Salvaging in the South China and Java Seas

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "A Decade of DPAA: Challenges and Opportunities to the Accounting Mission", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

DPAA currently estimates that approximately 2,000 U.S. Sailors and Marines are entombed aboard dozens of ships and submarines that sunk during World War II in the Java and South China Seas. Large scale illegal salvaging companies have been targeting the steel and iron of these WWII-era vessels. This presentation will first outline the history of industrial scale salvaging in the Java and South China Seas, including the methodology used and why this is happening. The focus of this presentation is a discussion on what is happening to the remains of the Sailors, Marines, and other mariners when these vessels are being salvaged. Finally, we will look at what the accounting community can do to track industrial scale illegal salvaging in this part of the world.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• A Decade of DPAA: Challenges and Opportunities to the Accounting Mission   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow