Hmm, lets consider... Pearl Harbor Attack USS Arizona, 1177 dead. Topside equipment salvaged. Memorial/museum. USS Oklahoma, 420 dead. Salvaged, returned to service USS West Virginia, 105 dead, Salvaged, returned to service USS California, 100 dead, Salvaged, returned to service Civil War CSS Hunley submarine, 21 dead. Sunk three times, salvaged three times. Musuem display. USS Monitor, 16 dead, Salvaged to museum. (HMS) Mary Rose, 465 dead, The Solent 1545, Salvaged to museum. Apparently salvaging wrecks where men died is NOT illegal, immoral or jinxed.
Refloating or salvaging parts from warships in a time war is quite different than a civilian passenger ship lost at sea due to an accident. I remember reading somewhere about how in, as I recall, Eastern Europe it was customary to bury military veterans with their weapons. In desperate times the graves would be opened to retrieve those weapons. In any other time the opening of graves to take articles buried with the dead would be considered grave robbing. Desperate times call for desperate measures. If the radio on the Titanic held the means to communicate with someone to save lives then we should absolutely attempt to retrieve that radio. Then once the issue that called for the radio to be retrieved is resolved we should consider making an attempt to return the radio to the site.
