THE PHILIPPINES: Ten Years After

In Manila Bay last week, a motor launch carrying Philippine Vice President Carlos P. Garcia and Japanese Representative Toshio Urabe chugged out to the sunken hulk of the Japanese freighter Seiwa Maru, one of the rusty eyesores that litter Manila’s harbor and menace navigation. Urabe solemnly scattered flowers on the glistening waters in memory of the Japanese soldiers and sailors who went down with their ships, under some of the most destructive bombing by the U.S. Navy in World War II. Then a representative of seven Japanese salvage companies poured out an urnful of sake as an offering to the sea god for the safety of the divers who would soon be working there.

The ceremony marked the official start, just three days shy of ten years after Japan’s surrender on the U.S.S. Missouri, of salvage work on 59 ships sunk in Philippine waters: 48 in Manila Bay, eleven in Cebu. Japan sent a salvage task force of 149 craft to do the job, a small but symbolic part of Japan’s reparation payment to the Philippines. While the two nations continue to haggle over reparations, the salvage work will proceed, and its cost, about $6,500,000, will be credited to Japan’s total debt. The scrap iron will be turned over to the Philippines.

The salvage men’s trickiest task will be the raising of the light cruiser Kiso, sunk in Manila Bay in November 1944, by U.S. aerial torpedoes. Listing to starboard, her bow in the air and her stern in 25 ft. of mud, the Kiso lies with her ammunition magazines intact.