Story highlights Three Dutch WWII shipwrecks have disappeared from the Java Sea

The ships were sunken by Japanese naval fleets during the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942

Illegal divers are suspected of plundering the war wrecks for salvage metals

(CNN) Several World War II shipwrecks have vanished from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, prompting the British and Dutch governments to seek answers.

Divers first found the WWII wrecks -- which were declared war graves -- off the coast of Indonesia in 2002.

According to the Guardian , the Dutch Ministry of Defense confirmed that the wrecks of cruisers HNLMS De Ruyter (6,545 tons) and HMLMS Java (6,670 tons) and destroyer HMLMS Kortenaer (1,316 tons) were found missing during a expedition to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Java in 2017.

Though divers used underwater photography and sonar to find traces of where the ships had been, both cruisers and vast parts of the destroyer had disappeared from the bottom of the Java Sea.

HMS EXETER (British Cruiser, 1929)

The Guardian also reported that two British ships, the heavy 8,390-ton cruiser HMS Exeter and the 1,405-ton destroyer HMS Encounter, and one US Navy submarine had also gone missing. HMS Electra, a 1,405-ton British destroyer, has also been scavenged though a chunk of that wreck still remains.

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