the ship to be scuttled. As a result, Exeter began listing to port, and that list was said to be at "a considerable angle" by the time the abandonment was completed. Sensing a kill, the Japanese destroyers closed in and fired torpedoes, two of which (out of a total of 18 fired by Japanese combatants) from the destroyer , hit the ship – starboard amidships, and starboard just forward of A turret, as confirmed when the wreck was first discovered in 2007. As a result, Exeter rapidly righted herself, paused briefly, and then capsized to starboard. Encounter and Pope were also lost; Encounter approximately fifteen minutes after Exeter, while Pope temporarily survived the initial melee, only to be sunk a couple of hours later. Bomb-laden B5N Type-97s armed with one 250kg and four 60kg bombs assisted in the sinking of Pope, already crippled by bombing from seaplanes and land-based air, and closed in to make a level bombing attack. No direct hits were scored, but several more near-misses hastened the abandonment and scuttling of the vessel and she was finished off by gunfire with the late arrival of the two IJN cruisers Ashigara and Myoko. The Japanese rescued 652 men of the crew of the Exeter, including her captain, who became prisoners of war. Of these men, 152 died in Japanese captivity. Wreck site The wreck was located and positively identified by a small group of dedicated exploration divers specifically searching for the wreck aboard MV Empress on 21 February 2007. The wreck was lying in Indonesian waters at a depth of about , north-west of Bawean Island – some from the estimated sinking position given by Captain Gordon after the war. In July 2008, HMS performed a memorial service over the wreck of Exeter. Aboard, along with several British dignitaries and high ranking naval officers, were a BBC film crew and four of HMS Exeters veteran survivors, and one of the 2007 wreck discovery dive team representing the other three dive team members. Her wreck, a British war grave, had been destroyed by illegal salvagers by the time another expedition surveyed the site in 2016. References Bibliography Further reading External links York-class cruisers Ships built in Plymouth, Devon 1929 ships World War II cruisers of the United Kingdom Battle of the River Plate World War II shipwrecks in the Java Sea Maritime incidents in March 1942