Protection
Both salvage groups attempted to claim the right to salvage I-124, but withdrew their claims by the end of 1974, one willingly, the other after pressure from the Australian government, which had come to join the Japanese in considering the shipwreck a war grave. In December 1976, the matter of I-124 was raised in Parliament during discussion of a bill that would protect all shipwrecks in Australian waters. The bill was enacted as the Historic Shipwrecks Act at the end of 1976. The salvor who threatened to use explosives on the wreck carried through, damaging the conning tower and causing the aft section to come loose. In response, I-124 was placed under the enhanced level of protection offered by the legislation, with an exclusion zone placed around the wreck in July 1977. The salvage team reports indicated that mines were still carried by the submarine, which led to the Royal Australian Navy sending the minehunter HMAS Curlew to locate and defuse these mines. Divers from the minehunter found no mines or explosives at the wreck site.
A subsequent investigation of the wreck was carried out in March 1989 by a team from the Western Australian Museum, aboard the research vessel Flamingo Bay. During the inspection, it was found that the location of the submarine was incorrectly recorded on charts, this was corrected to 12°07′12.328″S 130°06′23.619″E / 12.12009111°S 130.10656083°E / -12.12009111; 130.10656083Coordinates: 12°07′12.328″S 130°06′23.619″E / 12.12009111°S 130.10656083°E / -12.12009111; 130.10656083, a point 18 nautical miles (33 km; 21 mi) due south of Penguin Hill, Bathurst Island. The researchers also disproved rumours that a second submarine had been sunk off Darwin at the same time, that the US Navy had salvaged Japanese code books from the wreck, the presence of mercury (which was the reason given in the 1970s for removing the wreck), while subsequent research by naval historian Tom Lewis led to further proof against these rumours, along with claims that I-124 was involved in the sinking of the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney in November 1941.
Read more about this topic: Japanese Submarine I-124
Famous quotes containing the word protection:
“Without infringing on the liberty we so much boast, might we not ask our professional Mayor to call upon the smokers, have them register their names in each ward, and then appoint certain thoroughfares in the city for their use, that those who feel no need of this envelopment of curling vapor, to insure protection may be relieved from a nuisance as disgusting to the olfactories as it is prejudicial to the lungs.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)
“Is a Bill of Rights a security for [religious liberty]? If there were but one sect in America, a Bill of Rights would be a small protection for liberty.... Freedom derives from a multiplicity of sects, which pervade America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Ah! how much a mother learns from her child! The constant protection of a helpless being forces us to so strict an alliance with virtue, that a woman never shows to full advantage except as a mother. Then alone can her character expand in the fulfillment of all life’s duties and the enjoyment of all its pleasures.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)