4. - 11 AUG: Beyond Angkor: silk, coconut, miniatures and land mines

More Angkor

A second day at the ruins of Angkor and I begin to feel more comfortable in the company of the Khmer gods. The initial awe give room to avid curiosity about the individual pieces of art, the urban setting, the organization of that amazing ancient culture. Heat and humidity are merciless, but I am getting used to them...

Book Review: River of Time, by Jon Swain, *****

Synopsis

Between 1970 and 1975 Jon Swain, the English journalist portrayed in David Puttnam's film, "The Killing Fields", lived in the lands of the Mekong river. This is his account of those years, and the way in which the tumultuous events affected his perceptions of life and death as Europe never could. He also describes the beauty of the Mekong landscape - the villages along its banks, surrounded by mangoes, bananas and coconuts, and the exquisite women, the odours of opium, and the region's other face - that of violence and corruption.

He was in Phnom Penh just before the fall of the city to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975. He was captured and was going to be executed. His life was saved by Dith Pran, the New York Times interpreter, a story told by the film The Killing Fields. In Indo-China Swain formed a passionate love affair with a French-Vietnamese girl. The demands of a war correspondent ran roughshod over his personal life and the relationship ended.

Book Review: In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors (2001), by Doug Stanton, *****

Synopsis

The USS Indianapolis was the last ship sunk during the Second World War. Savaged by a salvo of torpedoes from a Japanese submarine, the warship, one of the fastest in the US Navy, sank in a matter of minutes. One thousand two hundred men went into the water, and only 321 were to survive. This is their story. On 30 July 1945 the Indianapolis was returning from the small island of Tinian, having delivered the components of the atom bomb ‘little boy’, which was to decimate Hiroshima and bring on the end of the war. As the torpedoes ripped into the side of the ship hundreds of men were killed. Those lucky enough to survive were to face extremes of physical and mental hardship in the water. Many were left to float in the ocean with little or no food or drinking water in deteriorating life jackets and, most chillingly of all, open to attacks by sharks...

Recensione: In Sudamerica, di Italo Moretti, ****

Sinossi
Dei fatti che hanno segnato la storia dei Paesi latinoamericani negli ultimi trent'anni si parla sempre più spesso, per la loro influenza sulla politica e la diplomazia europea dei giorni nostri - si pensi al caso Pinochet, o ai figli dei desaparecidos adottati dagli stessi carnefici dei genitori. Moretti ha seguito per la Rai le vicende di quei paesi (in particolare Cile e Argentina) dai primi anni '70. Nel suo saggio racconta quanto ha visto e vissuto, riportando brani inediti delle interviste ai protagonisti della storia sudamericana.

Dive n. 209: Kensho Maru, Chuuk Lagoon, 31m, 40'

Click on the drawing to enlarge

I did this dive alone with my guide Johnny, a local Chuukese who knows this wreck like the back of his hand. He takes me around the dark, silty bowels of the ship with unfailing dexterity. We visited the engine room, where all kinds of tools are still neatly hanging on their racks. The radio room is in great shape, the big apparatus still on its feet. Lots of plates and bowls lying around.

Tea cup in the Kensho maru

Immersione con Johnny, guida locale. Sono da solo, gli altri hanno preferito tornare sul Betty. Johnny conosce il relitto come le sue tasche, mi porta in giro nel buio con grande sicurezza. Andiamo in sala macchine, poi in sala trasmissioni, dove l'enorme apparato radio è ancora tutto intero. Molte suppellettili, coppette di ceramica, vasellame.

Buy this book on Operation Hailstone, the attack by American navy on Chuuk in February 1944.

Dive n. 207: Yamagiri, Chuuk Lagoon, 30m, 35'

Interessante elica di motore, e gli enormi proiettili da 18 pollici (46 cm) i più grandi mai costruiti e destinati alle corazzate Yamato e Musashi che stazionarono a Truk nel 1943.

18-inch shells

Artillery shells

Spare propeller

You can watch a video by Andrew Lee here

Dive n. 206: Fumizuki, Chuuk Lagoon, 33m, 35'

Fumizuki in 1926

Drawing by the Thorfinn yacht

Dive on the cruiser Fumizuki.

The Fumitsuki was a Mutsuki Class Destroyer built in 1926, 320ft/97m long with a gross tonnage of 1,913 tons normal, and 1,590 tons light after reconstruction. She was driven by 2-shaft Parsons geared turbines and 4 Kampon boilers. She could carry a complement of 150 officers and crew. She was one of only two real Japanese Navy combat ships sunk in Truk Lagoon.

She was capable of over 33.5 knots fully loaded, but was under repair at the time of her demise. The name translates as “the 7th month of the moon calendar when rice/flowers ripen.” Information from Trukwreckdiving.com

I can see the railway used to move equipment of the bridge and torpedo launchers.

Fumizuki evading attack during Operation Hailstone

Railway to move shells on ship

Torpedo launchers

Dive 203: Unkai Maru

Military transport ship built in Newcastle in 1905 and sold to a Japanese shipping company in 1921. Requisitioned by Imperial Japanese Navy for the war.

U.S. newspaper aboard from time Japan and U.S. were still neutral

Gas mask

American newspaper from California!

See this video by Rod MacDonald on the Unkai Maru

Dive n. 204: Rio de Janeiro Maru, Chuuk Lagoon, 33m, 40'

Drawing by the yacht Thorfinn

Interesting dive on the Rio de Janeiro Maru where I can photograph the hugh props and tons of bottles of sake.

Stay tuned for more pics as I scan them...

Dives n. 199, 200, 202: Nippo Maru, Chuuk Lagoon

Three memorable dives. I could see lots of artillery pieces by the stern, a tank by the bow, and the beautifully preserved pilothouse

Artillery piece

Command bridge

Tank

Dive n. 201: Sankisan Maru, Chuuk Lagoon, 23m, 54'

Click on the picture to view it in full size

Drawing by the Thorfinn

In this wreck of transport ship Sankisan I could see and photograph tons of truck tires, mountains of bullets and lots of airplane engines.

My pictures are being scanned... to be included soon!

Dives n. 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 208: Shinkoku Maru, Chuuk Lagoon, 30m, 35'

Largest divable wreck in Truk. It was an oiler.

Drawing by Thorfinn

The Shinkoku Maru is a fascinating dive. I found most interesting my visit to the galley.

Also of significance is the operating room, with the bed still almost intact.

You can watch two interesting videos on the Shinkoku here on Vimeo (see especially those by Pete Peterson) and here on Youtube .

Engine telegraph

Dives 188, 189, 190, 191 took place on 15 June. Dives 192, 193 and 194 were on 16 June. Dive 208 on June 20.

Dives n. 178-187 e 195-196: Fujikawa Maru, Chuuk Lagoon

Oggi 13 giugno, domani 14 Giugno ed il 17 1994 ho fatto 8 immersioni sul relitto del Fujikawa Maru, forse il più interessante dei relitti di Chuuk. La nave fu affondata durante l'Operazione Hailstone il 17-18 Febbraio 1944.

Bullets

Engine piston cylinder

Telephone

Wall light

Dive sites of cruise in Chuuk Lagoon on Truk Aggressor, 13-21 June 1994

Today I arrive in Chuuk (formerly known as Truk) Lagoon for ted days of diving aboard the Truk Aggressor yacht. In the map above you can see the location of the wrecks I will be visiting. I am adding photos and commentary as I complete my research and scan my slides (in 2013)... stay tuned!

Book review: The Russian War (1978), ed. by D. Mrazkova and V. Remes, *****

Synopsis

From the time of the German invasion of Russia in June 1941 until the Soviet armies marched into Berlin in 1945, six million Russian soldiers were killed and 14 million civilians were murdered by the Germans. 

In the West, we forget that for most of the war Soviet armies contended against nine-tenths of the German army and never against less than three-quarters of it. Throughout this war a brave band of Soviet photographers were recording the events at a remarkable closeness to the field of action - often alternating between lens and pistol. These photographs have been arranged to form a story that begins with the Nazi assault along a 1200-mile Russian front and ends four years later when the Red Flag was raised over the Reichstag. A J P Taylor introduces each chapter with a brief narrative and an account of the photographers particularly involved. "Those who look at the photographs assembled here will, I hope, be moved," he writes. "They are a twentieth-century equivalent of War and Peace, transmuting human experiences into a vision of grandeur."


Review

This is an exceptional collection of 143 B&W Soviet photographs from throughout the course of WW II. Some pictures have been so widely reproduced that they will be familiar to any student of the war, like Khaldei's shot of the Soviet soldier raising the red flag on the Reichstag, or Alpert's photo of a Commissar leading the troops into action, which is the cover of the book. Others are much less known.

Photographers like Lipskerov and Zelma were at the frontline of Stalingrad, and Kudoyarov spent the whole of the 900 days of Leningrad's siege in the city.

This book is the work of two Czechoslovak editors, and for some reason it has not been published in the USSR itself. Interestingly, most of the pictures were taken with a 35mm German Leica camera, the standard at the time.

In my view, several pictures have been staged, but this is normal in wartime and one must remember that the USSR, like all other countries, used photography as a wartime propaganda tool, during and after the duration of the war.

Read an interesting article on Soviet photography here

Minsk to Smolensk, Afghanistan, Bulgarian wine and the Olympics

After a leisurely breakfast we get moving at 11:00 o'clock. We drive around downtown Minsk, and find it rather forgettable. The high points of the tour are a couple of huge monuments to Lenin and to victory in WW II. Good weather tough, warm and sunny.

One policeman stops me because I am trying to make a right turn from the middle lane of a wide boulevard. I did signal my intention to turn (I think I did) but anyway I was very careful and waited for the road to be clear before turning. He is initially a bit brusque but we start speaking Polish and it all ends with big smiles and a pat in the back. Again, I think he was just curious to meet funny-looking foreigners in a yellow beetle...

We hit the road again in the direction of Smolensk after a quick lunch, and it start raining heavily.

Once in Smolensk we are very warmly greeted by a group of students who run the camping site where we will spend the night. Banter and casual talk accompanied by Bulgarian wine drag on for several hours.

Only a couple of times the discussion is a bit tense, when we touch Afghanistan (they insist Soviet forces are providing brotherly help to socialists threatened by imperialism, pure party line) and the Olympics, (they insist sport and politics should be kept separate, and here they have a point).

They also believe that China (Moscow's Communist rival) got a bloody nose in Vietnam (Russia's Communist friend) last year when it launched its "punitive" campaign following the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. Here the truth is somewhat more blurred, and lots of people on both sides died for no reason when the Chinese pulled back.

The point I take away from this conversation is that the young people we have met actually still believe in Communism and in the leading role of the USSR, in one way or another. Not ONE Pole we met does.

World War II Victory Day celebrations

Polish Army parading on 9th May 1980

It's a big day today in Poland: the 35th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Many countries suffered because of the war, but Poland can reasonably claim to have endured the worst.

Victoria Hotel behind unknown soldier monument

Poland was squeezed between The USSR and Germany, Stalin and Hitler, Communism and Nazism, whichever way you look at it, it was a pretty unenviable position in 1939.

These days, of course, it is the fight against Germany that takes center stage. And for sure that is what detonated World War II. And Germany inflicted unspeakable human and economic damage to Poland between 1939 and 1945. More so to Polish Jews. The Soviet attack that immediately followed the German invasion on 1 September 1939, however, gets very short shrift. The official propaganda sings the praise of the heroic Soviet army that resisted German aggression and then moved to counterattack and liberate Poland (and Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, and Romania etc.) from fascism.

Of course, all but the most naive Poles know that is far from the whole truth. But they can't talk about it, not these days in Communist Poland where no one is a Communist but censorship, and self-censorship, are tight.