The Philippines on Thursday (March 5) said it was verifying reports that a sunken World war II Japanese warship was discovered off the coast in the central Philippines.
A team led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has found the sunken Japanese warship Musashi, one of the largest battleships ever built, where it was sunk during World War Two off the coast of the Philippines, the billionaire said on Wednesday (March 4).
Presidential Spokesperson Sonny Coloma told journalists at a news conference that were in contact with the relevant agencies.
“The National Museum is working closely with all stakeholders to ensure that all the provision of our existing laws, the provisions of our existing laws are enforced and complied with. These stakeholders include Romblon province which is proximate to our Sibuyan Sea where the shipwreck has been found according to reports, the Japanese government as this involves the shipwreck of a World War Two Japanese battleship and Mister Allen’s organization,” Coloma said.
The Musashi, which was named after a province in Japan, was commissioned in August 1942.
The Musashi was sunk at the outset of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history, pitting American and Australian forces against the Japanese who occupied the Philippines for three years until 1945.
U.S. aircraft sank the Musashi on Oct. 24, 1944, killing more than 1,000 Japanese, or about half the vessel’s crew.
Jose Custodio, a military analyst and an expert on the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II, said the discovery of the warship may invoke memories of the past war but does not expect it to spark anti-Japanese sentiments in the Philippines due to the two nations’ close relations.
“Going back again, is that there’s so many shared relations, for example the economy, and even the military, because of the Chinese threat to the Philippines, and the Chinese threat to Japan, that our governments are getting closer and closer of military and security ties,” Custodio said.
The Philippines and Japan are expected to hold its first joint military exercises in April to strengthen security ties between the two nations.
Custodio said the discovery should serve as a reminder of the lessons of the past .
“The intelligence and capabilities of man, if he puts his mind into it, at the same time also, is an example of the folly of war of such weapons of destruction, that the Japanese invested so much material and national pride in coming up with such an impressive battleship, and it took tiny airplanes with the Americans to sink it,” he said.
The Musashi and its sister ship, the Yamato, to this day rank as the heaviest and most heavily armed battleships ever built, said Frank Blazich Jr, a naval historian at the Washington Navy Yard.
The Musashi weighed nearly 73,000 tons when fully loaded and had nine main guns, along with aircraft and other features. Its largest guns fired shells weighing more than 1.5 tons, and the ship itself measured nearly 863 feet (263 metres) in length, Blazich said.
The Yamato was sunk on April 7, 1945. Its wreckage has been photographed a number of times over the years.
(Reuters)