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
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