At midnight on April 1, 1945, a steamship bound for Japan from Singapore was sunk by a U.S. torpedo in the waters east of Niushan Island in Pingtan County, Fujian Province, China.
The site where the Awa Maru was sunk
This ship is the famous Japanese Awa Maru cruise ship, it is said that the ship was loaded with a large number of jewelry and cultural relics, including the most famous Peking man skull, as well as 40 tons of gold, 12 tons of platinum, 150,000 carats of industrial diamonds, 3,000 tons of tin ingots, 2,000 tons of rubber, tungsten, titanium, silver and other materials, and there were more than 2,000 passengers on board.
The Awa Maru is said to have 150,000 carats of industrial diamonds on it
"Awa Maru" is a 10,000-ton ocean-going cruise ship built by Japan in the 1940s, with a total length of 154.9 meters, a width of 20.2 meters, a depth of 12.6 meters, a total tonnage of 11,429 tons, and a maximum speed of 20 knots per hour. The Awa Maru made six round-trip trips to the Japan-Singapore route, was attacked by bombs and torpedoes, and is still intact, so it is praised by the Japanese military as an "unsinkable ship".
Restoration of the Awa Maru
On March 28, 1945, the Awa Maru, which had been requisitioned by the Japanese military, filled Singapore with a large amount of treasures and materials looted by the Japanese army from Southeast Asia, and more than 2,000 Japanese people sailed to the Japanese mainland. At midnight on April 1, when it was traveling to the waters east of Niushan Island in Pingtan, Fujian Province, China, it was discovered by a US submarine, and the US military fired a torpedo that hit the Awa Maru, and the Awa Maru sank quickly in only 3 minutes, almost without surviving, and all the personnel and supplies on board sank to the bottom of the sea.
Sunk
In 1972, Nixon, then a visit to China, brought gifts, one of which was a detailed list of the specific location and supplies of the sinking of the Awa Maru, estimated to be worth about five billion US dollars. The Chinese then planned to salvage the Awa Maru.
In 1972, then-US President Richard Nixon visited China
China in the 1970s could not be compared with now, there was no reform and opening up, there was no waste to be rebuilt, and the equipment and technology at that time were also very backward, and the reason why the Awa Maru was salvaged was because the British Mike Hatcher frantically stole the cultural relics in the South China Sea.
The "diver" who salvaged the Awa Maru at that time
On January 13, 1977, the state decided to salvage the shipwreck of the "Awa Maru", the project code "7713". (The mission, code-named "7713," was a special task ordered by the Navy to be ordered by Premier Zhou Enlai to salvage the shipwreck of the Awa Maru himself.) )
Working on the seabed is very arduous, from 1977 to 1981, more than three years, more than 600 divers thousands of underwater operations, the number of explosions in the water reached hundreds. On July 9, 1980, the clock of the Awa Maru was salvaged, which was clearly inscribed: Awa Maru, with the date of construction and the company to which it belongs.
Salvaged Awa Maru ship clock
In total, the Awa Maru salvaged more than 5,000 tons of shipwreck materials such as cultural relics, tin ingots, rubber, mercury, mica, etc., but there were no precious metals such as gold, platinum, and diamonds, nor beijinger skulls, and the remains of the victims were also salvaged. They were returned to Japan in three installments.
The remains of the Japanese who were salvaged from the Awa Maru
So where did the 40 tons of gold go? This giant ship does carry a large number of precious cultural relics, then the news that it carries gold should not be empty, there are historians to analyze, it may be that the captain in order to prevent the loss of gold, started the ship's self-detonation device, when the hull was attacked, the 10,000-ton giant ship only 3 minutes quickly sank! There is also speculation as to whether another country's submarine sneaked into the seabed and secretly took the gold before we salvaged it! What do you think about being listed as an inspector? (Image from network intrusion and deletion)