Scuba Diving in Truk Lagoon's Ghost Fleet | Sport Diver

The Living Presence of Truk Lagoon's Ghost Fleet

Throughout the ages, ships plying the world’s waterways have often met a violent end with tragic loss of life. Wreck divers travel the world to dive on these watery graves, and get up close and personal with history. We use our imagination to transport us back in time. Swimming down companionways of shipwrecks where passengers once strolled leaves us with romantic images of ocean travel, or, as in the case of Truk Lagoon, remind us of the devastating consequences of war.

Sankisan Maru truk lagoon

Aircraft parts are packed in the hold of Sankisan Maru, including an engine cowling from a Mitsubishi Zero fighter plane.

Michael Gerken

Entering the dark, tight spaces of an engine room stokes feelings of stifling heat and appalling work conditions.

nippo maru truk lagoon

Divers explore the engine room of the former transport ship Nippo Maru.

Michael Gerken

For some of us, as we explore a shipwreck, we visualize the vessel’s moment of destruction and what it must have been like to be there.

We picture torpedoes ripping through steel hulls, with torrents of water rushing into the wounded vessel, or a ship being torn apart in a violent storm and sent to the bottom. These macabre thoughts are not met with excitement but with due respect and solemnity.

Some wreck divers often wonder, Do the anguished souls of the crew and passengers who perished haunt those who dare to explore the shipwreck’s remains? If you dive wrecks long enough, you will hear tales of divers who were left with a bone-chilling feeling of this sort. Some indicate there was merely an eerie mood cast over a wreck, while others have suggested they saw something down there that they can’t explain.

hoki maru trucks truk lagoon

Trucks packed in a hold of the cargo ship Hoki Maru.

Michael Gerken

I have been wreck diving for most of my 25-year dive career, spending more than 10 of those years in Chuuk, Micronesia — the location of the Japanese wrecks of Truk Lagoon.

truk lagoon map

Sport Diver Editors

Many of these wrecks met a fiery end, with heavy casualties, when attacking U.S. planes bombed and sank them during World War II. The ghost ships of Truk Lagoon, as they have come to be known, have numerous stories of the strange and inexplicable.

One diver recalls a moment while penetrating a section of one of the wrecks. He looked behind him to see that his dive buddy did not enter the wreck with him but was hovering cautiously outside. After the dive, when asked why he didn’t enter, the dive buddy said he saw too many lights and divers inside and thought it was too crowded. The diver who had entered was absolutely sure he was by himself.

truk lagoon mask

A gas mask in a Nippo Maru cargo hold

Michael Gerken

Others have reported seeing dark, human-like images moving fast in and out of the shadows of the wreck. Is it nitrogen narcosis, an overactive imagination or something more fantastic?

If you speak to some of the local dive guides in Chuuk, there is absolutely no second-guessing what is being seen. They will tell you with a matter-of-fact tone that they are sea ghosts — the souls of those who have perished. Some of the sea ghosts can cause illnesses requiring a type of exorcism to rid the body of them. There are bad sea ghosts and good ones — or so I have been told. Many years ago, while I worked on a liveaboard in Truk Lagoon, we hired a local man as the new assistant engineer.

He was a hardworking, talented individual who was excited at the prospect of working on board. It was a coveted job. However, after one week the man approached me and expressed his sorrow that it wasn’t going to work out.

truk lagoon facts

Sport Diver Editors

When I asked why, he merely said: “It’s the sea ghosts from the wrecks.” He wasn’t even a diver but still experienced a presence on board the boat. I did not pry further and respected his feelings on the matter.

During the initial raids on Truk Lagoon in February 1944, there were estimates of up to 2,000 Japanese casualties due to the sinkings. One ship, Aikoku Maru, met its end when a massive explosion ripped apart the entire forward half of the 500-foot-long vessel. More than 700 army personnel and crew were killed instantly in the grisly explosion. For decades, the bones of the dead were piled high inside the ship.

During the 1990s, Japanese divers returned to Chuuk to reclaim the human remains from the wrecks, such as those on Aikoku Maru. The prominent religion in Japan is Shinto, which specifies that the souls of the dead will not be released until given a proper funeral.

The bones were collected from the Aikoku as well as numerous other wrecks, prayers were made, and the remains cremated in a pyre on the town dock, thus releasing the souls. However, not all of the remains have been reclaimed from the wrecks. Many of the sailors are still in the depths of the sea.


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Is this simply the makings of a ghostly movie plot, or is it something based in reality? Regardless of what you believe, the fate of the shipwreck victims is very real.

Laws should be abided by and respect given when visiting or diving upon any gravesite. In doing so, it not only honors the dead, but also the living who still mourn their loss.

— Underwater photographer and cinematographer Michael Gerken captained the luxury liveaboard Truk Odyssey and North Carolina-based vessel Midnight Express.

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