The leader of the salvage operation for the Japanese training ship Ehime Maru confirmed Thursday that the U.S. Navy expects to recover no more than seven of the nine Japanese lost when the ship was hit and sunk by a surfacing U.S. submarine off Hawaii in February.
"By the placement of those individuals as they were last seen, we have probably a fairly strong likelihood that some of them are not aboard the ship" when it rapidly sank, Rear Adm. William Klemm said at a news conference. "There is a distinct possibility that several are lost (at sea)."
Klemm, the U.S. Navy's deputy chief of staff for fleet maintenance, is in charge of efforts to move the sunken ship from its position 600 meters below sea level to a shallow shoal near the Honolulu airport. Divers will then search the ship for remains and personal effects.
While Klemm expects to recover those spotted on the lowest decks, where they likely became trapped during the ship's rapid descent, he believes several others seen on the upper decks are likely to be lost at sea.