Dive sites of historical significance

Hello,

I used to visit here YEARS ago. My username was Muddypond, but I can't remember my password, so have re-registered with a '1' on the end.

FWIW I'm a big fan of technical diving, so any questions you have about that I'll be happy to try and answer.

At the moment, though, I'm trying to compile a list of dives which also have a historic significance.

So far -
Lusitania - WW1 passenger ship whose sinking changed the couyrse of the war.
Alexandria, Egypt, the underwater sphynxes
Truk - The bombed Japanese fleet
Scapa Flow - the scuttled German Fleet

as you can see I haven't got that many.

Thanks for any help.

Bestest
muddypond (john)

USS Lagarto....

Heres one of the articles that I have written about her ...

http://www.divernet.com/Wrecks/wrecks_general/159383/sub_vision_off_koh_tao.html

Further there is an area in the Phillippines where a lot of Japanese ships were sunk during the war called Coron off Busuwanga Island.

Nice article. I had never heard of the Lagarto. Thank you very much for suggesting that. What a story.

I would be grateful to hear of any others too. Especially if they are in nice parts of the world.

Many thanks in advance for your time
MP1

Guadalcanal, the Iron Bottom sound, Solomon islands.US / Japanese fights 42-43, lots of wrecks

Espiritu Santo / Vanuatu (dived there last year) : SS Pres.Coolidge & Million dollar point. Largest trooper ship accessible from shore (bow at 30m, stern goes to 70m deep) + US army based on Santo island (Seen Black Sheep squadron/Pappy Boyington TV series?, the airfield is still there covered with highgrass.) pushed all their equipment to the sea after the war, very strange dive, of a 20m thick layer of jeeps and army trucks on a 40m bottom.

Sri Lanka : Galle bay is full of wrecks since XIXth century, british steamers and newer boats. There's also the famous HMS Hermes aircraft carrier which is sunk off the eastern coast (Batticaloa) from 40m to 75m deep.

Martinique : One of the worst catastrophy in the caribbeans, Saint Pierre town was destroyed in 1902 with the explosion of the volcano Montagne Pelée, killing 30.000 people, like a caribbean version of Pompei. There were a dozen boats in the bay which all sunk from 12 to 70m deep.

The underwater pyramid structure at Yonaguni (Okinawa islands, South Japan).
If you never heard about it, here some more info..

Ha'apai, Kingdom of Tonga: not a wreck itself, but the anchor of the English pirate ship Port au Prince that had the famous William Mariner aboard and was raided and burnt by the locals in 1806. You can read the story of this ship and the finding here:

coron, philippines

many, many japanese imperial fleet/wrecks from WW II

Do not forget Narvik in Norway, quite a few diveable german warships from WW II. Nice, but cold diving. Most of them would be tecnical divning, but not all.

Santiago,Cuba
Spanish warships from the Spanish-American War of 1898.Most ships sank in very swallow waters......