Salvage ships that are seen to linger over known shipwrecks, or that exhibit other suspicious behavior, can be flagged automatically and inspected when they reach port, he said. Radio beacons and satellite radar technology now make it possible to track salvage ships in the same way that many fishing trawlers are now tracked to prevent illegal fishing, McCartney said. Similar equipment was used by some Dutch salvage operators in recent years to remove especially valuable metals, like brass, from British shipwrecks that were sunk at the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea in 1916, McCartney said.ДЄlthough researchers have identified and documented the salvage firms responsible for much of the damage to the Jutland wrecks, so far the Dutch authorities have taken no action, he said. 'What they're doing is just dropping it down on the wreck, chopping the wreck into manageable pieces, and then using that crane to haul it on board,' he said. McCartney said the salvage barge photographed near Singapore last year appeared to be equipped with a large crane and a 5-ton 'drop chisel,' which is designed to cut a shipwreck apart.

Navy reported last year that the wreck of the American cruiser USS Houston, which sank in February 1942 in the Sunda Strait, southwest of the Java Sea, with around 650 sailors and marines onboard, had also suffered 'unauthorized disturbance of the grave site.' Illegal salvagers are also thought to be responsible for recent damage to the wrecks of the British warships HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, which were sunk by Japanese aircraft near Malaysia's Tioman Island in 1941, and the illegal salvage of a Dutch submarine wreck, the HNLMS 0-16, in the Gulf of Thailand in 2012, reported the New Strait Times. They include a Mongolian-flagged salvage barge that was photographed last year taking metal from a popular scuba diving wreck near Singapore, according to Underwater Photography Guide News (UWPG News).

Suspicion surrounding the destruction of the Java Sea war wrecks has fallen on a number of salvage ships operating in Southeast Asian waters, McCartney said. We will now never be able to archaeologically study the Battle of the Java Sea - it's gone, it's lost to us forever.' Metal pirates 'From my standpoint it's incredibly frustrating. 'There has been anecdotal evidence for an abundance for years that shipwrecks in the area of the Battle of the Java Sea have been getting hammered by salvage companies,' McCartney told Live Science. Д«ut a 'perfect storm' of high metal prices and a lack of enforcement has resulted in many wartime shipwrecks being broken up for scrap metal by illegal salvagers, especially in the Asia and Pacific regions, he said. Under international agreements, naval vessels remain the property of their governments after they sink, and it is illegal to disturb or salvage them without official permission, said marine archaeologist Innes McCartney, a visiting research fellow at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom. The Dutch defense minister made a statement to members of Parliament last week, noting the destruction reported by the expedition to the Java Sea wrecks.Д«ritain's defense ministry also issued a statement in response to the expedition's report, condemning the damage and desecration done to the wrecks and suggesting that illegal metal salvagers are to blame. 'It is a very serious offence if the wrecks have been deliberately removed, but before we make that conclusion the authorities will have to make further investigations,' he said. The Java Sea survey report has now been turned over to the Dutch defense ministry, which is in charge of protecting the nation's naval wrecks, Brandt said. They also reported that two British war wrecks in the area вЂ• the HMS Exeter and the HMS Encounter вЂ• have been almost entirely scavenged for scrap metal, and that the wreck of the USS Perch has 'completely vanished.' Wrecking history Investigators think it was broken up for scrap by illegal salvage operators.

The wreck of the Dutch cruiser HMNLS De Ruyter has disappeared from the floor of the Java Sea.

Missing scavengers