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Navy Divers Clear 250,000 Gallons of Oil from Captured WWII Nazi Ship

30 Oct 2018
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser | By William Cole

Hawaii-based Navy divers from Mobile Diving Salvage Unit 1 recently completed the removal of 250,000 gallons of fuel oil from a captured World War II German cruiser that survived two atomic tests in 1946 but capsized and sank later that year at Kwajalein Atoll.

Twenty divers from the unit worked from the USNS Salvor to recover oil from the 697-foot Nazi warship, which lies partially exposed 200 yards offshore from Enubuj Island and just a few miles from the strategically important Kwajalein Island, the largest in the group.

The tiny Army-run island in the Marshall Islands is a U.S. outpost in the South Pacific for space surveillance and object identification, NASA programs and ballistic missile development and testing. It also has a 6,600-foot runway.

"These (oil) recovery efforts will ensure mission capability of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command's Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein while protecting the sensitive ecosystem within the atoll," the U.S. military said in a news release.

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In October 1943 the Prinz Eugen became the flagship for German forces in the Baltic Sea. The cruiser was surrendered to the British in Denmark in 1945, became U.S. property, and in early 1946 steamed to Boston and then through the Panama Canal to the Pacific for atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.

Operation Crossroads involved two explosions, Able and Baker, to determine the effects of atomic bombing on naval warships. A fleet of 90 vessels was assembled as a target, according to the Atomic Heritage Foundation.

The first test, Able, on July 1, 1946, involved a 23-kiloton device dropped from a B-29 bomber which detonated at 520 feet -- missing its target by nearly half a mile but sinking five ships, the foundation said.

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