In Turkey, an underwater park takes visitors to the wreckage of 14 British and French warships sunk in the Dardanelles during World War I. The site, located on the Gallipoli Peninsula in northwestern Turkey, was the scene of a fierce battle between the Entente forces on the one hand and the German-backed Ottoman Empire on the other. Remains of sunken British and French warships today lie on the seabed and attract amateur divers and photographers in their ghostly atmosphere. The 150 km-long underwater park is like a “time machine that takes us back to 1915,” diver Savas Caracas said in an interview with AFP.
Access to the area was restricted until 2017, recalls Ismail Kasdemir, president of the historic Canakkale site. Now, however, the curious attraction is already part of the list of interesting underwater sites around the world, offering diving opportunities. Such are the Chuyuk Lagoon in the island nation of Micronesia, with its dozens of wreckage of Japanese ships sunk during World War II, or the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, a former US nuclear test site popular today among divers with the wreckage of US ships as well. from the time of World War II. The first stage for divers from the Turkish underwater park begins at a depth of 24 meters, where they can see the royal British battleship HMS Majestic, 120 meters long, torpedoed by a German submarine, which still carries its combat arsenal. Next is the sunken HMS Triumph, which sank with its crew and 73 officers on board. As is known from the history of the Dardanelles, the Battle of Gallipoli broke out in 1915, when Entente forces attacked the Ottoman Empire and Germany with the intention of conquering the strait, but were repulsed and claimed tens of thousands of lives.
