FOCUS: Japanese could be entombed in polluted wartime German wreck

The fate of a World War II submarine, which was torpedoed en route to Japan and contains the bodies of 70 people, including two Japanese men, hangs in the balance as officials debate what to do about a growing environmental threat.

The two Japanese - Tadao Yamato and Toshio Nakai -- were among the German crew and passengers traveling in U-864 from Germany to Japan with aircraft parts and a toxic cargo of 1,857 flasks of mercury.

But on Feb. 9, 1945, the British submarine ''Venturer'' torpedoed the U-boat off the Norwegian coast, causing some of the mercury to be released and sink to the seabed where it has contaminated an area covering 30,000 square meters. Small creatures and fish from the area have been found to contain pollutants.

Ideally, the Norwegian authorities would like to cover the sub and surrounding area with a thick layer of gravel in order to seal the mercury into the seabed.

But environmentalists claim that, given the toxic cargo, the submarine should be raised from the sea.

Officials fear the wreck is too fragile to be salvaged from the bottom of the sea and any such operation could cause more mercury to be released. The government has, however, now ordered an investigation into whether raising the wreck is viable.

U-864 contained plans and parts for the production of various Messerschmitt aircraft, submarines and radar. German leader Adolf Hitler hoped that boosting Japan's capacity would put greater pressure on the United States and reduce aid to Britain. It is thought the mercury was to produce weapons.

British officials learned about the operation by cracking Japanese and German codes, and some of the intercepted messages have been seen by Kyodo News at the National Archives in London.

Yamato was an engineer from Kobe, western Japan, who had been in Germany since 1940, and Nakai, a naval scientist who graduated from Tokyo Imperial University.

The Japanese had studied production techniques in Germany and were traveling home in order to help build the German aircraft. It was one of several secret submarine missions to Japan.

The North Sea between Britain and Norway is home to several wrecks and it was in 2003 that the Norwegian Navy found U-864, located at a depth of 140 meters and about 56 kilometers from Bergen in northern Norway.

An exclusion zone was established around the wreck and a flask of mercury has been found near the boat's keel. There is continuing concern that some of the flasks still on board could leak after such a long time on the seabed.

Tor Sletner, from the Norwegian coastal authorities, said there had been attempts to raise the submarine, which has split into two, but it was too fragile and it could damage the flasks.

Underwater photos show the wreck covered in seaweed, and the bow and stern are 40 meters apart, with the rudder locked in an emergency dive position.

''We haven't located the bodies because we haven't been able to get inside the wreck,'' he said.

Sletner said some of the flasks, which contain around 65 tons of mercury, had eroded but it was not thought any had actually started leaking mercury.

Hans Kjelstrup, of the Norwegian Navy, said the sub's control room, which may contain mercury, has never been found. He said the sub would have contained several pressurized compartments, and there is a possibility that the bodies of some of the 17 passengers, including the Japanese, may still be partially preserved in these airtight units.

If the covering operation gets the go-ahead, gravel will be placed on the area in varying depths from as little as 50 centimeters to 12 meters, depending on the levels of pollution. This is designed to prevent small sea creatures that fish consume from taking in the mercury.

In his book ''Hitler's U-Boat War,'' Clay Blair describes how the Venturer's commander James Launders intercepted the German vessel by sonar while both submarines were submerged about 56 km from Bergen.

''With uncanny skill, Launders set up and fired four torpedoes by sonar and guesswork at 18 second intervals from three thousand yards (2,730 meters), their depth set at forty feet (14 meters),'' Blair wrote.

One or more of the torpedoes hit U-864. Launders inspected the site by periscope, seeing much oil and ''wood'' and what might have been a torpedo or storage canister. On his return to Scotland he was highly praised by his bosses and was given an award for his work.

Karl Vandenhole, who has produced a TV documentary on U-864, said the German relatives of the men were not opposed to the fact that their loved ones might be entombed in the submarine forever. They hope to have a small ceremony at sea if the submarine is eventually entombed.

He said the families did know their men were going on a secret mission to Japan, but did not know the precise circumstances surrounding the loss of U-864 until the discovery of the wreck in 2003 and subsequent research.