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. Scuba Guide 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.