The Ghost Fleet of Truk Lagoon is the title of a book written about "Operation Hailstone", the US air attack on the Japanese Mandated islands in Micronesia on February 17, 1944. Truk Lagoon, 633 miles south of Guam, is a group of islands formed as the interior of the cone of a volcano began to settle leaving multiple mountainous peaks on the inside with the exterior edge of the cone forming a protective barrier reef. In 1914, Imperial Japan acquired control over these islands from Germany. Recognizing that the Lagoon provided an excellent natural harbor, the Imperial Japanese saw it as a perfect location for a naval base. Over the next few decades the Japanese built Truk Lagoon into a primary facility for their naval operations, including five airstrips, seaplane bases and a torpedo boat station.
In the same period they began fishing and setting up fish drying and canning plants throughout the islands, exporting their products back to Japan. They had a huge presence in these islands until 1944 when after their famously devastating raid on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the US saw an opportunity to retaliate. While February 17 is recognized as the historic day of the attack, the Japanese ships and islands were bombarded for almost a year.
The US Navy succeeded in isolating Truk. And, although the islands that made up the Lagoon were not the target of the amphibious attack, subsequent air raids and submarine attacks denied Japan effective use of their vital base.
The Japanese lost over 375 aircraft and 45 ships. Among the ships sunk were cruisers, destroyers, sub-chasers, tankers, and cargo carrying supply ships. Their fishing fleets and processing plants were totally wiped out and on September 2, 1945 the imperial Japanese Command formally surrendered Truk aboard the USS Portland.
For over 70 years, these relics have languished around these famous islands resting calmly at the bottom of Lagoon. Still visible are remains of most of these warships, freighters, tankers and airplanes as well as row upon row of railroad cars, motocycles, torpedoes, mines, bombs and human remains. The coral crusted wrecks attract a diverse array of marine life including SCUBA divers from all over the world.
We're about to experience these historic artifacts and hopefully provide readers some interesting stories of our adventure.
Our stay in Truk will be at the Blue Lagoon Resort and Dive Shop founded by a man, who at 17 witnessed "Operation Hailstone." He was born in 1927 while Truk was still under Japanese rule. The Japanese used native islanders for manual labor and young Kimiou Aisek witnessed in horror as his friends perished aboard the exploding Aikoku Maru. The U.S. Navy strikes set the course for the rest of his life.
During the Japanese naval occupation, Aisek, an experienced diver who had worked on several ships was familiar with all their assigned moorings. After the attack, he knew where all the ships had gone down and with that knowledge he later dived with many world renowned divers, authors and filmmakers.
He founded the Blue Lagoon Resort and Dive shop which has been central to the success of many projects on the Ghost Fleet of Truk Lagoon. Aisek passed away in January 2001 but his sons and grandsons carry on the resort, dive shop and traditions.
Our journey started in Florida this morning, February 22, 2014, with a scramble. Our 4:30 am cab never showed and we had few choices for getting to the airport at that time of day. Already 20 minutes late we headed to the airport in our car and on the way spotted a cab and waved him down. He followed us to the office parking lot of a friend. We transferred our bags, left the car in the lot and made it to the airport in plenty of time.
Our flights took us from Fort Lauderdale, to Houston, from Houston to Guam with a stopover and plane change in Honolulu. From Guam we caught a flight to Truk. When we checked our bags in Fort Lauderdale to Truk, the ticket agent looked at the baggage claim printout and said "Where is that?"
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Truk Lagoon, "Where is that?", she asked. Well, we can attest, it is a long way from Florida. The flights were all fine but the last leg of the itinerary, from Guam to Truk, was just about the limit for me. It was our last two hours of the 25 hour trip and I felt every minute.
It was dark when we landed. We and several other divers from different parts of the US and Japan were met by the hotel vans. Loaded in the vans, we left the fairly modern airport for the trip to the hotel and, it was a "trip".
As the guide book had warned, the potholes are so deep a pedestrian could drown! It was a long, bumpy (an understatement) ride for a very short distance finally at 11pm arriving at the Blue Lagoon Resort, spartan, clean, pretty and in a beautiful setting.
Monday, February 24, 2014
After a local breakfast of eggs, fish and garlic rice, we set out for our day of diving. Our first stop was the dive shop to show our certification cards and sign the dive registration form. On the form is a column for putting the number of dives you have done in the past. We look at what the other divers had written and were stunned by the numbers. There were divers who had done 400+, 500+ up to 1500+ dives. Gasp! What have we gotten into??
Our dive guides were waiting. There is Awora, the boat captain and Namy, the dive master.
Awora and Namy (as he explained to me Namy means "wave" in Japanese) took our gear and set up our tanks along with those of three other divers with whom we would share the boat for the week. They were Mark and Martin, both from the UK but currently working in Kuala Lampur. Both are dive instructors.
And there was John, from New Zealand currently working in Bankok. He is a Dive Master. They are three friends traveling together.
The sky was heavily overcast, as if the clouds were going to open up any minute and by the end of the dive, it was pouring rain. The water temperature during our entire stay was 82 degrees.
Our first dive was on the Japanese aircraft ferry, Fujikawa Maru. It rests upright at a depth of 99' and still contains part of an aircraft, barrels and multiple gas masks. On the stern helm the engine throttle stood untouched and only mildly covered with growth.
We were overboard at 9:33am and stayed down for 44 minutes reaching a maximum depth of 91'.
After the dive we motored to a "Castaways" type of island, very tiny, surrounded by a ring of sand, with a cluster of palm trees in the center and a picnic table. After a required surface interval of over an hour we were back in the water to dive the 126' cargo vessel, GOSEI MARU, resting on its side at a steep incline. The stern is 8' below the surface but the bow drops down to 100'. About mid way down Namy demonstrated drinking beer under water. Notice his wet suit pulled down to his waist.
The ship is covered in lush growth including huge zig-zag oysters, something I've never seen before. Next to it resting in the sand were several large torpedoes. On this dive we were in the water for 50 minutes, reaching a depth of 94'.
These two ships were a fabulous introduction of what was to come.
