Operation Davy Jones' Locker (or Davey) was a U.K. and U.S. military operation from 1946 to 1948. It involved the dumping at sea of captured German chemical weapons following the end of
World War II.
Background
In the aftermath of the Nazi defeat in World War II, the occupying allies found large amounts of stockpiled German
chemical weapons. They quickly convened the
Continental Committee on Dumping and came to agreement pertaining to the destruction and disposal of the chemical stockpile. The allies decided that each of the four nations would destroy the German weapons, on their occupied territory, in whatever manner was most convenient. A total of 296,103 tons of chemical weapons were found, divided amongst each of the four zones of
occupied Germany.
[Chepesiuk, Ron. "A Sea of Trouble?"]
Google books link
'' Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'', September 1997, pp. 40-44, Vol. 53, No. 5, (ISSN 0096-3402). The name refers to
Davy Jones' Locker, an
idiom
An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...
for the sea bottom.
Operation
The United States undertook Operation Davy Jones' Locker between June 1946 and August 1948, and it involved the
scuttling of 38 ships containing between 30,000 and 40,000 tons of captured German chemical weapons.
[Kaffka, Alexander V. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Scientific Affairs Division. ''Sea Dumped Chemical Weapons: Aspects, Problems, and Solutions'',]
Books link
, Springer, 1996, pp. 31-38,(). Nine of the ships were scuttled in
Skagerrak Strait in the
Baltic Sea while two more were sunk in the
North Sea.
[Kassim and Barceló state that just two of the ships were sunk in the Baltic Sea, both in Skagerrak Strait.] The eleven ships were scuttled over the course of five separate dumpings in the region of Scandinavia.[
]
See also
* Germany and weapons of mass destruction
*Ocean disposal of radioactive waste
From 1946 through 1993, thirteen countries used ocean disposal or ocean dumping as a method to dispose of nuclear/radioactive waste with an approximation of 200,000 tons sourcing mainly from the medical, research and nuclear industry.
The waste ma ...
* Operation Sandcastle
Notes
References
*Kassim, Tarek A. and Barceló, Damià. ''Environmental Consequences of War and Aftermath'',
Google Books link
, Springer, 2009, p. 9, ().
{{U.S. chemical weapons
Davy
Davy may refer to:
* Davy (given name)
* Davy (surname)
* Davy lamp, a type of safety lamp with its flame encased inside a mesh screen
* Davy, West Virginia, United States, a town
* Davy Sound, Greenland
* Davy (crater), a crater on the moon
...
Davy
Davy may refer to:
* Davy (given name)
* Davy (surname)
* Davy lamp, a type of safety lamp with its flame encased inside a mesh screen
* Davy, West Virginia, United States, a town
* Davy Sound, Greenland
* Davy (crater), a crater on the moon
...
Davy
Davy may refer to:
* Davy (given name)
* Davy (surname)
* Davy lamp, a type of safety lamp with its flame encased inside a mesh screen
* Davy, West Virginia, United States, a town
* Davy Sound, Greenland
* Davy (crater), a crater on the moon
...