The map above shows many (but not all of) of the ships sunk during World War 2. The map was created by Rean Monfils and combines the Geographic Information System (GIS) database of Asian Pacific shipwrecks with the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian Ocean (AMIO) WWII shipwreck database.
The GIS database has records of 3,800 vessels lost in WWII while the AMIO database has records of a further 3,950 vessels. The combined total of WWII shipwrecks stands at 7,807 vessels worldwide according to The Global Risk of Marine Pollution from WWII Shipwrecks:Examples from the Seven Seas.
Obvious omissions from the map include Hawaii (location of Pearl Harbor), Midway and many missing ships from the Baltic Sea campaigns. This is presumably due to the fact that these wrecks are not part of either database at the time of the maps creation (2004).
To learn more have a look at the following books:
- SS Thistlegorm: WW2’s Greatest Shipwreck
- In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors
- Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II
- Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
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