Wreckage of USS Lexington Located in Coral Sea

[Georgeconna]

If anyone really wants a Devastator it would be almost certainly cheaper and easier to get a set of drawings and a suitable engine and build one from scratch.

 

Your not far wrong, Look at that Dunkirk Spitfire, In all Fairness not much could of been salvageable from that wreck, yet there it is gracefully sweeping the clouds away in the sky. 

[Ozexpatriate]

The war between Japan and China is almost seen as a sideshow by most British, Commonwealth and American people yet it was a truly horrific war that killed many millions. Chinese losses dwarfed those of the Western allies combined total, were massively higher than those of Germany and weren't that far from those of the USSR. Yet few outside parts of Asia have paid much attention to that war despite it still influencing perception and relations in China and Japan.

I don't fully agree. Post-war Australia was very keenly aware of the historical Japanese regional aggression, though in fairness this was more about southern than western Japanese expansion into Manchuria and China. Before the war, Japanese armament was a hot political topic in Australia.   As acting PM, Robert Menzies earned the nick name "pig iron Bob" for trying to oppose an industrial dispute where dock workers refused to load scrap metal intended for Japan. 

 

There was strong interest and awareness in the US related to the war in China, contemporaneously and in subsequent 'pop-culture' reflections on the war in movies like "Flying Tigers" (1942) and later "Empire of the Sun" (1987).  Before the formation of the American Volunteer Group (the Flying Tigers) in 1941, Claire Chennault had been a military adviser to Chiang Kai-Shek since 1937. Interestingly in the same period, the Soviets provided support to the Chinese Air Force as well - something I didn't realize. The US was heavily involved in the Burma theatre - think of Errol Flynn in "Operation Burma" (1945) for a pop-culture reference. The Burma theatre was strategic to US Pacific war plans, well beyond defending a British colony. It's not just battle films either. "The Keys of the Kingdom" (1944) is a contemporaneous film about Catholic missionaries in China before the war and while it is not focused on the Japanese invasion, the warlords involved feel allegorical. (The novel was written in 1941.)

 

When Australian PM Curtin recalled the 6^th and 7^th divisions of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force from the middle east in 1941, Churchill wanted them to go to Burma. Curtin refused and sent most of them to Port Moresby where they were ultimately critical in stopping the Japanese advance. (The 8^th division had been deployed in Malaya and subsequently lost at Singapore and the 9^th division would fight in North Africa.)

Edited March 8, 2018 by Ozexpatriate

[Big James]

But when does something lose its sentimental value and become viable for salvage, 100,200,300+ years look at the Mary rose she still stands at one of the worst ship wrecks in British waters. But we’ve raised her and put her on display as well as some of her crew. And now the same thing will be happening to the original HMS victory she was lost with all hands but due to the amount wealth on her she will most likely be plundered.

 

Big james

[tomparryharry]

In situations like this, restoration versus conservation drives you to the knife edge.

 

I'm currently looking at a business plan with just this situation. It's easier and cheaper to conserve the original artefact as a direct historical contact, and use it as a reference point. The other avenue is to restore the artefact, and alter or lose many original concepts (not parts) in the process. My mind is very firmly fixed in the 'new' model, allowing the original item to continue to remain with as much dignity as possible.

 

Cheers,

 

Ian.  

[Ozexpatriate]

Paul Allen's team has now found light cruiser USS Juneau, sunk in the Battle of Guadalcanal. The Juneau is the final resting place of the five Sullivan brothers.

Edited March 21, 2018 by Ozexpatriate

[autocoach]

Paul Allen's team has now found light cruiser USS Juneau, sunk in the Battle of Guadalcanal. The Juneau is the final resting place of the five Sullivan brothers.

Almighty Father, strong to save,

Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,

Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep

Its own appointed limits keep:

O hear us when we cry to thee

For those in peril on the sea.

 

Sailors Hymn

Edited March 21, 2018 by autocoach