Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: eljefino
Interestingly the wreck remains property of the Navy and so there'd be no salvage/ financial reason for finding it. Mr. Allen did it out of his own billionaire curiosity/ goodness/ hobby.
I'm happy it remains property of the USN. The ship should remain where it is, as it is, untouched. It is and should remain hallowed grounds.
Hopefully that would be the case for German, Japanese, etc ships as well.
I know there's lots of treasure hunting of much older shipwrecks in the Caribbean (likely most are non-combatants, though there are some from, say, the CW era), where there is opportunity for gold coinage. But in reality anyplace where people went down, in war or otherwise, should be left alone other than some very basic observation/mapping, IMO.
Originally Posted By: Linctex
It is 18,000 feet down!
Who are you worried is going to disturb/tamper with it?
Deep submergence vessels are becoming more prevalent as unmanned, autonomous technologies, as well as better performing energy storage is available. Still not in the grasp of non-billionaires. But the concern falls if/when wrecks are in shallower/more accessible waters.