I started diving the Yokohoma Maru, in some 74 meters of water
and was no easy dive, but I managed to do some 1,000 dives over
a period
of 33 odd years on this wreck. When I found this ship, I was at the
ripe old age of 17 largely with no sense and a passion for diving
like
you would not believe. I helped salvage this vessel on my weekends
and learned a lot about deep air diving, and in those days most
of it was
trial and error.
I was put over this site by the local inhabitants of Salamaua and told
that it was a Japanese ship and that it was bombed by the Americans.
I already new that the Yokohoma Maru was sunk at Salamaua but did not
know where, so I assumed this was the wreck in question. I started doing
some research into wrecks and as I already had a mate doing research
into war history in Wewak I enlisted his help and found that on the
10th March 1942 there were 4 ships lost in the Lae - Salamaua area and
currently dive two of these, the "Tenyo Maru" and the "Yokohoma
Maru". The "Kongo Maru" is in very deep water and the
4th ship has never been found and was probably salvaged by the Japanese.
At
the American base at Finschhafen some 55 miles east of
Lae.
Someone had told me of a plane wreck they had seen, so armed with a
mud map my brother and myself set off to Finschhafen to look for
this
aircraft. We did infact find an aircraft, but not where we were told. We had
found a Ki-61 Tony in 60' of water at the
old American PT base of Dregger.
I have been asked many times about what is the most
interesting wreck I have found, or the wreck I received the most
enjoyment
out of finding, I guess this was the Ki-61 Tony I mentioned. I still dive on this aircraft at least 7-8 times a year
and
still get a thrill when ever I dive it. The Tony sits upright in 18
meters of water and is in perfect condition, over the years, it has
been gradually striped by the souvenir hunters, but it is still a
excellent
dive.
It was these two wrecks: the Yokohoma Maru and
the "Tony" that I remember the most and received the most
enjoyment out off. Even when I found "Black Jack" the B-17,
I was very blarszay about it. These days I get more enjoyment out of
finding aircraft than ships, as the project at the moment is to make
a documentary with my friend Richard
Leahy titled a "Sunken Airforce
". Richard grew up in Lae directly after the war when Lae was littered
with little boys delights". And Richard used to spend the hours
in the dumps of Lae. Somehow I never forgave my parents for not bringing
me into the world 10 years earlier as I missed the easy pickings and
even when I started at the age of 10 it was hard work to find a grenade
or gun under 10 minutes.
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