DIVE SITE NUMBER 2 :
Georges wreck
200 Ton Japanese Mine weeper - 70 m / 230 feet long . Top of the wreck is only at 14 m depth and bottom going above 60 m .
George Tyers was a trained hard hat diver who worked with the 13th Works and Parks Company in Finschhafen which is in Marobe Province during the War. In 1968 he came to Rabaul and ran the Rabaul Garage. In 1970 he started salvage diving with Pat Roberts. When he was in Australia one time, George met an Australian who was a pilot with the Royal Australian Air Force during the War. The pilot told George how he had bombed a Japanese freighter on the northern side of Rabaul during the War. When he returned to Rabaul, George went to the area to the immediate north of Rabaul.
Using the pilot's description, he found what he thought was the location and he went for a snorkel. He soon discovered the ship; it is located only a short distance from the small bay and is only 10 metres under the surface. From that day on, the wreck became known as "George's Wreck". It is still known as that as no-one has yet been able to identify the ship for certainty, although there is a possibility as I will show later. In June 1973 Fritz Herscheid, a salvage diver based in Rabaul, started negotiations with the Papua New Guinea authorities to obtain the salvage rights to George's Wreck. On 6 August 1973 he was granted the rights. His main reason was to use this wreck to "launder" the 60 tons of metal that he had salvaged from other wrecks that he did not have the rights to! Fritz considered that the small size of George's Wreck was really not worth the salvage effort, but he had to be seen to dive and do some work on the wreck so that he could claim that he got all the metal from it. He worked the wreck normally on his own, but at times he was assisted by his brother Peter, Tony Bryan, Don Lawton and Doug Doodson. He decided to blow open the wreck at the engine room, not from the outside as is the norm, but from inside. This way used less explosives and also, he wanted to minimize the explosion as the hold behind the engine room contained a huge number of mines. Fritz put the explosives in three and four foot lengths of old discarded three inch fire hose. The explosive was AN90 which had been delivered in a 300 pound package to him. Each length of fire hose had the explosive added together with sand. This was to weigh the package down. Each end was secured with rubber bands made from bicycle inner tubes. On one day he did three bounce dives to the wreck and took all the explosive packages to the deck of the wreck.
The next day he went back to the wreck and as he descended, he saw that the bow had bare metal and lots of the coral was missing. He dropped over the bow and immediately saw that the bow gun was gone. He swam further down the wreck and found the gun on the deck in front of the bridge. Someone had dived the wreck soon after he had put all the explosives on the wreck, stolen some and used it to try to remove the gun. A few days later Fritz discovered that the someone was Ian Short. Why he had destroyed the picturesque bow gun remains a mystery.
The actual name of the vessel is unknown and it has become known as Georges wreck, named after George Tyers, rumored to be the first non-local diver to dive the wreck. Located just a few metres from shore at Nordup to the north of Korere Bay she lies upright on the near vertical reef slope with her bow at 15 metres, stern at 60 metres + and the bridge area intact at 35 metres.
Rumors of her sinking included scuttling, bombing and torpedoing as well as her being deliberately run aground. What I do know about this wreck is that it is a truly stunning dive.
Main information source: Rabaul`s forgotten fleet book by Monica Foster and Peter Stone
George Tyers was a trained hard hat diver who worked with the 13th Works and Parks Company in Finschhafen which is in Marobe Province during the War. In 1968 he came to Rabaul and ran the Rabaul Garage. In 1970 he started salvage diving with Pat Roberts. When he was in Australia one time, George met an Australian who was a pilot with the Royal Australian Air Force during the War. The pilot told George how he had bombed a Japanese freighter on the northern side of Rabaul during the War. When he returned to Rabaul, George went to the area to the immediate north of Rabaul.
Using the pilot's description, he found what he thought was the location and he went for a snorkel. He soon discovered the ship; it is located only a short distance from the small bay and is only 10 metres under the surface. From that day on, the wreck became known as "George's Wreck". It is still known as that as no-one has yet been able to identify the ship for certainty, although there is a possibility as I will show later. In June 1973 Fritz Herscheid, a salvage diver based in Rabaul, started negotiations with the Papua New Guinea authorities to obtain the salvage rights to George's Wreck. On 6 August 1973 he was granted the rights. His main reason was to use this wreck to "launder" the 60 tons of metal that he had salvaged from other wrecks that he did not have the rights to! Fritz considered that the small size of George's Wreck was really not worth the salvage effort, but he had to be seen to dive and do some work on the wreck so that he could claim that he got all the metal from it. He worked the wreck normally on his own, but at times he was assisted by his brother Peter, Tony Bryan, Don Lawton and Doug Doodson. He decided to blow open the wreck at the engine room, not from the outside as is the norm, but from inside. This way used less explosives and also, he wanted to minimize the explosion as the hold behind the engine room contained a huge number of mines. Fritz put the explosives in three and four foot lengths of old discarded three inch fire hose. The explosive was AN90 which had been delivered in a 300 pound package to him. Each length of fire hose had the explosive added together with sand. This was to weigh the package down. Each end was secured with rubber bands made from bicycle inner tubes. On one day he did three bounce dives to the wreck and took all the explosive packages to the deck of the wreck.
The next day he went back to the wreck and as he descended, he saw that the bow had bare metal and lots of the coral was missing. He dropped over the bow and immediately saw that the bow gun was gone. He swam further down the wreck and found the gun on the deck in front of the bridge. Someone had dived the wreck soon after he had put all the explosives on the wreck, stolen some and used it to try to remove the gun. A few days later Fritz discovered that the someone was Ian Short. Why he had destroyed the picturesque bow gun remains a mystery.
The actual name of the vessel is unknown and it has become known as Georges wreck, named after George Tyers, rumored to be the first non-local diver to dive the wreck. Located just a few metres from shore at Nordup to the north of Korere Bay she lies upright on the near vertical reef slope with her bow at 15 metres, stern at 60 metres + and the bridge area intact at 35 metres.
Rumors of her sinking included scuttling, bombing and torpedoing as well as her being deliberately run aground. What I do know about this wreck is that it is a truly stunning dive.
Main information source: Rabaul`s forgotten fleet book by Monica Foster and Peter Stone
