Chinese National Flag Found Mounted on Sunken WW2 Japanese Warship

[unokitty]

Chinese national flag found mounted to wreckage of sunken WW2 Japanese warship

... discovery comes at a rather sensitive time for the Japanese. Japan Times reports that early next month the Japanese Imperial Household will be visiting the site to commemorate those lost during World War Two as part of a two-day visit to Palau.

Desecrate One: Ghost Fleet

It’s not the darkness below that unnerves me. Nor is it the thought of the dozens of sharks I’ve been diving with on nearby reefs. What’s nagging me is the uneasiness that goes with exploring a tomb. Bathed by soft morning light, I’m descending toward a ship where men spent their last moments, where lives ended in dramatic, violent fashion 68 years ago. Materializing slowly from the blue, the monochromatic details of Iro, a colossal Japanese fleet oiler, abruptly become sharper and more precise.

My uneasiness is trivial compared with what the Japanese must have felt. By late March 1944, most of the Pacific islands had fallen into American hands. The Japanese Navy was all but decimated. What was left was a small number of war ships, tankers, cargo ships, troop carriers and a few seaplanes at anchor within the confusing warren of Palau’s limestone islands. Their sailors must have known the Americans were coming.

Hovering above Iro’s coral-encrusted bow and its huge, circular gun platform, I imagine the morning of March 30, 1944. Early on, American planes appeared over Palau and rained high explosives on the remnants of the Japanese fleet, part of Operation Desecrate One. Sailors aboard the already damaged vessel must have scrambled for lifeboats or dived overboard into the lagoon as Iro met its doom. Over the next two days, almost continuous air bombardments sent at least 60 ships to the bottom.

What's your perspective?

Youthful prank?

Desecration of a war grave?

Sign that the Western Pacific is getting smaller?

Damn, I'd like to dive there?

Something else?

Uno

 

[Svnla]

I guess when this is the closest the chinese could get to a Japanese warship. LOL.

 

[stlc8tr]

Desecration of a war grave?

War criminal graves can be desecrated?

 

[brycejones]

War criminal graves can be desecrated?

Seriously? The Japanese leadership probably falls into that category but not the poor bastards who died on a tanker ship. Its a war grave and yes planting a national flag on when is inappropriate and disrespectful.

 

[Art&Science]

Look at the flag - if was recently unfolded, you can still see the creases - had it been there any period of time the color and creases would have faded.

My money is on the people who "discovered" it, put it there.

 

[Newell Steamer]

I don't care.

Foreign 'issue', on war wreckage that is well over a 1/2 century old,... under the ocean. This might of as well have happened in another dimension, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Newbian]

Knowing china and how they think they own all the islands in the area it's their way of saying the territory is thiers. 😉

 

[DrPizza]

I don't care.

Foreign 'issue', on war wreckage that is well over a 1/2 century old,... under the ocean. This might of as well have happened in another dimension, as far as I'm concerned.

Really? If someone attached, say, a Japanese flag to the sunken remains of the USS Arizona, you think people would be nonchalant about it?

 

[blake0812]

Considering what the Japs did to the Chinese, i'm not phased.

 

[schmuckley]

IMO..
A big bah-fongulah to the Japanese for what they did in WW2.
courtesy of China.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Really? If someone attached, say, a Japanese flag to the sunken remains of the USS Arizona, you think people would be nonchalant about it?

Between countries that don't involve the US - I don't care. You guys can can, more power to you.

Now, for someone doing something like that to US war wreckage; what is the appropriate response? Whatever the official stance and recourse on such a matter is, I support it; because I've never been in war or even know what should be done in such a situation. I won't speak against the actions of our military - since I know jack shit, so more power to them.

But, anyone else that is not the US (again, foreign), they can go to hell.

 

[unokitty]

In a Test of Wills, Japanese Confront Chinese in Air

At least once every day, Japanese F-15 fighter jets roar down the runway, scrambling to intercept foreign aircraft, mostly from China...

The high-velocity encounters over the East China Sea have made the skies above these strategic waters some of the tensest in the region, unnerving Pentagon planners concerned that a slip-up could cause a war with the potential to drag in the United States. Japan's refusal to back down over months of consistent challenges also represents a rare display of military spine by this long-dovish nation, and one that underscores just how far the rise of China and its forceful campaign to control nearby seas has pushed Japan out of its pacifist shell.

Under its nationalistic prime minister, Shinzo Abe, Japan has embarked on the most sweeping overhaul of its defense posture in recent memory. Not only has Abe reversed a decade-long decline in military spending as part of what he calls "proactive pacifism," but his government is also rewriting laws to lift restrictions on Japan's armed forces, which are taking a more active role as far afield as the Gulf of Aden...

"For the first time since World War II, Japan is finding itself on the front line. And for the first time, it has to ask itself, what does an independent defense plan look like?"

...Chinese military planners have called the Okinawan islands, including the disputed ones, part of China's "first island chain" of defense, meaning that they hope to eventually control the waters west of Japan where the United States and Japan have long held sway...

Defense analysts and U.S. commanders agree that Japan's strongest asset is its Maritime Self-Defense Force, or MSDF, widely regarded as the world's second-most capable navy after the U.S. Navy. With a tradition dating back to Japan's formidable wartime fleet, and top hardware like the Aegis radar system, the Japanese have the only naval force, except perhaps Britain's, with the ability to work so fully and seamlessly with the U.S. fleet, U.S. commanders say.

Japanese navy gets biggest flat-top since WWII-era aircraft carriers

Japan`s Maritime Self Defense Force on Wednesday took delivery of the biggest Japanese warship since World War Two, the Izumo, a helicopter carrier as big as the Imperial Navy aircraft carriers that battled the United States in the Pacific.

Desecrating a war grave is poor taste at best. But its not likely to cause a conflict.

Nonetheless, with more and more military hardware, it looks like the Pacific and the East China Sea are getting smaller and more heavily militarized...

Going to be interesting...

Uno

 

[cabri]

In a Test of Wills, Japanese Confront Chinese in Air


Japanese navy gets biggest flat-top since WWII-era aircraft carriers

Desecrating a war grave is poor taste at best. But its not likely to cause a conflict.

Nonetheless, with more and more military hardware, it looks like the Pacific and the East China Sea are getting smaller and more heavily militarized...

Going to be interesting...

Uno

China is flexing it's muscle - even though it does not have a Blue water navy; it still wants to be in complete control of the area.

So they need to show their opponents and proxies that they are in charge - or at least provide the impression.