sorry to barge in on your forum,
I was watching a program about a UK salvage diver working on wrecks in the Phillipines and was working on a ww2 wreck called the kudamaro? it was in about 90 mtrs of water and is supposed to have around $60 million of gold on it they recovered a box that some other divers tried to recover but it was just gas lamps inside do any of you know anything futher on the wreck/salavage of it?

Will try to find out. I'll check some Filipino resources on the net. Gimme a few days to find out. If everything fails, give us a sketch of your dio so we can help you on how to detail it.

BTW, welcome to our forum!

Ahh...maybe a trip down to the National Library will clear this thing up, shonen_red is beginning to be a good researcher, let's see what he digs up.

thanks for your help lads the program was shot 3 years ago so maybe hes managed to dive back down there

I take it this is a Japanese wreck. One bit on the posting of the name, could you confirm the spelling, at least, so as to help with narrowing down the search to the correct ship.

I cant find the name of the ship to find its spelling however i think it was lost off the coast of Mindanao I'll try and find some more about it I know that the diver was given salvage rights buy the goverment
cheers mike

Can you go a little deeper? Here's what I need to know

-exact name
-exact location
-the time/era it sank and/or discovered
-other info

There are lots of sunken ships in the Phil so narrowing down may be a little bit more helpful.

Isn't that your job SR? You might as well've had him do the researching.

I'll put my notes on this thread

"Kudamaro" might be misspelled. Most Japanese ships' names contained the word "Maru" in some way. The "Ehime Maru" is one example. She sank when a US hunter-killer sub surfaced right under her. Lloyd's has an article concerning "Maru" here.

So we might be searching for a ship named "Kuda Maru". The name might be a little off so I tried searching for all Marus that sank near the Philippines. I found a lot: Olympia Maru, Yokohama Maru, Yuyo Maru, Kinyo Maru, etc. I'll try narrowing my search down to get a more manageable list

thanks lads for the input but as i only heard the name on tv i have no way of knowing how it was spelt I found a website with a list of every japenese ship sunk during ww2 I also found out that maru was roughly translated meaning ship which all civil ship were called after the main title I think it went down 43-44 but the bad thing is that a number of ship were named the same during the war and were also lost so serching for anything that sounds similar in writing brings up the same ship as if I'm right the goverenment gets 75% of all salvage off wrecks ect would it be easier to look through their records to see what salvage rights had been issued for that ship? also i know that at least 3 local divers died on the wreck and the bodies were never recovered I dont think that they had the proper equipment to dive so deep as the salvage divers with the right gear experienced the bends ect they had to swith to almost pure oxygen and could only spend 15 on the wreck if I can find out when the program is on again I'll tape it and post it out to you if you like

That would be good Oh Noble Wolf (++)

I'll try searching through our local newspapers' online archives. Can you post the list you found too? Might help in cross-referencing

jeepney thanks for the help here are the lists I found
civil ships
IJN losses
these might also prove useful to any other researcg you need to do for other things

All this talk about sunk ships reminded me of the IJN BB Musashi, which was sunk somewhere off Mindoro or Surigao strait. IIRC, there is a webpage out there (I think Tamiya's very own Yamato page) wherein a Japanese model builder (and the person who builds the Tamiya models for their catalogs IIRC) built the 1/350 Yamato as she is today, off Okinawa. The Yamato wreck was discovered decades ago and the builder set to modify Tamiya's basic Yamato into a wrecked one, making a diorama of it. Impressive to say the least. Even just looking at the reference drawing of how the Yamato looks today was impressive - the hull was broken in 3 parts IIRC, and you could see the many twisted decks. Considering the Yamato literally blew up, as opposed to the Musashi which sunk somewhat gently below the waves, the Musashi should still be more or less "intact" as one hull. I wonder if Ballard has already found her - would be a nice expedition for him to do. Also, there are several IJN heavy cruisers that were sunk in the Surigao strait and the Mindoro passage that would be nice to explore. I reckon they're all covered in coral but heck, it'd be mighty interesting to see them. Now, how does one contact Bob Ballard?!?

My grandfather used to be a captain of a small motor launch. He plied routes around the Surigao Straight area. He told us stories of wrecks around the islands. One site has three wrecks piled on top of each other. Some of the wrecks are in shallow water and for a time their masts served as a warning to passing boats

No kidding Jeep! Lucky grandfather of yours. IIRC, the Battle of Leyte Gulf is actually 5 separate engagements in 5 different areas: the ambush of Kurita's force near Mindoro by 2 US submarines sinking a cruiser or two, and a destroyer; the air attacks on Kurita's force along the Mindoro Passage I think which resulted to the sinking of the BB Musashi; the failed night attack by a Japanese cruiser/battleship force at the Surigao strait where Oldendorff's Battleships crossed the T; Halsey's run against the decoy carrier force northeast of Luzon; and the hair-raising battle between Kurita's remaining forces and Taffy 3 led by Adm. Clifton Sprague off Leyte.

It's most likely your grandfather saw the wreckage of that Japanese group of cruisers, destroyers and heavy cruisers at Surigao Strait. IIRC, one of the ships grounded in shallow water or something like that.

I've read about the Battle of Leyte Gulf and I was surprised that the straight named after my hometown was the location of one of the greatest Pacific sea battles.

Maybe those wrecks that are in shallow water were run aground on purpose to save as many crewmen as possible. Or maybe the straight is really shallow in some parts. There are a lot of islands and coral outcroppings there.

Yes, the strait has lots of sand bars along it. There's a nice book on the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The title escapes me now, but it is one helluva book to read - will make you cheer for RAdm. Clifton Sprague for days. I'll post the title here later when I get home after class.

Ok, the book I'm talking (and recommending) is "Afternoon of the Rising Sun: The Battle of Leyte Gulf" by Kenneth I. Friedman, published by Presidio. It is 414 pages long (including notes section and index), and has some nice pictures as well. Hard, leatherbound, it has a nice jacket showing a carrier task force on the front, and American fighters on the back. I got this book at Libris along President's Avenue, in front of Baker Brothers, near the Tahanan Village entrance. It costs around P600+ IIRC. Great book.

I've just watched the re-run of the same documentary today and am interested to learn of Steve's progress in salvaging gold from the kuda maru. Did you receive any information regarding your enquiry??

yep. it seems the ship's name is actually Kuda Maru. it was supposedly used by the Japanese during WW2 to transport stolen gold. the documentary our friend is talking about is probably "Journeys to the Bottom of the Sea" by the british film institute. the interesting thing is, salvage expert steve sargison apparently went looking for the kuda maru in order to fund his search for the spanish galleon "esperanza" which sank on route to mexico from the philippines.

anyway, here's where i got the info: http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/747372?view=synopsis ( happy hunting!