[CPEO-MEF] SHIPS, FUEL: World War II Pacific shipwrecks, Chuuk Lagoon, Federal States of Micronesia

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Underwater time bombs
Oil leaks from wartime shipwrecks

Islands Business
February, 2012


As the United States fought its way across Micronesia during World  
War Two, it launched a strike against Japanese naval forces that  
could hinder the US advance on the          Japanese mainland.

In February 1944, the US Navy mounted Operation Hailstone —a major  
naval and air attack against Truk Atoll in the Japanese territory of  
the Caroline Islands, the home base for Japan’s Imperial Combined Fleet.

Even though some ships escaped before the attack, the initial US air  
assault on 16 and 17 February 1944 sank a good part of Japan’s  
remaining naval forces in Micronesia.
More than 50 destroyers, cruisers, merchant ships and support vessels  
- including at least three oil tankers - were left on the bottom of  
Truk Lagoon.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.islandsbusiness.com/islands_business/index_dynamic/ 
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--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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