Call for anchor of HMS Repulse to be raised as memorial before looters strip war grave

CAMPAIGNERS and relations of men who died aboard HMS Repulse are calling for parts of the warship to be recovered to serve as a memorial before scrap metal scavengers further desecrate the last resting place of 508 of her crew.

Ignoring the battlecruiser’s status as a war grave, illegal salvage teams have used explosives to break off sections of the 25,000-ton vessel, which was sunk off Malaysia in December 1941, before raising them to the surface.

The bronze propellers disappeared between September 2012 and May 2013, followed by components made of other ferrous metals and latterly blocks of steel and aluminium. Lying in 180 feet of water, there are concerns that HMS Repulse may suffer the same fate as HMS Exeter, sunk in the Java Sea by Japanese forces and which has almost completely disappeared.

“Since the complete loss of HMS Exeter, the Ministry of Defence is more alert to the problem and the military attaché at the embassy here in Kuala Lumpur has asked what can be done to protect these vessels,” said Stephen Flew, a petroleum engineer who is based in Malaysia and has been diving on HMS Repulse and the nearby HMS Prince of Wales for 18 years.

Mr Flew and a group of divers, historians and expatriates have held talks with the Royal Malaysian Navy and met with the Prince of Wales, who expressed his gratitude for efforts to protect the war graves from “awful” looters. Mr Flew has proposed that the vessel’s 15in gun barrels and an anchor be recovered and be put on display in the UK.

“My mother would be horrified to know that this is happening to her father’s grave,” said Shirley Mcgowan, whose grandfather, Warrant Mechanician Arthur James Brewer, went down with the ship.

Mrs Mcgowan, who lives in Australia, scattered her mother’s ashes close to the wreck last year and would like a part of it to be recovered and returned to Britain. “I think it is a fantastic idea because there needs to be a permanent reminder of what those men did,” she said.