Prinz Eugen

Prinz Eugen led a charmed war. Commissioned in 1940, she sailed with Bismarck into the Denmark Strait action, ran the Channel Dash, and finished the war afloat — the only major German warship to do so in fighting condition. Handed to the US Navy as a prize, she was assigned to Operation Crossroads and survived both the Able and Baker blasts of July 1946 at Bikini with her hull essentially sound. Her end was quieter and stranger: towed to Kwajalein Atoll with a radiologically contaminated hull that crews could not safely maintain, she took on water through minor leaks no one could stop, heeled over through the autumn, and capsized onto a reef off Enubuj on 22 December 1946. She lies there today, upside down with her stern works near the surface — one propeller was raised in 1978 and stands at the Laboe Naval Memorial in Germany — and in 2018 a US–NOAA operation drained roughly 250,000 gallons of oil from her bunkers. The Scuba Atlas lists her with the Bikini fleet she belonged to; the dive itself happens at Kwajalein, subject to US Army and Marshallese access arrangements.

How she sank: Survived both Bikini atomic tests, was towed to Kwajalein Atoll, and capsized there from uncontrolled leaks on 22 December 1946.

Condition: Whole but inverted, gradually settling; the 2018 defueling removed the main pollution threat. Her Bikini radiation exposure has long since ceased to be a practical concern for external diving.

Penetration: Limited. An inverted warship is a maze turned wrong way up; interior forays belong to technical divers with lines, and casual entry has no place here. Entering any overhead environment requires specific training — a wreck certification at minimum, technical wreck training for full penetration.

Recommended certification: Advanced Open Water for the exterior

Current: Mild · Visibility: 15–30 m

Marine life: Corals and clams stud the upturned hull plates, reef fish crowd the shallow rudders, and turtles graze along the torpedo-tube sponsons.

Hazards: Entanglement on wartime fittings, overhead geometry everywhere, and access rules that change — arrange permissions before travel.

She remains US government property inside a controlled atoll; diving is arranged locally at Kwajalein rather than freely bookable.

War-prize or not, she is a protected historic hull — take nothing.