They were to be used to investigate the effects of nuclear weapons on warships. In 1946, several hundred miles from war-ravaged Kwajalein, those 95 ships were being lined up in the lagoon of Bikini Atoll for Operation Crossroads. Continuing its journey west, the Eugan was towed through the Panama Canal and moved into the Pacific, making its way to the Marshalls.īig schools of fish, like these big eyes, Priacanthus sp., swarm the decks and coral encrusted airfoils © Brandi Mueller It sailed from the Northeast Atlantic to the east coast of the US, where it was decided the Eugan would make a great addition to the 95 ships of the “nuclear fleet”. On the other side of the world, the Prinz Eugan, a German war cruiser, was given to the United States as a prize of war at the end of World War II. There is also a Japanese Zero, which likely went down as a result of an accident while it was trying to take off or land before the end of the war. Most of them sit on the sandy bottom looking like they have just landed, while others are nose down, upside down and in all other directions. You’ll find Corsairs, Wildcats, a Helldiver, Avengers, Dauntless, PBJ-IH Mitchells, and more.
The Airplane Graveyard has been called the most extensive collection of American WWII planes in one place. These planes can be found at both deep and shallow diving depths, most around 30 metres, and in one area as many as 13 planes can be seen on a single dive.
It was decided it would be cheaper to get rid of the planes than to bring them back on ships, so they were simply pushed off the back of barges in the lagoon near Roi half a dozen square kilometres.
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When the war ended, the Americans were faced with the question of how to get their excess materiel back, including around 150 planes. Whitetip sharks can be seen resting on the submerged decks and schools of batfish patrol the kingposts, seeming to watch over the ship and coming in close to inspect divers as they explore the wreck. These wrecks have become stunning historical monuments, covered in sponges and corals and teeming with fish life. In early 1944 American forces invaded Kwajalein, bombarding and destroying all of the Japanese aircraft and sinking many ships. The Japanese took over and colonised the Marshalls in 1914 and used Kwajalein as an important military defence base during WWII. The lagoon of Kwajalein Atoll is the resting place for a huge concentration of Japanese and American WWII wrecks, including more than 25 ships and over 160 planes. The lagoon is littered with the wrecks of more than 160 sunken planes © Brandi Mueller World War II Flat and skinny islands of sand are left behind, usually with sheer walls on the ocean side and a protected lagoonal area fed by tidal influxes on the inside.įor Kwajalein this means spectacular walls dropping hundreds of metres right offshore with untouched, healthy corals and lots of pelagic life, and a lagoon of around 20 to 40 metres deep with sporadic coral heads and, thanks to World War II, copious wrecks including American and Japanese warships and planes. They are formed by coral reefs that built up around a former island that has since disappeared over millions of years due to erosion. The islands cover over 1.26 million square kilometres (larger than South Africa), although only 171 square kilometres of that area is land (about the same size as Indonesia’s Komodo Island).Ītolls are ring islands that enclose a saltwater lagoon. So far to the east, the Marshall Islands are just slightly west of the International Date Line and just a bit north of the equator.
Located in the geographic region of Micronesia, Kwajalein (kwa-ja-leyn) is one of 29 atolls belonging to the Republic of the Marshall Islands. But Kwajalein is one of the world’s largest atolls: It’s part of one of the largest shark sanctuaries, played a role in the Pacific theatre of WWII, and boasts some of the most pristine reefs on the planet. It is hard to pronounce, even harder to spell, and most people have no idea where it is.
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