WWII Japanese Navy destroyer found 83 years after it sank
The Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Teruzuki sank in 1942 while transporting supplies to soldiers in the Solomon Islands.
Measuring over 134m (440ft) long, Teruzuki was the Imperial Japanese Navy 's second Akizuki-class destroyer built with air-search radar.
Such ships mainly acted as escorts with anti-aircraft screening abilities for main battle ships.
Teruzuki was sunk in December 1942 by US torpedoes while transporting food for soldiers in Guadalcanal, also called 'Gato' or the island of starvation.
After it was hit by torpedoes, a detonation broke the rudder and one propeller shaft, disabling the ship.
Then a ruptured oil tank caught on fire, setting ablaze ammunition and causing an explosion.
Nearly 350 crew members survived, most rescued by other nearby Japanese destroyers, but 10 died.
Since Imperial Japan 's naval vessel plans were a tightly held secret, there are no historical images of Teruzuki and the latest survey is the first ever to get a glimpse of the vessel for this generation.
A US marine research team has finally found Teruzuki's wreck in a sea area known as the Iron Bottom Sound, which was the stage of five major naval battles between August and December 1942 that led to the loss of over 20,000 lives, 111 naval vessels, and 1,450 planes.
However, fewer than 100 of these US, Japanese, Australian, and New Zealand military ships and planes have been located in this marine location of an area less than 25 nautical miles wide, 40 nautical miles long, and 1,400 meters deep.
"Iron Bottom Sound was the scene of five ferocious major night surface battles, resulting in the loss of dozens of ships and thousands of men. Both sides showed extreme courage and tenacity, although in the end the U.S. Navy and allies prevailed, at enormous cost,' said Samuel J. Cox, a retired US Navy rear admiral.
Two Akizuki-class destroyers were known to have sunk in the Solomon Islands during WWII.
Since the other one was already discovered, researchers concluded the latest finding was Teruzuki 's wreck.
Earlier this month, a team of US and Japanese marine researchers conducted the first visual scan of the destroyer since it sank.
'This is the first time anyone has laid eyes on Teruzuki since it was sunk in WWII's battles off Guadalcanal, with surveyed details rewriting the ship's final hours,' researchers wrote.
The marine scientists found that Teruzuki's bow had collapsed to one side, and most of her superstructure had fallen off to one side.
Several features of the sunken ship match testimonies of former crew members who survived its sinking.
The numbers and positions of gun turrets on the wrecked remains were also found to be the same as on Teruzuki.
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BBC News
3 days ago
- BBC News
'Whether you win or lose, some fights are worth fighting': The largest ever climate case's unlikely origins
In 2019, a group of Pacific Island students took a classroom idea on climate change and turned it into a massive global operation. It all began with a bold student idea. Cynthia Houniuhi speaks fondly about her childhood growing up in one of the remoter parts of the Solomon Islands. Her earliest memories are of wading through warm seas to get to school, trapping wild birds with her older brothers, and sowing sweet potatoes and cassava. "I love planting vegetables, although I'm not really a fan of eating my vegetables," she laughs. "I can eat fruit all day." It was only later that Houniuhi realised something was amiss. She recalls a particular trip to Fanalei, the island her father is from, where she was shocked to see houses standing deep in salt water. She learned that some families had been forced to move. It was the beginning of an awareness of climate change that would shape the next years of Houniuhi's life. It would also help bring the largest ever climate case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), sometimes known as the UN world court. The ICJ, which is based in the Netherlands, is today due to give its advisory opinion on states' legal obligations to tackle climate change under international law, and lay out the consequences of breaching them. It's the largest case the court has ever considered – but it began with the spark of an idea in a university lecture theatre. Even a decade ago, most people in Houniuhi's community had no technical terms for what was happening to them, she says, "just observations" of climate impacts on their daily lives. There is a growing body of evidence that rising seas and intensifying storms, exacerbated by climate change, are displacing coastal communities on the Solomon Islands and other low-lying Pacific island states. "The only reason I made those connections was because I kept asking," Houniuhi says. She asked lots of questions of her family and neighbours: Was it always like this? How fast have things changed? Where are all the fish? "The value that was instilled in me, the curiosity that was always there from an early age, really pushed me on to ask more," she says. Motivated by a sense of justice and unafraid to speak up, Houniuhi decided to study law at the University of the South Pacific, in Fiji. In 2019, during her third year, lecturer Justin Rose tasked Houniuhi's class with the extracurricular task of promoting climate justice. One of the practical ideas they considered was seeking an advisory opinion from the ICJ, a formal document setting out the court's view on a particular topic. Other major courts – such as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights – have also been asked for such opinions, which are politically influential and set the framework for future legal action. Most recently, the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights has been asked for its opinion, and has just begun the process. Houniuhi was hesitant at first, thinking the idea of approaching the ICJ was far too ambitious for a small group of students from the Pacific region. But she felt a sense of responsibility as part of a community on the frontlines of climate change and knew this was a problem that had to be tackled on a global scale. "What is the use of learning all this knowledge if it's not for our people to fight the single greatest threat to their security?" she asked herself. "This was an opportunity to do something bigger than ourselves, bigger than our fears." Houniuhi was one of 27 students to form an organisation called Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC), and soon agreed to be its president. The group petitioned teachers and lecturers about the idea, and crowdfunded 80 Fijian dollars (£26/ $35) to pay for its first banner. The timing was right, recalls Rose. A previous attempt to garner an advisory opinion from the ICJ by Palau and the Marshall Islands failed due to a lack of political support. But Houniuhi and her peers rode high on the global wave of youth climate activism begun by Greta Thunberg, and Rose was sure he could count on the support of Ralph Regenvanu, then Vanuatu's minister of foreign affairs and trade. Regenvanu was already an outspoken advocate for climate justice, who had threatened to sue fossil fuel companies and states. Regenvanu was on board. With Vanuatu taking the diplomatic helm, PISFCC campaigned relentlessly over the next few years alongside a growing network of young activists across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. PISFCC members, especially a few of the most dedicated, traipsed through the corridors of power with posters and pitches at climate meetings around the world. They gradually gathered pledges of support from Pacific and Caribbean nations and then further afield. Rose was supportive, encouraging PISFCC to keep true to its youth roots to remain grounded and to be able to tell an authentic story. Having followed the ups and downs of environmental politics for years, he says he was inwardly sceptical. But the group "just kept forging ahead", he says. The bet paid off. By March 2023, 132 countries had agreed to co-sponsor a resolution to go before the UN General Assembly. Later that month the body unanimously called on the ICJ to provide its opinion on two key questions: what obligations do states have to tackle climate change under international law and what are the legal consequences if they fail to do so? At the time PISFCC called it an "unprecedented step towards fighting the climate crisis". Its urgency was immediately apparent; Vanuatu was in a national state of emergency caused by two devastating tropical cyclones in 2023. This was far from the end of the road for the young activists. The court now asked for states to set out their written views on the key questions. PISFCC realised the advisory opinion would only be as good as the quality of submissions received, but they were not allowed to participate directly. Together with peers at World's Youth for Climate Justice, they undertook intensive lobbying under the slogan: "We're bringing the world's biggest problem to the world's highest court". They developed a handbook with legal experts to guide states in compiling their submissions, encouraged governments with fewer resources and less experience with the ICJ to get involved, and even managed to get into some Pacific island drafting rooms to discuss key topics affecting frontline communities. In November 2024, the ICJ finally announced it would advance to the next step – holding a public hearing where states could present their views orally to the court. The young activists mobilised again, raising awareness of what could have been an obscure legal process and encouraging people to attend in person or through virtual "watch parties". Battling visa problems and on a shoestring budget, a group of campaigners arrived in The Hague, the Netherlands, in early December to be greeted by drizzle. Before the hearing began, they held an opening ceremony that set the stage for the hearing through song and dance, bringing the warmth of the Pacific to the Netherlands. PISFCC had a slot on the first day of the hearing. The group worked together on their speech and Houniuhi was the obvious person to present it. It was a heavy burden and she says she felt nervous going into the court alongside veterans of international law and a forbidding panel of 15 senior judges from across the ICJ's jurisdiction. But thinking of her beloved nieces and nephews and seeing the excited youth team gave her courage. She had also been granted permission from Solomon Island chiefs to share their sacred knowledge, and knew that this was a special honour. "I am privileged enough to have an education that got me into this," Houniuhi recalls thinking to herself. "I have the opportunity right here." On the day, only her parents noticed that she could barely remember her own name. "The Pacific people really were my support system at that time. And they showed up in colours as well," she says, noting the array of traditional clothing that was on display in the room. Houniuhi herself wore her family's rorodara, a headdress encrusted with tiny shellsonly worn on special occasions. As her moment to speak came, Houniuhi suddenly felt the power shift. Stepping up to a podium in the middle of the room, she told the court how her people's land of Fanalei was on the verge of being completely engulfed by the rising seas. "Without our land, our bodies and memories are severed from the fundamental relationships that define who we are," she said. Over the next two weeks, just shy of 100 states gave oral statements to the court, alongside the World Health Organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and other groups. Most states argued that a wide range of international law applied to climate change, including treaties and customary rules on due diligence, the duty to cooperate and the prevention of transboundary harm, as well as the right to self-determination. Human rights are being harmed, they argued, including those of children and future generations. Speaking on behalf of a group of Melanesian nations – which include Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu – all vulnerable to rising seas and temperatures, Regenvanu (now Vanuatu's special envoy for climate change), pointed the blame squarely at "a handful of readily identifiable states". These nations had produced the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions but stood to lose the least from their impacts, Regenvanu said. That "handful" hit back. Australia, the US, the UK, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, China and Russia maintained that any legal responsibility was limited exclusively to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement agreed under it in 2015. Many denied that human rights had any bearing on the questions at stake. Houniuhi says she found it hard to hear these arguments. "Being in the room… is different from seeing them on paper." Far from being an abstract problem deep in the future, representatives of nations across the Pacific and Caribbean, Africa, South America and Asia described the physical, economic and cultural impacts that climate change is already having on their people: deaths in the choking heat, poorer crops of staple foods of huge local significance such as yam and coconut, graveyards being washed away, forced relocations and livelihoods under threat. This group of nations appealed for climate justice to the ICJ, arguing that the states that have done the most damage do not just have a moral responsibility to those that have done the least, but a legal one. Many called for financial reparations to address it. (Read more about what the world would look like if polluters paid for climate damages). The court's decision builds on the opinions of the two other international courts. The first was the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, which stated in 2024 that greenhouse gases are pollutants that are wrecking the marine environment. Second, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights concluded in July that there is a human right to a healthy climate that states have a duty to protect. The ICJ's opinion is not binding, but it will likely be used to back up climate lawsuits and as diplomatic fuel during international negotiations – particularly at COP30 in Brazil in November. However, the process of collecting statements and hearing state submissions has been important in and of itself. Joie Chowdhury is a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, a non-profit which supported PISFCC and helped write daily legal briefings during the December hearing. She says the process led to unprecedented collaboration and built legal capacity among states not previously used to the ICJ. "The law creates the stage to build power, to build alliances, to bring alignment, and there can be great power in that." It also gave vulnerable communities an opportunity to tell their stories and was a way of explaining the injustice of climate change to a wider audience. Houniuhi stresses that most people on the Solomon Islands, particularly in rural areas, are struggling to make ends meet. So while climate change is threatening their economic, social and cultural rights, they did not have the luxury of following a highly technical process unfolding in a court 15,000 miles (24,140km) away. But the conversations that she and others had as a result of the ICJ process have helped raise awareness of what is happening and why. "The language has changed," she says. "The campaigners were thinking about the law in a way that really shifts how it is usually practiced," says Chowdhury. "They have been talking about ways of building movements rooted in the Pacific, identity and solidarity, and justice." Despite expressing a weariness at the reality of climate politics, Rose still supports the campaign. "There's lots of people offering you hope," he tells the young activists. "What you'll get from me is that, whether you win or lose, some fights are worth fighting." More like this:• What if polluters footed the climate bill?• The world's largest environmental restoration plan• Five nature wins that have actually worked Houniuhi too remains a "stubborn optimist" about it all. She has started teaching at the same law school where she studied five years ago, and plans to step down as president of PISFCC, handing it over to another young person to lead the organisation into its next phase. But she always knew this would be a role for life. She says the group dynamics are grounded in trust and always focused on the bigger picture. It's a message that comes time and again from the young people involved, who stress how collaborative the task has been. "I'm not going to lie – there are times when someone accidentally dropped a laptop and there was a whole lot of looking for funding to buy a new one," says Houniuhi. "But most of the members have held my hand so many times. The nature of the work you're dealing with means sharing your personal stories. This made us realise we need to be the support for each other." PISFCC is tussling with its next steps, trying to work out how it can ensure the advisory opinion makes a difference in the real world while remaining a youth-driven organisation. Whatever happens, this network of passionate activism and friendship that has grown around the campaign in the Pacific Islands is likely to remain. -- Update: This article was updated on 23 July 2025 to add that the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights has also been asked for an advisory opinion on climate change, in addition to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. -- For essential climate news and hopeful developments to your inbox, sign up to the Future Earth newsletter, while The Essential List delivers a handpicked selection of features and insights twice a week. For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
‘Long-lived and lucky' ship wrecked off Orkney was at siege of Quebec, experts find
When a schoolboy running on a beach on the island of Sanday in Orkney last year came across the timbers of a shipwreck that had been exposed after a storm, local people knew the ship might have an intriguing history. Residents of the tiny island at the edge of the Scottish archipelago are familiar with ships that have come to grief in stormy seas, hundreds of shipwrecks having been recorded there over the centuries. But this large section of oak hull, its boards carefully knitted together by wooden pegs, appeared particularly well built and was obviously not recent. The question was, how old was the ship – and what else could they learn about it? Eighteen months after that discovery in February 2024, archaeologists and local volunteers have managed to identify the ship and to piece together the surprising history of a vessel that witnessed some of the most dramatic events of the 18th century before finally being wrecked off Sanday in 1788. Thanks to detailed timber dating and historical analysis, experts are confident the hull belonged to HMS Hind, a 24-gun Royal Navy frigate that was built in Chichester in 1749 and went on to have a remarkable career. Despite its sticky end, the Hind was 'an amazingly long-lived and lucky ship', according to Ben Saunders, a senior marine archaeologist at Wessex Archaeology, who led the project alongside Historic Environment Scotland (HES) to recover and identify the vessel's remains. The ship, naval records show, served off the coast of Jamaica in the 1750s and took part in the sieges of Louisbourg (1758) and Quebec (1759), when the British defeated French forces in Canada during the seven years war. It was among the British fleet in the American revolutionary war of the 1770s and then served for a decade as a training ship in the Irish Sea, before it was decommissioned and sold off to become a 500-tonne whaling ship in the Arctic Circle. It was in this guise, under the new name of The Earl of Chatham, that the ship was wrecked by a North Sea storm on 29 April 1788. Even then, its luck did not desert it – all 56 people onboard survived, a snippet in the Aberdeen Journal records. Identifying the vessel posed a challenge for present-day archaeologists, however. The hull, measuring 10 metres by 5 metres (about 33ft by 16ft), had been well preserved under the sand, allowing multiple wood samples to be sent for dendrochronological analysis. Experts found that the wood had originated in southern and south-western England, and that the earliest sample had a clear felling date of spring 1748. Saunders and his colleagues then worked closely with the community of Sanday, for whom shipwreck timber has been an important source of wood for centuries. The island is largely treeless, and 'some of the people we've been working with have half their roofs held up with masts and deck beams', he says. 'It's incredible.' A date in the mid-18th century was not only interesting but helpful, says Saunders, 'because this is when you're starting to get the bureaucracy of the British state kicking in, and a lot more records surviving'. A group of 20 volunteer researchers pored through maritime archives, government shipping registers and news sheets to pinpoint the right vessel among at least 270 known to have foundered on Sanday. Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion '[The islanders] also brought a lot of their own experience,' says Saunders. 'You've got a lot of people in Orkney who are connected to the sea anyway. That meant we could collate this massive amount of data and start saying: 'Right, that ship is too small, that ship was built in the Netherlands, no, not that ship.'' Eventually, the records led the researchers to the Hind and its second life as a whaler when Britain's early Industrial Revolution was relying more heavily on the products of whaling. The timbers salvaged from the shoreline are now being preserved underwater at the Sanday heritage centre while a long-term home is under discussion. Alison Turnbull, the director of external relationships and partnerships at HES, says the 'rare and fascinating story' of the ship's identification 'shows that communities hold the keys to their own heritage. It is our job to empower them to make these discoveries.' Saunders says what he really enjoyed about studying this wreck was 'that we've had to do this detective work', combining the highly technical scientific analysis with scrutiny of a wealth of archive material. 'We're really lucky to have so much archive material, because of the period and because of where it wrecked in Orkney. It's been very satisfying.'
Sky News
3 days ago
- Sky News
Sanday Wreck: Archaeologists believe they have identified centuries-old shipwreck in Orkney
Archaeologists believe they have identified a centuries-old vessel shipwrecked in Orkney. Expert say the wreck discovered on the island of Sanday last year is most likely the Earl of Chatham, a former Royal Navy vessel called HMS Hind that was later renamed once it became a whaling ship. Historic Environment Scotland (HES), which funded the research, said the sixth-rate 24-gun frigate saw many years of active service, including the sieges of Louisbourg and Quebec in the 1750s and the American Revolutionary War in the late 1770s. Once decommissioned, it was sold and renamed the Earl of Chatham, becoming a 500-tonne whaling ship. HES said this was common for Royal Navy boats as their build quality allowed them to withstand the icy conditions of British whaling routes. As the Earl of Chatham, it completed four seasons in the Arctic before ultimately meeting its end in the Bay of Lopness in March 1788. The 56 sailors on board all survived. Wessex Archaeology, along with Dendrochronicle and volunteer community researchers, began working on the wreck's origins following its discovery in February 2024. Analysis of the wood concluded the ship was built with timber from south and southwest England. Archaeologists from Wessex Archaeology, local community researchers, and the Sanday Heritage Centre then spent months working with archives and community records to find the most likely candidate for the ship. This research was also supported by Sanday Heritage Group and Orkney Archaeology Society. Ben Saunders, senior marine archaeologist at Wessex Archaeology, said: "It is thanks to our dedicated team of community researchers and the evidence they have gathered that means we have been able to identify the Sanday Wreck with a reasonable degree of confidence. "Throughout this project, we have learned so much about the wreck, but also about the community in Sanday in the 1780s. "Sanday was infamous for shipwrecks at the time, called 'the cradle of shipwrecks in Scotland', but the community was equally well-known for its hospitability as it looked after sailors who fell afoul of the area's stormy seas. "We are grateful to the support from our partners, and we're delighted to be able to share our work on this intriguing wreck." The Sanday Wreck was revealed last year due to changes in the climate. Increased storminess and unusual wind patterns led to removal of the covering sands which had hidden and protected the wreck for centuries. Changes to coastlines, which are predicted to accelerate in coming decades, could make similar finds more common. The timbers are currently housed in a freshwater tank at Sanday Heritage Centre as part of preservation efforts. There, visitors can find out more about the wreck's story and Sanday's history. Alison Turnbull, director of external relations and partnerships at HES, said: "The discovery of the Sanday Wreck is a rare and fascinating story. "Wessex Archaeology worked closely with the community of Sanday to discover the ship's identity, which shows that communities hold the keys to their own heritage. "It is our job to empower communities to make these discoveries and be able to tell the story of their historic environment."
