. You might go with Jaques Cousteau types to get a feel of a responsible effort.

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:34 pm
by Mr.Chris
Then leave the stuff in junk unrestorable condition there, and salvage everyhting else.

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 11:12 pm
by West-Front
Mr.Chris wrote:Then leave the stuff in junk unrestorable condition there, and salvage everyhting else.
Which is what exactly ?.

salvage

Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 3:42 am
by joad
What about the situation we have in Honiara right now. Almost all of the relics from the battle of guadalcanal are up for sale, being sold to a Malaysian scrap dealer for 50 solomon cents per kilo. The battle field is being dismantled, someone even stole and tried to sell the feature statue from the Japanese war memorial. It is fine to say leave the junk but salvage the good stuff but someones trash is someone else's treasure. The pigtail posts being sold at the moment are being taken from the positions in which they were left. No one will really know how many positions have been eradicated and worse, were they originally were located. Below is a story from last weeks solomon star. I assure you most people in honiara would know the remains of a plane from a bit of marsden matting.

Our war relics are safe: Museum
Submitted by drupal on Thu, 2008-01-24 14:32. Headlines
By EDNAL PALMER

INVESTIGATION into the allege sale of World War Two relics to a Malaysian scrap metal dealer found nothing as such.
A National Museum officer Lawrence Kiko who conducted the investigation told the Solomon Star he had not come across any World War Two relics onboard the Malaysian vessel.
The National Museum called the investigation after some Honiara residents expressed concern over suspicious sale of World War II relics to the Malaysian scrap metal dealer.
However, Mr Kiko said he had inspected the shipment but found no war relics.
“In fact such inspection should have been done before the scrap metals are loaded into the barge but I did do a thorough inspection and find no war relics,” Mr Kiko said.
“All I see are scrap metals.”
He said some WWII scraps were sold but they are of no human interest.
The National Museum officer said he had also spoken with the company workers about the importance of not buying war relics from sellers.
“So people are now are of this,” Mr Kiko said.
Meanwhile, he said the buying of scrap metals in the country has helped Solomon Islands get rid of scrap metals which had been polluting the country for many years.
“It helps people like the grassroots make a living and at the same time clean our areas,” Mr Kiko said.
But he warned people against selling war relics such as planes, machine guns and other war items of human interest.

Salvage

Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2020 6:11 am
by Rick Poole
Just new to this Forum so I hope I get it right.
I worked as a Salvage team member for many years in the Pacific, Australia and Papua New Guinea.
Large vessels up to 85,00 tonne +. Mainly refloating operations and some underwater operations.
During my time as a leading team Salvage member I personally never took one item of salvage.
I did purchase one small timber piece from the Insurance company that I liked and paid in full for the item.
Two salvage operations, one in Australia and one in New Zealand were disappointing whereby divers took many items.
Unfortunately myself not being part of this, did put me on the outer.
The temptation for many of the divers is sometimes too much for them.
I am proud to say my record was 100% clean.
Salvage is an old profession and old habits are hard to shake!
Rick Poole