[imagesource: ANNnewsCH / YouTube]

Volcanic activity in the sea around Japan’s Ogasawara Islands has lifted sunken “ghost ships” from the depths of the ocean.

The warships date back to the 1940s, having been used as part of the American assault on Iwo Jima in a battle that is considered one of the bloodiest of World War II.

The vessels lay decomposing around 1 200 kilometres south of Tokyo, close to the island of Iwo Jima, a volcanic island in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.

People have known about the existence of these ships for some time. Now, like a real Halloween display from the depths of history, the hulls of the ships have popped to the surface:

Image: Kadena Air Base

The Independent has more:

The ships – transport vessels captured by the US Navy – were deliberately sunk close to the shoreline at the end of the battle in order to provide a sheltered makeshift port for American troops.

Now, with eruptions at the Fukutoku-Okanoba volcano on 13 August having formed a new island, 24 ships have been exposed again.

Here’s a shot from Google Earth:

Image: Google Earth

Setsuya Nakada of the National Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience spoke to TV Asahi:

[He said] that he doubted the new island would exist for long as the new rock deposits had been observed collapsing. The demise of the island could see the sunken ships submerged once more.

He added: “Iwo Jima is the most rapidly changing volcano among the 110 active volcanoes in Japan … especially at this time of year, Nishinoshima, Fukutoku Okanoba, and Iwo Jima are all active.”

Japanese reporters and experts flew over the area to see what was going on, and spotted the ghostly-looking ships.

Check out the whole scene in this video:

I bet this only scratches the surface of what can be found lying at the bottom of the ocean.

[source:independent]