Plundered wreckage

SIR – My father was the surgeon on board HMS Exeter when she was sunk at the Battle of Java Sea (“Royal Navy wrecks are plundered by scavengers in Java Sea”, report, November 17).

Clinging to some wreckage, he survived and spent four years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp on the railways in Java.

For those who lost relatives in that battle, the removal of the lost ships must be like rubbing salt into the wound. Although these sites are not considered official war graves by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, surely it should be possible, with the help of modern technology, to monitor some of the more significant historic wrecks and develop a rapid response strategy to deter this plundering. Lt Col John Wyatt (retd) Cranbrook, Kent