Crete

The Messerschmitt BF 109 is Germany’s Iconic WWII Fighter, it is safe to say, out of all the German aircraft, no other is so instantly recognizable, nor so indelible in the psyche of those who are interested in the exploits of the Luftwaffe and the air-combat of those dark years of 1939 to 1945, when the skies over England were crossed with vapour trails of those fighting for their Country and for their lives in deadly mortal combat  

The BF 109, more often called the ME 109 was the product of a requirement for a single seat fighter, in the interceptor role, specifically to replace the dated bi-planes in service with the Reich Aviation Ministry. Germanys’ “Luftwaffe” was still some way off when, in March of 1933, the Techisches Amt (or technical department of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium) outlined the specifications and invited four companies, Arado, BFW, Heinkel & Focke Wulf to supply three prototypes for a head to head performance competition. The aircraft were to have a “…top speed of 400 km/h (250 mph) at 6,000 m (20,000 ft), to be maintained for 20 minutes, while having a total flight duration of 90 minutes. The critical altitude of 6,000 metres was to be reached in no more than 17 minutes, and the fighter was to have an operational ceiling of 10,000 m (33,000 ft).Power was to be provided by the new Junkers Jumo 210 engine of about 522 kW (710 PS; 700 hp).It was to be armed with either a single 20 mm MG C/30 engine-mounted cannon firing through the propeller hub as a Motorkanone, alternately two synchronized, engine cowl-mounted 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine guns, or one lightweight engine-mounted 20 mm MG FF cannon with two 7.92 mm MG 17s. The MG C/30 was an airborne adaption of the 2 cm Flak 30 anti-aircraft gun, which fired very powerful “Long Solothurn” ammunition, but was very heavy and had a low rate of fire. It was also specified that the wing loading should be kept below 100 kg/m². The performance was to be evaluated based on the fighter’s level speed, rate of climb, and maneuverability, in that order” (Ritger, Lynn (2006). Messerschmitt Bf 109 Prototype to ‘E’ Variants. Bedford, UK: SAM Publications. ISBN 978-0-9551858-0-9)

The competition acceptance trials were carried out at Erprbungstelle facility, Rechlin, the newly officially named “Luftwaffe” main testing ground, to the East of Hamburg and a little to the North of Berlin. The 109 quickly outclassed the Focke-Wulf and Arado but was given a run by the Heinkel, which was the favourite of the test pilots, until the agility and superb handling of the 109 and its 20mph speed advantage over the heavier, and more cumbersome Heinkel became the deciding factors. It may have been fortuitous that German officials were aware Britain had already ordered R J Mitchell’s Supermarine Spitfire (a development of the Schneider Trophy winning Supermarine S6) into full production. It would have been common knowledge the S6B held the world speed record at 407.5mph in 1931, making the Spitfire variant likely faster than the 109 which even in 1937 could only manage 379.63mph (11^th November 1937, Zurich: Alpenrundflug Patrouillenflug). The BF 109 was declared the winning aircraft in a report giving clear intent in its title “BF 109 Priority Procurement” and production began in earnest in March of 1936, the public debut of the V1 prototype Messerschmitt BF 109 would take place at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

The BF 109 development in the few years leading up to the outbreak of WWII would be fast and ongoing, only a year or so following the 1936 Olympics B versions of the Messerschmitt took First Prize in the 202 Km Speed Course at the Zurich Flugmeeting Show, and, in the military aircraft section of the show it took First Prize in the A Category, in the international Alpenrundflug and Patrouillenflug categories (Nowarra, Heinz (1993). “Die Deutsche Luftrüstung 1933–1945, Band 3: Flugzeugtypen Henschel-Messerschmitt.” Koblenz, Germany: Bernard & Graefe. ISBN 978-3-7637-5467-0). The BF 109 V13 variant set the world speed record (11 November 1937) for a piston powered land plane at 379.63 MPH, a first time win for Germany. The alignment of Hitler and the Nazi party with Franco’s Spanish Nationalist party saw Germany aid the Nationalist cause during the Spanish Civil War, which had started in 1936 and would, by most definitions, be the start or rehearsal for Germany’s tactics in World War II. Lightning war or “Blitzkrieg” in German would be the crucible within which the Messerschmitt BF 109 was tested and the German fighter pilots of the Condor Legion would prepare, knowingly or not, for a conflict on a much bigger, in fact global scale, by the end of the Spanish Civil War in April of 1939 it would only be five short months before the British declaration of war (in September of 1939), against Germany following her invasion of Poland   

I shall not deal with the wider development of the war following Germany’s annexation of Austria and subsequent invasion of Poland, suffice to say that war spread rapidly and internationally in the manner of Blitzkrieg honed over the skies and lands of Spain. In May of 1941 German Fallschirmjager (Paratroopers) of General Leutnant Kurt Student’s XI Fliegerkorps initiated “Unternehmen Merkur”, in English, Operation Mercury, the airborne invasion of Crete. Crete was a strategically important island from where Hitler intended to dominate the Mediterranean theatre of operations. The Fallschirmjager suffered heavy casualties in taking Crete, many inflicted by Cretan civilians who unexpectedly (to the Germans, who believed they would be welcomed by the local population), rose-up en-masse to defend against the raid. The Germans reacted brutally, massacring civilian populations in Kondomari, Kandanos and Aikianos under direct orders from Herman Goring, the Luftwaffe Commander. It is during this airborne assault that our story truly begins with the loss of several Messerschmitt BF 109’s flying in support of the Junkers JU52 paratrooper transport planes, but we will pick up on that later, first we must look at the 1941 variant BF109’s closely……….

The “E” or Emil variant BF109’s were prevalent in 1941 and were not without problems, despite being advanced technologically for their time. Fuselage mounted wheels meant the BF109 wheel legs were angled out from the fuselage, as a straight down angle would have meant a very unstable landing and take-off from narrow wheel separation. Angling the wheel legs meant a more stable take-off and landing, but a high nose angle with limited forward vision when taxiing out to the runway. In his book “Clash of Wings” (Boyne, Walter J. (1994). Clash of Wings. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-83915-8) Walter Boyne claims up to 10% of Luftwaffe losses between 1939 and 1941 were as a result of accidents during take-off or landing rather than in combat. The E Variant had a small, tail mounted rear wheel assembly, to support the tail on take-off and landing, and whilst taxiing. The E Variant BF 109 was armed with two synchronised machine guns in the nose cowling, above the engine, firing through the propeller (hence the need for firing to be “synchronised” to avoid hitting the blades). The E variant also had a single gun mounted in either wing, the wheel wells taking too much space to allow for two per wing without inflicting bulges and affecting aerodynamics and wing “lift”capability. The later BF 109 “F” variant or Freidrich, removed the wing guns and added a 20mm gun firing through the centre of the propeller instead (renowned “Ace” Adolf Galland had his BF 109F modified with two replacement 20mm autocannon in the wings, so although uncommon, individual modification did occur), the F variant also featured a smaller retractable tail wheel   

It is perhaps prudent at this point to include part of the production run table of variants for the BF 109’s that we will be discussing in a while with the aim of identifying a particular Bf 109 off Crete:

There has been no official identification of the Messerschmitt Bf109 lost off Crete to this day (10/12/24) as far as I know, there have been suggestions as to its identity and that has led to speculation as to who might have been flying it, but, nothing definitive so far……Let’s see if we can get any further, and, I admit, as there were so many innovations and often “pilot specific” (senior, more experienced pilots in the Luftwaffe were often able to dictate particular configurations of their own aircraft) modifications during production runs and as field upgrades “in theatre” this might turn out to be another dead-end…..but let’s at least see where we can get……

In 2004, Ellie, my wife, had recently read a book centred on the Island of Spinalonga, Crete, it was a harrowing read by all accounts and it had been a significant influence on her. It didn’t come as much of a shock to me that Ellie wanted to see the island for herself, there was “….a pretty resort too, the Domes of Elounda” and, after all, I’d never been to Crete either so she was pushing on an open door, or at least one a bit “ajar”…….that was until Ellie casually mentioned there was “a WWII plane sunk just around the corner from the resort”….a light breeze and the door creaked a little wider…..”…a Messerschmitt 109….or something”…….now a gust of wind and the door jammed open, I was hooked, we were going!

I had seen several photos of sunken WWII planes before looking up the Bf109 off Crete, some were no better than engines attached to shards of aluminium, some had more form but again were not much to see, with most sadly left to the imagination, that is not to say they were not of huge importance and significance, but it would be  a lot of money spent to visit stark remains if I visited them, that would not be the case here, there was a full aircraft, inverted, but clearly mostly intact……I couldn’t wait to get to see it. Even the lightest reading on this aircraft opened up questions on the variant and the year of loss, the main of the discussions seemed to push it beyond the Nazi invasion of Crete which started with General Kurt Students Fallschirmjager (paratroops) dropping on Malame Airfield Suda, Heraklion and Canea as part of Unternehmen Merkur (Operation Mercury) on the 20^th May of 1941

The battle for control of Crete ended with Germany being successful, but having taken heavy losses due to Crete’s citizen’s resistance, alongside allied defence of the Island, fighting ended around the first of June of 1941 giving a clear window of likelihood for our Messerschmitt having been part of that operation. Looking at one of the loss lists for Messerschmitt Bf 109’s from the Crete Invasion (Kraker Luftwaffe Archive @ aircrewremembered.com On-Line resource: Accessed 11/12/2024) There are several possible candidates for the pilot, and the aircraft lying submerged off the Crete shore, Hauptman Fritz-Heinz Lange, Kommandeur II./JG77 who was shot down by anti-aircraft fire 23^rd April of that year in the lead-up to Operation Mercury, Feldwebel Otto Niemeyer, hit by flak over Crete on the 20^th May, the day of the initial attack, Herbert Perry was also lost, he was JG77 which was the main Luftwaffe force in the area, although it is not clear he was lost over Crete, Oberleutnant Gerhard Rahn ditched his Bf 109 on the Crete coast after being hit by flak, Feldwebel Karl Straub was killed by flak in the attack in a 109, although, again, the location is “over Crete” Oberleutnant Otto Grobe, another lost in a 109 over Kythera, so not likely our 109, and finally another, also believed possible for the Messerschmitt is Oberleutnant Berthold Jung of 5. Staffel/JG 77 ditching after being hit by anti-aircraft fire on May 20^th of 1941, the first day of the German offensive, another possible aircraft, indeed many strongly believe it is Berthold’s aircraft lying there

Any, even slightly meaningful, look into the background of what I dive or have dived is part of the experience for me, perhaps it is because I have always had an interest in history, even from schooldays, maybe it is because of my Father’s merchant navy past and the occasional trips to Liverpool to see the ships he sailed on and tour the engine rooms and run the decks…….either way it has clearly given me a fascination with the history and context of what I dive! I dived the Messerschmitt 109 in September of 2014 and my Green Navy Dive Log Records: “17/09/14 Hersonissos Crete Wreck Dive on a Messerschmitt BF 109 D shot down in WWII which took AA fire and went down off Malia in 25m tail first. Crystal clear descent to find the wreck largely intact, the tail is gone & the plane is upside down but both wings & body from the tail to engine is there & the prop is just in front of the main wreckage. Engine is intact and the starboard cannon is visible along with a full belt of ammo. This is a tremendously historic & atmospheric dive really touching history – there are only two remaining flying BF 109’s & there are few chances to see – let alone touch such significant pieces of history – awesome!  Viz 20m Air In 185 Out 50”

The reason I am clearly so focussed on the historic nature of both the wreck and the dive is not just the implications of the invasion of Crete, nor the wider impacts of WWII, but the fragility of existence itself, the fact that a mainly aluminium airplane is still largely intact after 73 years on the sea bed, especially after being already seriously damaged enough to have lost its tail, and smashed into the sea at what must have been close to 100 mph, is nothing short of miraculous to me, however, it also begs the question….”so who’s plane was it?”  We can start with the year of the Crete attack, 1941, by this time the Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean theatre were still largely on the E or “Emil” variants before the second re-design of the airframe of the F or “Freddy” version which would introduce new wings, a new cooling system and more aerodynamic fuselage. The F series removed the wing cannons of previous variants but retained two machine guns on the nose above the engine and a “through propeller” 20 or 50mm cannon, the wheel struts were angled 6’ forward to assist in stability during take-off and landing, the prop had a bigger spinner cover streamlined to the engine cowling as part of the aero-dynamics upgrade which also included moving the tail-planes down and forward slightly and removing the under tail support struts and introducing a retractable tail wheel (Messerschmitt Bf 109 variants. On-Line resource: Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_109_variants Accessed 11/12/2024). All of those features are evident from the wreckage off Hersonisos, so it could easily be a BF109 F variant…..

There are those who ardently believe the Messerschmitt to be the later “Gustav” or G variant and hold to later engagements over Hersonisos in the years following the initial invasion and there is still no definitive account, nor identification that has been universally accepted to date. There are, however, certain obvious points of reference on the aircraft where it lies, for one, behind the wreckage some 20 or so meters is the tail section, or at least some of it, and it is the retractable wheel type found predominately in the E & F variants (and likely discounting the G or “Gustav” variant at this point) a larger tail wheel was fitted in the 1942 G models which was locked in the “out” position. Noticeable is the lack of any strut mount locations which should be visible in an E Variant at the tail wheel location just where the wheel strut pivots, as the tail planes were supported (Check “Black 8” an E variant shown in the photo earlier in the piece) either side of the rear fuselage & under each tail plane. This could lead to belief our aircraft is more likely to be an “F” variant…….. although there isn’t perhaps enough of the tail section to confirm this as the angle of the photo could easily be introducing some confusion and there is visible damage here 

As the Bf109 off Crete is inverted and not complete there are other potential identifications that are unavailable, indicators such as cockpit frame type, tail-plane arrangement, motor cowl recesses and some others like engine air filter intake and cooler intake etc, these are missing parts of the bigger picture. It is also not helpful to have no clear evidence from Luftwaffe archives that would confirm one or other pilot’s loss specific to the location, there is another Bf 109 site off Crete in deeper water, so that isn’t helpful either. On balance even the tail-wheel is not “absolute” proof of type as Emil (“E”) variants were the last assigned aircraft to several of the pilots, “F”’s would be later losses than the Crete Invasion (and the Luftwaffe archive does not show specific losses over Crete after 1941, in any listing I can find to date, other than those noted in the table below) however both variants had retractable or “partially” retractable tail wheels up until March of 1943 when the “G” variant abandoned it, as can be read in the Rechlin state aviation test centre’s flight test results (Rechlin E’Stelle Erprobungsnummer 1581. 1943. Flugzeugmuster Bf 109 G-1 mit Motor DB 605A On-Line Resource: http://www.kurfurst.org/Performance_tests/109G_Rechlinkennblatt/rechlin_G1_blatt.html Accessed 17/12/2024)    in the “Notes and comparison with other flight trials” prelude it is stated “The aforementioned Kennblatt notes the increased mainwheel size 660 x 160 being present from February 1943, and the increased tailwheel size 350 x 135 from January 1943, that resulted it being non-retractable and causing additional drag – equivalent of 12 km/h speed loss at Sea Level as per other Mtt documents. These changes in early 1943 were the likely reason to perform the Rechlin trials, to establish the performance under the new airframe conditions. Therefore it is believed the below figures are with non-retractable tailwheel and bulges on the wing.”

Jagdgeschwader 77 “Herz Ass” (Ace of Hearts)

I. / Jagdgeschwader 77 was assigned the role of air-superiority for Norway February 1, 1941, and was given multiple operational locations, Stavanger, Herdla etc in order to fulfil its remit. 1st JG Squadron were based in Stavanger-Sola, the 2nd JG in Lister and the 3rd JG in Herdla flying the Messerschmitt Bf 109 E. They were moved on April 13 1941 to Vrba in Slovenia and again April 16, to Korinos in Greece, with another move April 19 to Larissa, main city of the Greek region of Thessaly, targeting allied shipping off Athens. JG 77 were again moved this time to Molaoi on the Greek Coast, around 150miles from Crete, on May 11 1941 to support the planned attack and occupation of Crete. The first missions against Crete were flown on May 14, to take out anti-aircraft positions defending airstrips, towns and to weaken or destroy allied air cover. “On May 20, the group was deployed over Malemes. Further missions over Crete followed, which lasted until May 28th. Due to the greatly reduced operational strength, the group was withdrawn from the mission on that day and relocated to Bucharest to be re-strengthened” (Jagdeschwader 77 “Herz Ass”. On-Line Resource: https://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gliederungen/Jagdgeschwader/JG77-R.htm Last Accessed: 17/12/2024)

The losses I can find in respect to JG77 between 1941 and the invasion of Crete and 1945, and the end of the war in Europe, are from the Jagdeschwader accounts (Jagdeschwader 77 “Herz Ass”. On-Line Resource: https://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gliederungen/Jagdgeschwader/JG77-R.htm Last Accessed: 17/12/2024) are quoted as “……six killed, four pilots taken prisoner (one of whom returned to the group after the fighting ended), two wounded and 16 aircraft.” a little further research and some very kind and enormously helpful assistance from Kelvin Youngs & Tom Kracker of the Kracker WWII Luftwaffe database “aircrewrememberd.com” details the combined listing as:

Given the small number of German Messerschmitt Bf109 pilots lost over Crete during the period of April 1941 to June of 1945 when WWII was ended by the allies in the Western Hemisphere and, having listed those in the Crete theatre during that period, it leaves us several “more likely” candidates for the aircraft lying inverted off Anissaras. I believe that the aircraft is undoubtedly a Bf 109 E variant, and it is more likely than not that it is either that of Oblt Gerhard Rahm (4918) noted as “ditching along the Crete coastline” 20^th May 1941, or Oberstleutnant Berthold Jung’s (4173) aircraft again noted as “ditching along the Crete coastline” or finally that of Hauptmann Helmut Henz (1271) taken down by a British Blenheim 25^th May of 1941 having “plunged into the sea”. When I dived the Messerschmitt 109 back in September of 2014 I asked the dive guide about the wreck before diving it, I was told that until quite recently one of the old men in the area, an eye witness, could still vividly remember the crash and he had it that: “……the aircraft was hit by flak coming over the hill behind the village and crashed into the sea on fire”, with all that can be put together in this case I am of the opinion it is more than likely the Messerschmitt Bf 109 I dived is Black 13 (4173), lost on the 20^th May of 1941, flown by Oberleutnant Berthold Jung, who, ironically, survived the war as a PoW in Australia, eventually returning to Germany to join the German Navy, reaching the Rank of Rear Admiral, finally retiring in 1973

This is by no means definitive, however it is my belief the most likely of the three prime candidates is Black 13. This aircraft had been proposed for some time, only recently being challenged by divers who favoured a “G” series aircraft, however, I believe that focus to be incorrect. I believe the “Trick of the Tail” here to be solid evidence the Bf109 is an E or F variant and not a G, the location and eye witness testimony, even though somewhat second hand (having been related to me “third person”), points to the initial conclusion being correct, the Messerschmitt Bf 109E, “Black 13” downed by a flak hit towards its tail, flown and ditched by Berthold Jung 20^th May 1941

As always I am deeply grateful to those who have provided photos and assisted with invaluable databases and research with regards to this aircraft wreck: rarehistoricalphotos.com, Neil Robinson, Deutsche Bundesarchiv, diversclub-crete.gr, diveinourislands.com, easydive24.de, Pintrest, Wikipedia, lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de and Tom Kracker and Kelvin Youngs of the  database “aircrewremembered.com” an outstanding archive constructed over a 20 year period by Tom Kracker, an achievement unequalled in WWII aviation documentation to my knowledge

Red Sea Abu Nuhas

Kimon M began life as the Brunsbuttel at her launch from the Stulcken & Sohn Shipyard, on the Elbe River at Hamburg on the 11^th February of 1952. The picture above is the actual Brunsbuttel, which became the Kimon M, I have seen several other pictures in other publications purporting to be her, that have used vessels of the same name, from the same yard, but with a little diligence they can be clearly identified as later launch dates (1955 or 1963).  Heinrich Christoph Stulcken founded H C Stulcken Sohn in 1846, his father had been in shipbuilding in the Hamburg region from 1833 and Heinrich had inherited his profession and eventually rented a yard to carry out repairs to yachts, he moved on to build wooden sailing ships and progressed as did the industry, into Iron ships around the late 1870’s and ultimately to steel ships accordingly

By 1952 Stulcken Werft had become one of Hamburg’s largest shipyards, it was still in family ownership as far as I can determine up until at least 1925 under the hand of Heinrich von Dietlein, the eldest grandson of the founder. Stulcken Werft supplied the German Navy in WWI and again in WWII which included building the infamous “U-Boats” and survived both World Wars, despite severe damage from allied bombings, building, amongst other things, the iconic giant V shaped heavy lift cranes of the 1950’s. Stulcken Werft developed the “Hamburg” and “Koln” class frigates for the modern German navy in the late 1950’s but  was eventually taken over by Blohm und Voss in 1966, having built some 60 warships and a total of around 930 vessels. For those of you who, like me, love to visit the historic remains of such sites, the Stulcken Werft is now occupied by the two harbour theatre buildings, “Theater im Hafen Hamburg” and “Theater an der Elbe” almost directly opposite the Hard Rock Café Hamburg

A fairly elegant ship for her time, considering the prevalence of the war era “liberty” class ships in the coastal trades that had been sold off, post war, by the USA and which offered cheap, but hardly cutting edge transportation, the Brunsbuttel was a general cargo configuration with “derrick” masts (essentially, jib cranes) fore and aft to service her holds, two at front and a second pair to her stern. She was built and designed to be deep-sea or coastal, and to carry a wide variety of cargoes mostly in her holds, however she also had some usable deck space and often timber would be carried on deck by vessels like Brunsbuttel. For those of you who relish the technical, her details are below

Willy Bruns & Company (W. Bruns & Co) were founded in Hamburg in 1950 by Willy Bruns, a fruit trader working primarily in the transportation and selling of Bananas from the Dutch East Indies, established somewhere close to the end of the Second World War. Willy, born in 1904, was 49 at the close of hostilities and, in partnership with two others, owned two ships from Scandinavian yards which he fitted out with rudimentary cooling capabilities for the fruit trade. Business must have been reasonably good as by 1955 he had added two more steamers, this time from Stulcken & Sohn, the Brunsbuttel being one of them. The Brunsbuttel would be with Bruns for just a year, being sold on to become the Ciudad Ce Cucuta in 1953

Cucuta, or San Jose de Cucuta, is a municipality of Columbia, at the foot of the Andes mountain range and now one of the more populated areas of Columbia, founded by Juana Rangel de Cuellarin 1773, on lands owned by Cristobal de Araque Ponce de Leon, and has been known mainly for gold mines, dairy produce and textiles through its history. The Ciudad de Cucuta was registered to the Grancolombiana Company of Bogota who, by 1953, had a not insubstantial fleet of 17 or so commercial vessels, including several from the Stulcken & Sohn shipyard. The “Flota Mercante Grancolombiana” or Merchant Fleet of Greater Columbia, was formed from the first Grancolombiana shipping conference which met in Bogota, the idea of  then President Alfonso López Pumarejo and his Venezuelan counterpart Isaias Medina Angarita, created to form a joint merchant marine company for Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. This was eventually ratified by the second conference held in Caracas In April 1946, and funded with 45% Colombian, 45% of Venezuelan and 10% of Ecuadorian capital. The fleet began operations in March 1947 with 8 new ships purchased in the United States from the US auxiliary fleet of World War II. (“Flota mercante Grancolombiana Historia” Pulido. L. P. April 14 2011. On-Line Resource: prezi.com/otskw1wrdehv/flota-mercante-grancolumbiana/  Accessed 20/11/2024) “…..By 1953 it had 12 of its own ships, it had facilities for technical organizations in the United States, in the three partner countries and in several Central American countries. In the same year Venezuela withdraws from society.  Such were the proportions of the demand that the company was forced to order the construction of 6 new ships of the same type but with greater capacity”

The Ciudad de Cucuta served Columbia for over ten years, from 1953 to 1964 when she was again sold-on, on this occasion to William C Mallas of New York, and she entered service with his Maritime Shipping Corporation (Steamship Brokers Agents & Operators 26 Broadway New York) as the Angela. I can’t find a great deal about this shipping agent, suffice to say there were many shipping agents and shipowners on Broadway and some of the blocks of Broadway had some 600 plus businesses registered around that time, clearly the Maritime Shipping Corporation was not stand-out particularly amongst them. I can find several other of their ships, a couple laid up in the Green River Fleet which we have dealt with elsewhere in this blog (Vassilios T) and at least one other with a Lloyds Register entry or two, but nothing on the Ciudad de Cucuta. This story repeats for successive owners, Malataras (1975) where she sailed as the Kimon & Transmar Agencies (1976) where she was finally given an “M” to her name and became the vessel we now know as Kimon M, as both later owners were Greek in origin (although Transmar is registered out of New York) I am not really surprised at the lack of information, at the time Greek shipping changed owners on an almost daily basis and records are perhaps, if kept at all, stuck inside a drawer in a derelict Piraeus office somewhere……..

Sometime in 1976 Kimon M transferred ownership for the last time to S. Halkias & M. Raftopoulos, Greek owners of the Ianiossos Shipping Co S.A. and based out of Piraeus, (although wrecksite.eu has this as Janissios Shipping Co based out of Panama) she was engaged in general cargo trading until her loss 12^th December of 1978 on Sha’b Abu Nuhas. There is an ancient saying “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts” which harks back to Homer’s Iliad and the story of Helen of Troy, “The face that launched a thousand ships” both coined following the siege of Troy and the Greeks supposed gift, after nine years of siege and dozens of skirmishes with the Trojans outside the walls of Troy, so heavily fortified as to be impregnable. I’m sure most, if not all, are familiar with the story, the abduction of Helen, Queen of Sparta and wife of King Menelaus, stolen by Paris, emissary for Troy and son of Troy’s King, Priam. The war that follows between Greeks and Trojans, and the eventual “gift” of a huge wooden horse, seemingly from the Greek King Menelaus (suggested by Odysseus) and the pretence of the Greeks sailing off from the coast of Troy, whilst the Trojans embrace the huge Horse and celebrate it within the city walls, only for Greek soldiers to appear from it at night, and open the gates of Troy to the revenge of Menelaus and his army. Perhaps the modern equivalent, (at least up to the loss of the Kimon M and Chrisoula K in the 70’s & 80’s) might be “Beware of Greeks, sailing ships registered in Panama, into the Red Sea” 

The photo above is telling, although there are two more wrecks on Sha’b Abu Nuhas which are fully submerged, to the Left of the first Bow, one, the freighter Ghiannis D, another Greek owned, Panama registered vessel, and the far older, Carnatic, a British sailing ship (both covered elsewhere in this blog). I believe this photo adds some fuel to the heated debate surrounding the identity of the wrecks on Sha’b Abu Nuhas, it seems to show a fifth vessel, the one sat intact but hard ashore, perhaps I “want to see it”, but the name, although not at all clear, seems to me to be very possibly “Sea Star”. I will leave that little “hand grenade” to sit & fester as there are those who will be incensed at the mere suggestion, in equal number to those who will cry “I told you so”, for the rest of you, it is just another story you can dig into for yourselves, suffice to say “most” believe there are only four wrecks on Sha’b Abu Nuhas, where some say there are five……….me I’m just a lawnmower, you can tell me by the way I walk!  

So why would Kimon M be under a Panama “Flag” (often known as a flag of convenience….) when owned by a Greek Shipping agent? Why the question? Panama has the largest shipping fleet in the world, despite a population of only some 3 million inhabitants and, although it has two coastlines, one on the Caribbean Northern side, out to the North Atlantic Ocean, and another on the South Pacific Ocean, it also has a rather convenient 48 mile long canal joining those seas for commercial purposes. So Panama is no stranger to shipping companies, and despite only having one shipping company itself, has around 8,600 ships flying its flag, compared to c3,400 flying US flags and 3,700 flying the Chinese flag (BBC: “Why so many shipowners find Panama’s flag convenient” On-Line Resource: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-28558480#:~:text=Most%20merchant%20ships%20flying %20Panama’s,to%20 employ%20cheaper %20foreign%20labour. Accessed 22/11/2024).  Panama realised that the high taxation and rigorous seaworthiness standards required by Great Britain and the United States was a potentially lucrative market for those who’s ships were older, and those who wished to pay less for the privilidge of operating them, consequently they opened their own “registry” of shipping (as did Liberia, Hong Kong, Singapore and several others), open to foreign operators and owners, and it quickly flourished as can be seen from the stats provided above. The Panamanian registry is not without criticism as the BBC piece notes: “…..The registry is lucrative for Panama, bringing in half a billion dollars for the economy in fees, services and taxes. However, critics of the system point to the ease of hiding the true identity of shipowners and the lax enforcement of rules and regulations” I will leave the reader to decide why, at 26 years old and under Greek ownership, Kimon M might have been chosen for Panama’s registry………..

The loss of Kimon M follows a trip to the Turkish Levante port of Iskenderun, where, on 08^th December of 1978, she loaded a 4,500 Ton cargo of Hessian bags full of Lentils from the Southern & South-eastern region of Anatolia, bound for Bombay in India. In a daring and most shameless & tenuous of links, the ancient city of Troy is but a 1300Km coastal ferry ride North of Iskenderun……… but… I digress, Kimon M made her way from Iskenderun under Captain Juan Cavilieri, Kimon M’s Master’s guidance, through the Suez Canal on 10^th December of 1978 and, by the 12th December, she had made her way out of the Canal and down the Gulf of Suez (with Captain Cavilieri spending most of the time commanding from her bridge), to the Red Sea itself and, following a period of rest in his cabin, if this is to be believed, just as he came back onto the bridge to resume command on the 12^th she ran full speed into Sha’b Abu Nuhas……

I have a couple of issues with the navigational skills of the various Captains that have found their way onto the various reefs and outcrops in the Red Sea and surrounding straits, the view above, whilst in perfect conditions visibility wise shows perhaps why, at least in this case. If the Kimon M was on a Southerly heading down the Gulf of Suez, a. the course taken was far too far across to the West, b. even if a “far West” course had been deliberately steered to progress South, then the vessel had strayed way too far South before executing either a correction or a turn, either way, if you are in a vessel heading directly for an Island, any Island, at full speed…….I would confidently suggest, despite possessing only limited personal seafaring skills, that something is very obviously amiss…….

There are several Lloyds Casualty List entries for the Kimon M’s grounding, 13 December 1978, Lloyds stated the following: “KIMON M. (Panamanian). Port Said Dec 12 – MV Kimon M, Iskenderun for Bombay with about 4,500 tons of Lentils, reported stranded near Safaga, exact position still to be ascertained. All crew reportedly abandoned vessel and rescued by MV Interasja, arriving Suez Dec 13-14. (Note Kimon M had passed Suez Dec. 10.)” The Interasja immediately responded to Kimon M’s distress call eventually managing to rescue the full crew, and dropping them at Port Suez on the 15^th December. Kimon M, travelling at full speed, 11 or so Knots even at her age, meant she struck hard, her bow driven out of the water, high on the reef, she remained there for several days and, at least some salvage of the ship’s cargo was attempted

There is a second Lloyd’s entry the following day: “KIMON M. (Panamanian). London, Dec 12 – Kimon M struck wreck in position lat. 27 35N, long. 33 55 E. Strait of Gubal. Vessel requires tug assistance on Lloyd’s open form (See issue of Dec 13.)”Despite the latter appeal for tug assistance, Kimon M would not be re-floated, the hull settling back down after the bow section parted at hold No1 and her remains, as can be seen from Rico Oldfields’ excellent drawing and Holger buss’ cloud point photogrammetry model above

Kimon M was originally known to the Red Sea wreck safari’s and live-aboards as “The Lentil wreck” before her identification as Kimon M, I cannot determine exactly when she was finally “officially” identified, and named accordingly, however it would have been somewhere around 1995 as in 1996 with the release of Ned Middleton’s superb book “Shipwrecks from the Egyptian Red Sea” (ISBN 1898162719) she was reviewed as the Kimon M, when I dived her in 1997 the dive guides had her identified as “Sea Star” and mentioned her cargo of Lentils, we were diving her as part of a dive on the Chrisoula K, the dive is described in my little Red Wreck Book as: “06.08.97 SEASTAR a continuation of dive 272. Seastar was a cargo ship carrying Lentils and stone slabs when she hit Abu Nuhas in 1976. Navigation aids were removed during Arab/Israeli war so Nav-error is probable.We came across her at mid-ships and had a good look over her length from the deck area she’s over to her starboard side but angled at about 20’ there are stone slabs all over her decks, the rigging is partly intact off her bows she would warrant another longer look, a pretty wreck”

It would be 6 long years before I got to dive the Kimon M again, this time on the Blue 02 liveaboard “Blue Horizon” in 2013 with Craig as buddy. We had decided to again dive the two wrecks in one go, although I’m not sure I would recommend this approach given both wrecks warrant a good single dive, our motivation was the limited time the Horizon intended staying at Abu Nuhas and the distinct difference between the two extremes of North and South with the Ghiannis D being the most popular wreck and for good reason

I describe the dives here as they were written in my Green Navy Log: “30/07/13 Kimon M & Chrisoula K – Abu Nuhas – Red Sea dropped onto Chrisoula K we spent time diving the prop & rudder before entering the stern section and winding our way round the battered stern hold area which is collapsing in on itself slowly a long swim from stern to bow along the port side to exit at the break aft of the bow which is missing. Through the remains of the starboard side & hold to exit & transit the reef for a couple of hundred meters to the Kimon M again down the starboard side to the prop & rudder which lie on the sea bed to starboard. We swam through then circled to the stern deck housing and wended through the collapsed rear section which is dangerously collapsed in but can still be negotiated up through the hull which leads to the engine room which was swam through & then back into go through the port side which allowed a swim through and out to turn back at the missing bow section & a swim along the hull to deco below our moored boat Air In 210 Out 80 Buddy Craig”   

I have not had another chance to dive the Kimon M since 2013 and can imagine her condition now will be far more of an issue to penetration in her stern holds and engine room, I loved diving her on both occasions and would have happily spent an entire dive on each wreck separately had time not been limited. Suffice to say, that opportunity will not present itself in wholly the same manner again I’m sure. I love nothing more than finding ways into the less visited areas of wrecks where I feel it is safe to do so, the engine and stern spaces on Kimon M, although collapsing even then, still had great routes through and great areas to ferret around in and it is sad to think they will only have become less accessible in the ten years or so since

As usual, there would be no piece worth writing if it were not for the wonderful pictures used to illustrate it, as such I am indebted to grafasdiving.gr, Rico Oldfield, deutsche-digitale-bibliotech.de, Andreas Hoppe, Howard Rosentstein, Plongee.info, Ned Middleton, divers-guide.com, Holger Buss of Dive3D.eu, experience Egypt, wikipedia and Edgar

Red Sea Shag Rock

The SS Kingston was a ship of her time and that time was a period of profound change, sail was giving way to steam and the time of Iron ships was fast passing as Bessemer’s cheaper and more efficient steel production would eventually replace it for the construction of stronger, less brittle ships hulls……The Kingston was on the edge of technological change and she herself was a part of that paradigm shift. The Kingston was an Iron hulled Steamer and Brigantine rigged, meaning she was fitted with two masts and capable of deploying sail. That capability itself would linger in ships such as the Kingston, longer than it perhaps should have, given the public’s innate mistrust of mechanical machinery, the steam engines themselves, and various and very public early engine and boiler failures and, on occasion catastrophic explosions that were essentially a part of the almost frenzied Victorian era rush for “progress” 

Kingston was built as a “Screw Steamer” in 1871 and launched 16 February of that year by Thomas (Ridley) Oswald & Co, of Pallion Shipyard Sunderland, her “Type” being a general cargo vessel. Sunderland was known for shipbuilding, in fact it purported itself as “Britain’s Shipbuilding Capital” and several notable yards would have been alongside Oswald & Co, notably George Short’s. Eventually trading as “Short Brothers”, George Short’s would become one of the largest, lasting until 1964:  “In 1869, George Short transferred his timber ship building business from Mowbray Quay in Hylton to Pallion. The running of the business was transferred to his four sons and became known as Short Brothers in 1871, the same year that iron ship construction was adopted”. (Pallion, Sunderland in “Short Brothers Ltd. Shipbuilding Yard, Pallion” On-Line Resource: https://www.northeastheritagelibrary.co.uk/features/short-brothers-ltd.-shipbuilding-yard%2C-pallion Accessed 28/10/2024)

Thomas Oswald had anticipated the transition from wooden built ships to Iron hulls prior to the construction of the Kingston, indeed Kingston would be one of his early Iron hulled ships, and Thomas was well prepared, having essentially taken over an area of the Wear-side to ensure everything he would need would be under his own control: (“Wear Rolling Mills, 1870 ‘OPENING OF THE WEAR ROLLING MILLS” Shields Daily Gazette, 4 November 1870) “On Wednesday afternoon, the opening ceremonial of the extensive iron works, which have been some time in course of erection by Messrs T. Oswald & Co., Hylton Dene, took place. The foundation stone of the work laid during the latter part of April of this year by Mrs T. R Oswald, and from the favourable state of the season and perseverance of the proprietors, their officials and contractors, twelve puddling furnaces have been got into working order. The works will cover an area of twenty-one acres, and are situate on the Hylton Castle estate, belonging Wm. Briggs, Esq., High Sheriff of the county. They will form one of the most extensive and complete works of the kind in the kingdom, and will consist of 120 pudding furnaces, two pudding mills, two plate mills, three bar mills, six steam hammers, ranging from five tons and upwards. On Friday last, fire was got into twelve of the puddling furnaces; and on Tuesday afternoon, steam having been got up, the ponderous engines and machinery were got into motion, with the most satisfactory results….”

SS Kingston’s sailing career did not start without incident as her registration documents evidence, even before her Maiden Voyage, intended to be to Malta, she had to be re-inspected by Lloyds following a fire as her final fitting out was taking place at the South Docks in Sunderland. The Lloyd’s report states “The vessel caught fire under the following circumstances Vis. The funnels to the Donkey Engine being overheated, it set fire to some wood work near at hands, in consequence of which the under sides of the deck became slightly charred….”  (Lloyds Report of Survey for Repairs No 10175 22^nd August 1871) Although the Lloyd’s inspector Joseph Keene went on to certify “She is in good and efficient condition and fit in my opinion to remain as Classed…. 90 A1”

So the Kingston eventually left for Malta, her reputation unscathed and her donkey engine funnel now clad in cement and given a 14” clearance in order to prevent a similar occurrence en route, it would seem that worked well as the journey was unreported as any other than a normal passage. Her Master for the Voyage, and many to follow, was Captain Robert Chitham, who would command Kingston from her Maiden Voyage up until 1877 relinquishing her, presumably following her trip to Colombo, to Captain W A Firth at that point. I believe the Master, Robert Chitham, to be of Colchester in Essex, Chitham is an unusual name and there seems to have been a family of mariners of that name, all of Colchester origin, around that time, a series of schooner and Brigantine investors as well as Master Mariners in the case of two (Richard Chitham being another), the most likely, (being named in the Lloyds Repair Report of 1874 as “Rbt”) being Robert Chitham, his Masters certificate is shown below and would have him aged 63 at the time of the repair and 61 when he initially assumed command of the Kingston 

The Kingston was, as already noted, a general cargo carrier and it is assumption at this point to make any comment on what she would have delivered to Valetta harbour on her arrival in Malta, we can speculate, perhaps with some degree of confidence, that her cargo might have reasonably been coal, given that she was surveyed (following the fire at her donkey engine) in Sunderland’s South Dock and, as stated in the engineer’s report of 22^nd August 1871: “ The ship was surveyed afloat, and laden, (except a portion of one compartment)…..”As Kingston had not moved from her gravings until the survey, and the main cargo of Sunderland at the time was coal our assumption has, at least, some merit

Malta was a burgeoning Empire port in 1871, as steam was gradually overtaking sail in both merchant and Royal navies, coaling was an ever increasing necessity, a safe British Mediterranean port was vitally important to the Empire, to this end the construction of the new Somerset Graving docks, to accommodate increased marine traffic and carry out repairs, had been started in 1865 under Lt Col Andrew Clarke of the Royal Engineers. That construction work had involved the demolition of large parts of the local (Senglea) fortifications, and the removal of Commercial shipyards from French Creek. The dock was completed in 1871 in time for the arrival of the Kingston and, although we cannot be in any way certain, it is fanciful to think one of the vessels variously pictured in the photographs of Valetta harbour is actually of the Kingston

The Kingston unloaded her cargo in Malta and returned to Britain, likely loaded with palm products, oils, wines, cloth and numerous other products in demand in Britain at the time, any Empire comes about primarily to facilitate expansion and that expansion requires plentiful materials as imports as much as it does exports. Malta would have acted as a bridge between the Middle Eastern ports and Britain, the exotic produce of the Arab nations would have been a profitable trade for the Kingston and her owners. Kingston would not restrict herself to the Mediterranean ports alone, we have evidence of voyages much further afield than Malta, indeed in 1874, three years after Malta, we find Kingston in Kronstadt, docking in St Petersburg in Russia off the Island of Kotlin. Russia’s hero, Peter the Great founded Kronstadt in 1703 as a strategic maritime defence of St Petersburg, Russia’s capital city at that time. In 1720 a personal decree from Peter the Great stated “Those sailors skippers, who will have goods on the merchant ships coming to the port of Kronshtadt and St. Petersburg, will give receipts of those goods to the customs and, after inspection and rewriting, they can sell them from the ships to whom they want, and with that sale they shall pay a duty on the goods according to the trade regulations, only for the import, and shall not pay any other duty for sale” (History of Kronshtadt: 1720. On-Line Resource:                           https://kronshtadt.net/history/ Accessed 12/11/2024) The Baltic fleet of Russia’s navy was based at Kronstadt and the port city became a significant international trading centre visited by British, French, German and Nordic commercial traders, and, by 1866, there was a British seaman’s mission, which included a hospital, established in Kronstadt

We can find a good description of Kronstadt contemporary to the Kingston’s visit from a visiting Englishman Fred T Jane: “Kronstadt being a commercial port as well as a naval arsenal, there is an English colony there, and this, combined with the floating population of the merchant ships, leads to an English chaplain being permanently stationed at the place. In connection with the English in Russia, it maybe of some interest to mention that at Kronstadt I found Russian officers with English wives, a third whose mother was an Englishwoman, while a daughter of the Admiral commanding is married to a British naval officer; (“Description of Kronstadt”. Jane. F.T c1890 in https://visit-saint-petersburg.ru/jane/ On-Line resource. Accessed: 13/11/2024). Trade goods at the time would largely have been Russian grain, Nordic fish and British pottery and China ware, which had been popular in Russia since Catherine the Great’s time “….Some of the sets were made to order for the elite: one famous example was the Wedgwood “Green Frog” Service created for Catherine the Great herself.[3] Plenty of ordinary everyday items were also on offer to suit the tastes of Russia’s lesser nobility and merchants. At the end of the 18th century, English factories began to produce a range of pieces specially designed for Russia. Among the first such items were, most likely, the Wedgwood plates decorated with images of the statue of Peter the Great and of the transportation of the Thunder Stone under Catherine the Great, made in the late 1770s and 1780s”   (“ENGLISH POTTERY IN RUSSIA. In the 18th and 19th Centuries”. Darya Tarligina. Heritage Magazine Issue #2 2016 in  On-Line Resource. Accessed 12/11/2024)

Kingston would make several documented voyages between 1874 and her eventual loss in 1880, her routes included voyages from Sunderland, again it is highly likely she would be carrying coal, out  to  Aden (another British outpost and a coaling station for her royal and merchant fleets), arriving sometime in 1874 eventually  returning to London, however her cargo from London is unknown, although she shipped out for two more  journeys to the  Mediterranean in  1874.

Kingston was outward via the west passage in 1875 to Cork, in Ireland, and is then recorded as travelling from Bristol to Colombo in Ceylon, (now known as Sri-Lanka) in 1877, returning to dock in Sunderland. These journeys all seem to have been under her Master Robert Chitham, Captain from her maiden voyage up until 1877, when, following the Ceylon trip, he handed her over to Captain W A Firth, likely at Sunderland, which she left, perhaps again loaded with coal, bound for Rotterdam, Holland sometime in 1878. In 1879 Kingston departed Middlesbrough for the Indian port of Kurachee, returning that same year to Newport, where she may, again, have taken on coal which was then transported to Savannah in the USA, the Kingston arriving in 1880

The owners of the Kingston clearly felt the need to distance themselves from the activities of the crew whilst ashore in Savanna, as this notice in the local newspaper makes clear, Savannah Morning News September 29^th 1880: “Notice. neither the Captain nor Consignees of the British steamship “Kingston” will be responsible for debts contracted by the crew” Savannah in 1880 was one of the largest cities of the USA and had been a confederate stronghold in the civil war because of its port, well connected by rail, it was largely trading in cotton but also rice, lumber, molasses & rum. Savannah had been the first deliberately designed city in the USA based on a grid pattern, now common to many US cities

It seems Kingston docked from Savannah in Birkenhead, again in 1880, where the Kingston was handed to a new Captain, Thomas Richard Cousens, and then sailed to take on a cargo at Cardiff, on what would be her final voyage, once more transiting the Suez Canal into the Red Sea fully loaded with 1210 tons of coal for the bunker stock, bound for Aden, held there for her majesty’s steamers

The journey is well documented and describes in perfunctory manner the early stages into the Red Sea as: “….Having passed through the canal, she left Suez at 8:15 a.m., on the 16^th February last, and was kept on a south course until abreast of Newport lightship, when the course was altered to S. ½ E. At about 12:45 p.m. she passed Zafrand Light…..” (““KINGSTON.” (S.S.) Report of Court” https://plimsoll.southampton.gov.uk/SOTON_Documents/Plimsoll/14738.pdf On-Line Resource. Accessed 13/11/2024) Captain Cousens was sure of his navigation and clearly saw no reason to have his 1^st officer check his course, as he steamed further south until sighting the Ashrafi Lighthouse around 9 to 10 miles off on a S.S.E. bearing. By 10:50 the lighthouse was abreast of the Kingston and Captain Cousens altered course ¼ of a point to South at S.E. ¾ S. At 11:45 the Captain ordered the fore topsail set, as the second mate and sailor appointed to the task were returning from setting the sail, and moving on to the aft to trim the yards, at around 11:45 the Kingston struck Shag Rock on Shab Ali Reef

Captain Cousens had almost made it into the Red Sea, Sha’ab Ali was perhaps the very last obstacle he might have reasonably expected between the Kingston and open water, whatever, the Kingston was aground and soundings taken around her put 1 ½ fathoms (9 feet) at her bows, 3 to 4 fathoms midships and 7 ½ fathoms at her stern, Captain Cousens ordered an anchor to be carried out from her stern in an attempt to winch Kingston off the reef but it was unsuccessful, as was an attempt by the passing steamship Columbian to tow her off (previously the steamship F W Ward had offered to take those aboard who wished to leave, but would not assist with a tow for whatever reason, now lost to history)

Despite jettisoning cargo, and the protracted attempts by Kingston herself, and those of the Columbian, it became clear the Kingston would not be recovered from the reef and the Columbian left her, as evening drew in Kingston began to take on water, the next day, the 19^th Captain Cousens, realising further efforts were futile, gave the order to abandon ship, allowing the 1^st mate and 16 of the crew to board another vessel, the Denny & Son steamer SS Almora (a Red Sea transport based in Port Said), for recovery and repatriation. Captain Cousens and a crew of 5 remained with the Kingston until the 20^th when her boilers went out and she began sinking deeper into the gulf, they would remain on Jubal Island until being taken off on the 24^th by the steamer Strathmore, having become perilously short of water and rowing to mid channel for better chance of rescue

I dived the SS Kingston on a Blue O2 Red Sea liveaboard trip from Blue Horizon in July of 2013 and my Green Navy Log records the dive as: “KINGSTON – RED SEA – Off the boat directly onto the stern of Kingston laying hard into the reef and well broken up. The stern is whole with rudder and prop which we swam through – the whole midships remains but skeletal and just amazing – full of soft and hard corals with all the fish of the most pristine aquarium possible. Just what a Red Sea wreck should be after 100 years under water – the colours are fabulous – a huge fan coral by the prop on the Starboard side just a wonderful marine biologists dream. Masts lay across the stern deck area of the wreck and for-ard of the bridge but little left of the front. Wonderful dive – Air In 200 Out 150 Buddy Craig”

Having just dived the Salem Express, Aida & Numidia, all iconic Red Sea wrecks, in the days prior to the Kingston, the descriptive is somewhat more effusive than I would have expected reading it back. I recall the dive even now as the swim through the large prop and its rudder post was very enjoyable due in some part to the large blades and the beautiful corals that can be seen in Carlos Martinez wonderful shot above. The Kingston is a stunning example of reef and wreck becoming “one”, sometimes hard to see any distinction due to the concretion effect of colonising corals, the habitat produced is brilliantly colourful as Kingston is not a deep wreck by any means, the myriad of Red Sea fish give the effect of being the plastic diver forever suspended from the tiny air-tube in a tropical fish-tank……

To date this is my only dive on the SS Kingston and it is definitely one I would do again, if only to run a good Go-Pro sequence across what I know would be an absolutely brilliant dive. Kingston sits perfectly as she is open but retains her shape, if anything I would spend more time looking for evidence of her bow and the chain lockers and anchor, one of which at least should still be around on the reef somewhere. There is definitely one to find off her stern as captain Cousens had it run out by lifeboat or cutter in order to try to winch her off the reef from the stern. The spare prop was still in place just to the rear of midships and is picture-perfect for photographers

The court enquiry into the loss of the SS Kingston can be found on-line (https://plimsoll.southampton.gov.uk/SOTON_Documents/Plimsoll/14738.pdf) and makes very interesting reading, Captain Cousens had sailed the route previously on three occasions, only once as Master, for him to have not used accepted, even strongly recommended techniques of the time to ascertain his true distance from each of his navigational references (Cross bearings and four point bearings) before making course corrections, then we would not be reviewing this dive. The part I find most telling is perhaps that Cousens was a fairly “New” master in seafaring terms, this only his second trip down the Red Sea as Master of his own vessel, perhaps hubris and a sense of innate need to be seen as master gave him to keep his own council and not seek his 1^st mate’s confirmation of his navigation? In the hearing Captain Cousens made a case that local currents had given rise to the Kingston being off-course, rather than admit his navigation was lacking, as he had no corroboration of this to fall back on the blame for the loss of the Kingston fell entirely on him, his masters certificate being revoked for a year, but the court was lenient on Cousens insomuch as it allowed him to remain certified as first officer for that period, allowing him to continue his career, which he did quite successfully, although not without running two more ships aground at various points…….

I will leave you with the profound echo of words spoken in hallow halls: “That the tides could have set the vessel on the Shag Rock, which is the excuse that the master offers for getting upon it, cannot for one minute be admitted, if we assume that the vessel was on her proper course, or even in mid channel when passing Ashrafi Lighthouse; for the “Red Sea Pilot”, speaking of the tides, tells us, page 13, that “in the narrow straits of Jubal, the channel being narrowed by the islands and reefs lying therein, the rate is from 1 ½ to 2 miles per hour, the flood stream running to the S. E., and the ebb to the N.W., or nearly in the direction of the axis of the channel,” but that “within 2 miles of the reefs, the tides are uncertain in their direction” So long then as the vessel was kept in mid stream or to the west-ward thereof, the tide would merely setting her either up or down the strait, and it is only when she gets within 2 miles of the reefs, which are on the East side, and where she should never have been, that the tides become at all uncertain. In our opinion the case of the stranding of the vessel was that she was allowed to get too far to the eastward of her course before reaching Ashrafi lighthouse, and that a course was then steered which took her directly on to the Shag Rock.”  

As always, this piece would not be half the read without the wonderful photo’s and illustrations that accompany it, and I am therefore very grateful to Lea Francis Ellis, The Ordnance Survey Office, Wilfred Coates, The Engineer Magazine, Lloyds Register Foundation, CrewList.Org, Kronstadt Town History, Abe Books, Georgia State Archive, George N Barnard, Arnoux Hipployte, Google Maps, Clyde Ships, Carlos Martinez, SearleCanada, redseadivers, Blueforcefleet, Rico Oldfield and Plimsoll Southampton for the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of giants who went before me!

Ibiza, Balearic Islands

Don Pedro was a Roll-On-Roll-Off vehicle transporter, now more commonly known as Ro-Ro’s, she was built in 1982, yard number 156, at the Santander Astilleros shipyard in Spain, for Transportes Maritimos Del Sur (TRAMASUR) of Algeciras, her keel laid on the 15^th of July 1982 she was launched on the 30^th of September that year and completed fit-out on the 31^st of July of 1984. Don Pedro was a multi-purpose vessel, designed for Island hopping, with areas for cargo and containers, along with her expected lorry and car loads and accommodation for some passengers too. Don Pedro was designed with an area for vehicles both on-deck and below deck, as can be seen from the first picture of her in her early Tramasur days in 1984. Cargo could literally be anything required at the various Islands she was built to service, from containers of general goods, to Lorries of livestock and likely everything in-between. The Don Pedro also catered for a limited number of passengers and had a generously provisioned restaurant with a good selection of hot and cold meals and the usual accompaniment of soft drinks, wines and beers. When she entered service in 1984 with Transport Maritimos Del Sur, (Tramasur), her home port was Algeciras and she was popular with all who travelled on her, lorry drivers, car owners and passengers alike, aboard for whatever purpose

Mainland to Inter-Island Ferry routes were popular in the 1980’s, the cheap travel boom had seen to that, there was hard competition between budget air-lines to fly people abroad for holidays. The Balearic’s and the Canary Isles were popular destinations and it was not uncommon for families to have two-location breaks staying on the mainland for a week and travelling to an island destination for another week on car-ferries such as the Don Pedro, then there were the local islanders, transporting supplies in to sustain their businesses in support of the increased tourism and local enterprise too….This came at a cost though, life aboard for the crew was often fast paced and the holiday season particularly so, the ferry companies needed to service as much of the available commerce in the shortest time possible, ferry turn-around times were punishing and staff learned to cut corners wherever possible……

You may have noticed the Don Pedro is not exactly what you might expect in a Ro-Ro Ferry, her design was, at least from my narrow perspective, “different”? The traditional Ro-Ro design has vehicle entrance at the Bow as in Herald of Free Enterprise, Salem Express, Estonia….several of the dives I have featured in this blog, failures of the design notwithstanding, even the smaller ferries, those servicing the Isle of Wight and those running for Caledonia Mac Brayne in the Hebrides, and similar operations, feature front to rear or front and rear vehicle access. Don Pedro, unusually had a stern access, off-set to Starboard to facilitate her loading up “beam alongside” a quay

Don Pedro worked successfully for over 21 years during which her ownership changed several times, from Tramasur, who commissioned her and owned her until 1989 when she changed hands and was operated by Isleña Marítima de Contenedores S.A. (CIA Iscomer), still out of Algeciras, until new ownership in 1994 by Contenemar SA, at this point her home Port is registered as Santander. Don Pedro’s designers and shipbuilders have a distinguished pedigree amongst Spanish shipyards, “Astilleros de Santander, S.A.U”. (“ASTANDER”) was founded in 1872 by signor Bernardo Lavín predominantly as a as a forge however in 1913 it began repairing shipping locally and in 1922 established a dry dock. This led somewhat inevitably to the yard building its first stand-alone vessel in 1930 this was a success and led to more orders and, in 1950 business had become good enough to require additional space and the original dock was extended to 123 m. Astander took on refurbishment of shipping too, again extending the docks and infrastructure until, in 1957 a 1200t slipway was built, in 1965, the Spanish Ministry of Industry bought all stock from the company, making the yard part of the Astilleros Españoles S.A. Group, and, in 1969 a second and larger dry dock was added to the yard. This ownership continued until late 1999 when ITALMAR, a private investment group, purchased the shipyard’s shares which it still owns today. ASTANDER and the shipyard Astilleros de Canarias S.A. (ASTICAN) are located in the Bay of Biscay and have a facility on the West African Coast respectively, and continue to carry out conversions, refurbishments and ship repair

 In 1999 Don Pedro was bought by Flotamentos Navieros Canarias SL, she and her sistership (Don Fernando) were rebuilt that year in Cartagena, Don Pedro was  re-registered at Las Palmas until being bought by Lerma Sorel SL in 2005, this time keeping her port of registration at Las Palmas. In all that time it seems Don Pedro operated effectively, and without anything I can find that would say she was anything other than capably managed and well captained throughout, no evidence of accident or controversy, in fact she seems to have performed very well for all her owners

So how does an experienced crew, in a refurbished and properly certified (as far as can be determined) ferry, operating profitably for a well-known and established transport company, end up at the bottom of the Mediterranean just off a popular holiday resort Island? I confess, I would not normally dream of going to Ibiza under any circumstances, to me, for over 30 years now, it has represented a sub-culture of teen angst based around musically inept “DJ’s” incapable of any form of originality, pedaling actual musicians creativity, destroyed in multiple asinine loops. It isn’t a wonder those attending such events are encouraged to reach rapid drug & alcohol induced catatonia. But we digress, it was my wife Ellie who suggested we go for a week in October of 2012, both of us were overdue a holiday and I hadn’t dived for a couple of months, and, much to my surprise Ellie had found a wreck I’d never heard of, and one which was stated to be “The largest wreck in the Mediterranean”, Ellie also assured me there was “another side to Ibiza, away from the “Techno Zombies””, so I began a little research……  

On the 11^th July of 2007 the ISCOMAR Roll-on-Roll-off ferry Don Pedro was loading vehicles and cargo at Ibiza, she was due to transit to Denia, a Spanish City Port in Alicante province and the Don Pedro’s home port. Denia is a popular and busy port, known as “The Gateway to the Balearics” with 5 or so crossings scheduled to the Balearic Islands daily, the longest crossing, to Palma, takes around 8 hours so late evening passengers would enjoy the facilities available in the Don Pedro’s bar and restaurant. Don Pedro was scheduled for a late departure and would not sail for Denia until 2:30 a.m, following a busy period loading, and moving various vehicles and 40 trucks around in her holds and on deck, which would have been stressful to a crew already tired after unloading duties on arrival at Ibiza earlier that day

Don Pedro departed Ibiza at 02:00 a.m. bound for Denia, with her pilot guiding the helm as she navigated her way from the Dock and manoeuvred down the short stretch of sheltered water to the open sea. The Pilot disembarked at 2:42 a.m., inside the port dock, between the old mouth of the port of Ibiza and the Botafoch dock, allowing the Captain to resume command with the second officer taking the helm. The Automatic Identification System (AIS) data shows the Don Pedro’s course as 112’ just after passing the Botafoch Dock, the Captain and second officer exchanged course headings, the Captain asked the 2^nd Officer the current course, and he responded that it was 190º. The Captain ordered him to put to port little by little to 180º according to AIS this occurred at 02:45 a.m. little more than 3 minutes after the Pilot left the ship and in that instant the Captain sealed the fate of the Don Pedro……

The Don Pedro, heading out on 112’ doesn’t point the vessel towards Denia, or even Alicante, it points the Don Pedro towards Palma, the travelled distance on 112’ rather than the expected 180’, a route that would have taken the Don Pedro directly South, means the turn instructed by the Captain steers the Don Pedro towards two prominent rock outcrops known as Dado Grande and Dado Pequeno or, in English, Big Dice and Small Dice, I will refrain from any casino puns here despite the obvious opportunity…….. The Don Pedro continued her course, the Captain instructing the Second Officer to put the rudder into automatic mode on the adjusted heading …….

Information from the Spanish Maritime Accident Investigation hearing finalized by the commission 18^th February 2009 (INFORME SOBRE EL HUNDIMIENTO DEL BUQUE “DON PEDRO” EN LAS PROXIMIDADES DEL PUERTO DE IBIZA el día 11 de julio de 2007: On-Line Resource “https://www.transportes.gob.es/recursos_mfom/pdf/ 783B1B8B -CC3A-4C77-9A8D-1BBF55BAF7B4/ 55261/ DonPedro 11Jul2007.pdf” Accessed 03/10/2024) reports that “…….the time period of 3min which the ship sailed on a course of this component, although brief, was decisive in causing the accident, since that when sailing on the aforementioned course of 112º, the ship moved towards the East one distance that, by amending the course and steering at the usual rate – that is, at 180º -, he positioned himself facing the Dice”. As the Big Dice outcrop appeared on the Don Pedro’s RADAR the Captain and First Officer tried desperately to avoid collision…..and they very nearly managed it, the Maritime Accident Report states: “Subsequently, a few minutes before the imminent grounding, the ship fell to port side to try to clear the Large Dice and thus pass between both islets. once free of this obstacle, (it) fell to starboard in an attempt to clear the Small Dice, which (was) at that moment by the bow as a consequence of the previous fall to port. The ship managed to sail between both islets, but could not avoid touching the shallows that surround Small Dado, a collision that took place at 02:52 a.m.”

The conclusion of the Spanish Maritime Investigation falls short of absolute blame on the Captain and indeed of the First Officer, several scenarios are noted as “possible cause” including human error, fatigue and lack of an agreed & documented (prescribed) course from Ibiza to Denia or Alicante, variously attributed to navigation error, poor information exchange between the pilot and Captain,  along with the punishing shifts, & human error implicit in Ro-Ro Ferry schedules between the Balearic’s, imposed by shipping owners, these, compounded by a lack of mandatory documental processes (route planning), and the Pilot leaving the Don Pedro earlier than was usual, whilst still at the harbour entrance, were contributory to what became the largest vessel lost in the Mediterranean at that time, or indeed to this day (October 2024). Was this something of a “Whitewash”, perhaps, on Spanish protocol I cannot be completely clear, it may have been the commission was only to determine the sequence and specifics of the grounding, and that a subsequent legal hearing would then attribute blame accordingly, I cannot find any evidence of a follow-on court case, but there may ultimately have been one? But, and it is a big “But”, the grounding was not what killed the Don Pedro, at least not what dealt the “Coup de Grace”, that lies in events before Don Pedro even left the slipway at the Santander Astilleros shipyard, buried deep in her design, and as in the Titanic, although there were no fatalities in the loss of the Don Pedro, there was a fatal flaw which eventually left her resting on the sandy shale bottom of the Mediterranean between Malvines Del Norte & Dado Grande

The Don Pedro was a multi-cargo vessel, she was also a passenger carrier and facilities aboard included catering and entertainment in the form of a bar. In typical Spanish fashion, both were served by a winery set aside to allow (presumably) temperature and humidity control, or perhaps simply to prevent stock from being interfered with? One can only presume this was a source of pride to the ship owners and maybe even a selling point to passengers, tired after travel and looking forward to a meal and a glass of properly served and conserved domestic Spanish wines or even expensive imported classics……  The Don Pedro had survived the impact with Small Dice and, despite taking on water and developing a distinct list to Port, the side of the impact, continued to stay afloat overnight and that facilitated the safe evacuation of all those aboard, passengers and crew alike

The Maritime Report details the actions taken “…..the Captain sounded the general alarm signal and notified the pilots of the accident, Ibiza requested immediate assistance from a tugboat. He also stated that he observed that the ship was taking a slight list to port, he called the Chief Engineer and he said that they should ballast the two starboard double bottom tanks that were empty, in order to be able to counteract the aforementioned list to port and right the ship. At the same time, the Captain ordered the 2nd Officer to prepare the lifeboat” As in every accident investigation, no “one” cause is usually fatal, it is almost invariably multiple combined effects that cause such disasters…..

The irony here is that, in trying to save the vessel, the assigned tug, although careful to not compromise the stability of the flooding Don Pedro, inadvertently ensured she went to the sea-bed. The commission report goes to great lengths to mathematically calculate scenarios which affected the ship’s stability before concluding that forward motion and continual ingress (somewhat increased by the action of towing her forwards) eventually allowed water to flood the Don Pedro to the extent the open connection between her winery and warehouse 12 increased the list to port which fatally and categorically doomed Don Pedro: “…In this case the winery and the winery are connected to 12. The point of communication (flood) is located in the longitudinal position of 93.4 meters from the stern perpendicular, on the main deck and at a distance of spanned 8.5 meters. This point corresponds to the opening in the main deck that would produce the beginning of the shipment of water, from the warehouse to the winery If the progressive flooding process continued, a situation would reach a limit for warehouse and cellar filling values ​​of 82.5% and 1.2% respectively. In this condition, the shelter cover submerges and stability would be practically zero….” 

The loss of the Don Pedro was avoidable, had auxiliary water pumps perhaps been used in sufficient time, the ingress of water may have been offset sufficiently to facilitate towing her back into Ibiza. However, you could argue that such a combination of events resulting in her grounding on Small Dice, the breach of her hull, her subsequent foundering and her hours drifting at the mercy of wind and tide until attempted salvage later that morning, meant nothing on Earth was going to be allowed to save this long serving stalwart Island Ferry…..I am a believer in fate, the circumstances of the loss of the Don Pedro seem, at the very least, to have been an irresistible temptation to fate, and from “Fate’s” perspective, if you were presented with such a sequence of events, and such an opportunity, would you have allowed  the Don Pedro to have escaped you…..?

The Don Pedro could have been an ecological disaster, some might equally say it was, however, extensive efforts immediately undertaken by the Spanish prevented a tourist nightmare. Vessels were dispatched to contain and limit further potential pollutants from becoming distributed around the Mediterranean “…..The multipurpose rescue ship Clara Campoamor” and the rapid intervention rescue “Salvamar Markab” began the work of laying of anti-pollution and fuel suction barriers in the area of ​​the sinking using skimmers and absorbent material” (INFORME SOBRE EL HUNDIMIENTO DEL BUQUE “DON PEDRO” EN LAS PROXIMIDADES DEL PUERTO DE IBIZA el día 11 de julio de 2007: On-Line Resource “https://www.transportes.gob.es/recursos_mfom/pdf/ 783B1B8B -CC3A-4C77-9A8D-1BBF55BAF7B4/ 55261/ DonPedro 11Jul2007.pdf” Accessed 03/10/2024) 

The ISCOMAR company appointed Dutch salvors to investigate the wreck and appropriate salvage efforts “….Iscomar explained that the work is continuing to remove the oil which remains in the hold of the Don Pedro, which on Thursday amounted to 47 tons. In this respect, the shipping company added that “it is not known exactly how long this extraction work will take”, as it has not been possible to establish precisely the severity of the leaks due to the movements of the ship” (Majorca Daily Bulletin: ““Don Pedro” payments to start tomorrow” 05/08/2007. Staff Reporter. On-Line Resource  https://www.majorcadailybulletin.com / news/local/2007/08/05/16544/ 147-don-pedro-148-payments-start-tomorrow.html Accessed 03/10/2024) The Dutch team managed to ascertain the condition of the wreck and salvage options, including a chance of complete recovery, a preferred option to the Spanish Government until likely costs were proposed. It is perhaps unsurprising that efforts to obtain compensation for the sinking are still in progress until as late as 2013, a full 6 years after the sinking   

Greenpeace pursued ISCOMAR for the unlicensed transportation of dangerous waste, 3016Kg of used car batteries and 12 drums of “potentially dangerous substances” in September of 2013 stating “This lack of control and non compliance with European directives confirms that the management of dangerous waste in Spain is very deficient and has grave consequences, car batteries, they added, have been declared dangerous waste by the European Union because they contain sulphuric acid, a very corrosive substance, and lead, a highly toxic heavy metal” It would not be until November of 2013 that the Spanish Government declared the Don Pedro wreck finally and effectively cleaned  “The cleaning up process took place over two phases, the first of which involved extracting all potentially contaminating liquids from the water. These were principally combustible fuel (oil and gas), paints, solvents and lubricating oil but included other potentially dangerous liquids. The second phase saw the recovery of any further materials which could upset the nautical environment, like oil drums and containers filled with battery fluid”. (Majorca Daily Bulletin: “Don Pedro clean up operation completed”. 30/11/2013. On-Line Resource https:// www.majorcadailybulletin.com /news/local/ 2013/11/30/17252/ don-pedro-clean-operation-completed.html Accessed 03/10/2024)

I dived the Don Pedro in October of 2012 whilst penetration was strictly forbidden as the clean-up had not been officially declared completed, despite the Ibizan Islanders assurances that it had ended long since, my Green Navy log book records: “IBIZA Balearic Islands Wreck of the “Don Pedro” a huge intra-island car-truck ferry not dissimilar from Zenobia. Hit an island in 2008 and went down close to Large Dice Isl I dived it with Natalie from Punta Dive. Down first onto the stern past the rudders to the huge 6 blade modern (twist) prop on her starboard side well pronounced thermocline @ 40m very chilly! Along the starboard hull chine to the bow through a large shoal of 10-15 lb serving dish sized silver fish. Round the huge anchor in its hawse & round to the deck @ 90’ vertical past the bow deck & hawses & on over acres of deck to the bridge area & round the accommodation & bridge wing – all the technology RADAR rigs intact & great to look over. Round the rear cargo doors to the stern & the shot. Could easily do another 5 or six great dives on this awesome wreck largest in the Med! Air In 190 Out 90 Viz 20m Buddy Natalie”

Remembering this dive is easy, I was sadly only going to get one chance on her as the dive centre had committed to other dives that week and this was a one-off opportunity in the holiday, the trip out was uncomfortable, a 45 minute trip in choppy seas which had me sea-sick for the first time in years, nonetheless I was looking forward to diving the Don Pedro and I wasn’t disappointed, she was huge and I knew from the off there was no chance of getting anything more than an overview of her in one dive. I knew a large part of the dive would be finning over her huge deck area, with little to see until we reached the bow, it was either that or stay in only one area throughout and I didn’t want to do that, rather see as much as I could of her in the 45 minutes we would have to dive

The size of Don Pedro is immediately impressive, her condition, after only 7 years underwater, was little short of stunning and everything on her was of a scale that leaves you feeling ant-like. Most impressive to me was her six bladed prop, a beautiful piece, “modern art meets mechanical perfection” sprang to mind and it was easy to imagine it driving Don Pedro effortlessly to her ultimate destruction, although it was far more difficult to see how such a minor impact had doomed her…….. truly a Lemony Snicket tale if ever there was one, the only good thing to come out of this was the saving of all hands and passengers alike, for that I was grateful, there was no strewn luggage, no abandoned toys, nor sunk lifeboats here as there are on Salem Express, a very similar vessel in size and purpose with an agonizingly tragic story surrounding her loss

Nowadays it is possible to enter and further explore the Don Pedro, something I will hopefully, one day, get the chance to do. At the time of my dive in 2012, it was expressly forbidden to enter her and hatches had been welded closed and bridge windows barred across by the salvage and cleaning teams employed by ISCOMAR in order to prevent anyone doing so

As ever, this piece would be far poorer without the amazing photos and illustrations used to visualize the story of the Loss of the Don Pedro, I am very grateful on that account to the anonymous photographer at scubaibiza.com and padi.com for the web photos reproduced here and to the Spanish Maritime Investigation Commission and Ministerio De Fomento for the illustrations and photographs of the loss and clean-up of the Don Pedro and, lastly, to Natalie from Punta Dive Centre for putting up with me as a dive buddy

The Steamship Volnay was a Gow Harrison & Company vessel, built for the general cargo trade in the yards of Russell & Company in the Port of Glasgow, launched on the 13^th of March 1910. She would have an uneventful four years from her launch, until the outbreak of the First World War on the 28^th of July 1914. There is little to indicate her voyages in those four years, save an entry or two in the National Archives, the little that remains includes a collision between the Volnay and the Aetna (Devonport Dock, 31^st December 1916), an iron dockyard paddle tug, (Launched 1.9.1883, Yard No 517, by Laird Brothers, Birkenhead: 530 tons, 128x25x10ft and 850ihp) which served in Devonport, and a log entry for a journey from 14^th August of 1913 to 12^th of October of 1914, although there are no noted ports of call. Volnay was a Clydebank vessel, built by Russell & Company, her keel laid in 1909, she was launched 31^st of March in 1910. According to Graces’ guide (Online resource: https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Russell_and_Co  Accessed 20/08/2024) “Russell and Co of Port Glasgow on the Clyde were ship builders, later to be known as Lithgows.”

There is some ambiguity as to precisely when Russell & Company were founded, the main source of information for this piece, Grace’s Guide, mentions both 1870 and 1873 although that isn’t of paramount importance here. The  Company, whenever actually  founded, was  a partnership between Joseph Russell, Anderson Rodger and William Todd Lithgow, they leased the “Bay Yard”, a small yard in the east end of Glasgow, and it is said (again, Grace’s guide) to have had “…..accommodation to build three ships of average carrying capacity” In the following years Russell & Company increased their build capacity by acquiring a lease for the Port-Glasgow graving dock, taking over J E Scott’s shipyard in Main-street, Greenock. William Lithgow took over Kingston and Cartsdyke (Greenock) shipyards under the name Russell and Co, using money loaned by Russell, and Grace’s Guide has it that: “…. The men still retained a business relationship though mainly through financing and purchasing”. Lithgow’s produced mainly “steam tramps”, typically smaller two hold ships for the coastal trade, this was profitable business and the yard did well. Throughout the early 1900s Lithgow’s yard also made various “tankers” for a number of different companies, they even undertook building more than a dozen liners. During the period of the lead up to, and 4 years of WWI, they built 315,141 tons of shipping, a huge output considering they only produced one truly “Naval” vessel, a relatively small patrol boat. Following the end of WWI, in 1919, the company renamed itself Lithgow’s and changed the partnership to a private limited company

The Volnay was a typical steamship of the era, a robust, general cargo vessel displacing 2928 GRT capable of sailing almost anywhere on the planet. This was the Victoria epoch, a time of unrivalled travel and commerce, Britain’s empire was vast and her colonies both needed and supplied an immense range of goods from grain to oil with everything including people and livestock in-between……. The Volnay was destined to carry many cargoes to and from wherever in the Empire her owners could secure them.

Volnay Specification:

  We can, with reasonable confidence, infer the Volnay was well designed and well-built from a piece in one of the prime mechanical magazines of the era, “The Engineer” who said: “This enterprising firm will, in fact, build anything in the shape of a ship that may be ordered of them; but, all the same, it is as designers and builders of iron and steel sailing vessels that they have mainly earned their reputation. No other shipbuilding firm in the world can approach them in the amount produced of this description of tonnage. Many builders who have won renown for their Atlantic, East Indian, and Australian liners would find much worth studying in the designs and arrangements of the commercially successful sailing vessels turned out in such large numbers every year by the firm of Russell and Co.” (The Engineer: “MESSRS. RUSSELL AND CO.’S SHIPYARD, KINGSTON, N.B.” 4 September, 1891. in on line resource www.inverclydeshipbuilding.com/russell-co Accessed 30/08/2024)

Volnay was following her Blue Funnel peers, (you will find my connection and some more details in another area of this blog) at least in some of her journeys, one photograph shows her docked in Pyrmont (a couple of years before her loss) in 1912. Pyrmont was a dock area off Sydney Harbour, Australia, and the photo below shows the kind of cargo loading set-out on the actual dock itself. There was good trade to be made to and from Australia back in the early 1900’s, the colony required the trappings and luxury goods that allowed her society a growing sense of modernity, and her commerce was a wealth of trade goods from Wool and frozen Lamb to vegetable oils and minerals, all making the incredibly long journey one of profitability in both directions  

Volnay’s owners, Gow Harrison & Company were started by Leonard Gow (1859–1936) who is listed as a “Ship Owner, Philanthropist, and Collector of Chinese Art” , born in Glasgow, Scotland in the year his father (Leonard Gow Snr 1824–1910) inherited the “Allan C. Gow and Company, Shipping Firm” from his brother. The owners had recognized significant advantages of steam over sail with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and Grace’s Guide states: “……..the elder Gow formed the Glen Line to trade between London, Singapore, China, and Japan. Leonard junior eventually became a partner in Allan C. Gow and, following his father’s retirement, expanded the firm and renamed it Gow, Harrison and Company.” The Gow Harrison trading routes were global, they traded to and from Australia, the Persian Gulf, Jamaica, Nova Scotia, Panama…..wherever trading was profitable, and Volnay certainly was capable of safe carriage between any of those locations.

Early detail of the voyages undertaken is scarce, I have been able to find some records, even a crew list for a 1915 voyage in the National Maritime Archives, this lists out a compliment of 26 crew from Master, George Moodie (Seemingly of Aden) to cooks, those comprise a spread of nationalities, notably, English, Australian, Scottish, Irish Welsh, but mostly British on this particular journey  

Another of the earlier mentions of the Volnay that I can find is the 1916 December 31^st collision, whilst at Devonport docks, with the Aetna, an iron paddle tug mentioned in the opening paragraph of this piece. It can perhaps be assumed Volnay was loading cargo for an outbound voyage, possibly to Canada, expecting to return with vital war supplies for both civil and military use. By 1917 Volnay had carried thousands of tonnes of vital supplies, from global ports, in support of the British fight against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, indeed after over 3 years of war duties, it looked like Volnay might just survive the war, that is until Captain Henry Plough commanded her on her voyage from Montreal in Canada, December of 1917, where she had loaded a general cargo including tinned meats, butter, jam, coffee, tea, peanuts, cases of coffee, butter and jam, cartons of cigarettes, potato crisps and 18 Pound artillery shrapnel shells destined for the Western Front……..

Germany were perhaps the first to realise an Island nation like Great Britain is reliant on the supplies of a wide range of foreign nations, indeed the British Empire was founded on the exploitation of trade and conquest, both in the name of “progress” and “adventure” in an age that was boundless in its pursuit of expansion as were many nations before and indeed after the industrial revolution…..If you go to war with a global “Empire” it follows that you want to deny them as much of their access to an extended supply chain in order to reduce their capability to prosecute a defence against you, such it was with WWI, and Germany employed its large fleet of submarines, “Unterseeboots” in German, or “U Boats” for short, to effect a blockade against Great Britain and her Empire to try to shorten the war by starving her of foreign resource, effectively an attempt to sap her will to fight, at the tables of her population, just as much as her ability to procure ammunition with which to attack on the battle front

German preparation for war had been thorough, the arms race between Kaiser Wilhelm and his Grandmother Queen Victoria and her Naval Commanders was an open “secret” with both nations essentially spying on each other’s capabilities at events such as the British Naval Fleet review at Spithead, and in return the German Kiel Regatta’s, (although both sides would dispute clear indications of impending war in various publications), in fact the German Kaiser’s own memoirs would have us all believe war was entirely of Serbia and Austro-Hungaria’s making, that Russia and Great Britain were preparing for conflict, but that Germany was entirely unprepared for war “At the very time that the Czar was announcing his summer war program I was busy at Corfu excavating antiquities; then I went to Wiesbaden, and, finally, to Norway.  A monarch who wishes war and prepares it in such a way that he can suddenly fall upon his neighbours – a task requiring long secret mobilization preparations and concentration of troops – does not spend months outside his own country and does not allow his Chief of the General Staff to go to Carlsbad on leave of absence.  My enemies, in the meantime, planned their preparations for an attack” (Online Resource firstworldwar.com “Kaiser Wilhelm’s Account of the Events of July 1914, Reproduced from the English translation of his memoirs”. Accessed 30/08/2024)

Those assurances have little truth in them when a lens is placed over the rapid increase in size of the German Naval fleet, including its U-Boats….. at the outbreak of WWI Germany had 20, and by 1917, just 3 years later, they had 140. In general Germany was ramping up tensions with it’s “WeltpolitiK” (world politics) global expansion, (or domination if you prefer) view “German figures (1910-1914) depict notable increases in all areas of national development. For instance, German military personnel approximately rose by 30% (67% over Britain), relative shares of manufacturing output grew by 15% (14% above Britain), total industrial potential increased by 80% (8% over Britain), iron and steel production increased by 30% (128% over Britain) and more importantly, warship tonnage increased by 35% (about 50% less than Britain).” (Stevenson, David. “Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy”. New York: Basic Books, (2004) in “THE TINDERBOX: GERMANY’S NAVAL BUILD-UP, THE GREAT WAR OF 1914, AND THE BALANCE OF POWER” Alcantara Captain B.R. CIMSEC 21/01/2021: Online Resource, Accessed 30/08/2024)

To effect the blockade of UK global trade, Germany had developed their U-Boat designs accordingly, U64, Volnays’ eventual nemesis, was of the  UC-II series (an improved version of the UC-I class which were perceived to be too light and too weak). The series comprised 64 planned units, classified as UC16 to UC79, which were distributed across four production yards, Blohm & Voss, Weser, Vulcan and Germaniawerft. The class improvements covered several areas, the draft of the boat was raised to 3.7 meters, armaments were improved, some carried 105 rather than 88mm guns and there were two additional torpedo tubes added at the front, and another at the stern, increasing targeting capability. There were already 6 mine laying compartments arranged centre and front of the conning tower which could deliver 18 mines, 3 out of each tube, additional to the 7 torpedoes carried.  The first UCII boat launch took place in February 1916 (the last in March 1917). Their range was 13,500-17,130 km, which was further improved to 18,500 by the end of the production run. The UCII boats had a reasonably impressive surface speed of 11.5 to 12 knots, with engines supplying power ranging from 500 to 600 hp depending on the individual boat and final engine selection. The UCII class was popular, and their service continued until the end of the war, ironically, a little longer than that of the shipyard at Kiel, which, on 29^th October of 1918, when sailors of two of the Kaiser’s navy failed to return to duty, sparked a revolt amongst the remainder of the battleship & cruiser crews, this spread to other shipyards and, eventually, to local council and government offices, by November 09^th this had caused a national demand for reform, forcing the Kaiser to abdicate, and Germany to capitulate to the allies

Christmas of 1917 found SS Volnay in Montreal, Canada, loaded with vital war provisions bound for the UK port of Barry in South Wales, where the convoy would separate and Volnay would coast hop, zig-zagging the whole journey in order to avoid the enemy threat, on the way to Plymouth to unload. Captain Henry Plough was in command and had overseen the loading of a varied cargo, tinned meat, jam, butter, coffee, tea, peanuts, potato crisps, cigarettes, perfume, timber and 18 pound artillery shells. The trip from Montreal was in convoy, in order to give the very best chance of avoiding contact with enemy U-Boats such as U64. Oberleutnant Erich Hecht had taken command of UC64 on 13^th September 1917, a successful commander, Hecht had already been responsible for the destruction of 11 allied ships, seven of which were steamers like the Volnay. The last ship credited to Oberleutnant Hecht had been the steamer Manchester Mariner on the 04^th December which had been damaged but not lost, somewhere between the 04^th and the 14^th of December Hecht’s U64 would lay some of her mines off the manacles, and, despite seemingly being in a “cleared” channel, Volnay would seal her fate, hitting one of U64’s mines on her Port side at her No1 hold at around 12:45 that evening

 It could have been far worse for Captain Plough, Hold No1 had artillery shells stacked alongside other cargo in that hold, but they did not detonate and Volnay would remain, her engines still usable as Captain Plough tried to run her ashore at Falmouth, that however was a little overambitious. There is a report which has her being supported by two tugs into Porthallow bay: “…..When she was just off the Manacles, there was an explosion under her bows which was presumed to be a from a mine laid by the German submarine UC-64. The bang was so big that Captain Plough and his first mate, 25-year-old Peter Drysdale, both immediately thought their cargo had exploded. In the dark, her captain couldn’t see the extent of the damage caused to his ship but as none of his crew were injured, he made for Falmouth. At this point he did not know if he had been torpedoed or mined. He sent a ‘’sub attack’’ signal and sent his crew to man the old gun at the stern of the ship. She was starting to fill with water and her bow started to dip low, Captain Plough decided to make for the nearest land instead and he very nearly made it…Two tugs managed to bring her to Porthallow on the 14th of December 1917, though she was anchored a quarter of a mile from Porthkerris rather being beached. All aboard abandoned the ship safely.She then went on to sink, with only her masts showing…” (Facebook.com: Porthkerris Divers. “Wreck of the week! The Volnay” 07/06/2020. Online Resource: https://www.facebook.com/porthkerris/posts/wreck-of-the-weekthe-volnaythe-volnay-was-a-british-385ft-4610-tonne-cargo-ship-/10157317305915796/ Accessed 16/09/2024)

The Volnay would remain in Porthallow bay with her masts showing her position, a half mile offshore from Porthkerris, with her cargo coming ashore at successive tides, indeed, Porthkerris divers has it that “…..After an Easterly wind had picked up, her precious cargo started to flow ashore covering the beach with boxes and crates. Boats from Porthallow couldn’t launch and it was impossible to even walk along the beach with the number of crates blocking the way! They contained items such as cigarettes, jams, biscuits, coffee and tea – luxuries that had rarely been seen in the country for the past two years, were piled up to 6 foot high….” Despite the apparent bounty for locals from her cargo, Volnay’s wreckage was clearly an inconvenience to the local shipping traffic, and it would not be long before the admiralty intervened and she was cleared by the Navy and blown apart to prevent further tragedies from occurring

In the side-scan shot (above) you can see the lines of Hull Ribs lain flat by the Navy disposal teams activities of the day, although I am sure tidal influences have played a part, it is evident the intention was to significantly reduce the profile of Volnays’ wreckage. As Volnay lies in only around 17m of water, it is clear, especially with her masts rising above the surface, that Volnay would have been an accident waiting to happen had the Admiralty ignored her for long

The Volnay was officially declared a loss on the 02^nd of March 1918 and the register was closed with the statement “…vessel torpedoed or mined 14. 12. 17 certificate lost with vessel advice from manager per form 20 received 4. 3. 18”….a terse sentence, as is the way of maritime officials with such events, no matter their gravity, and an end to a stalwart of the defence of the British nation

I dived the Volnay with Atlantic Scuba, run by my friend Mark Milburn, who is also responsible for the wreck side-scan in this piece, back in June of 2012, my Green Log book records: “Wreck of the Volnay in Falmouth bay. Down the shot to what was very broken up wreckage – just steel ribs & plates from what was a riveted construction ship. Interesting root round with some Wrasse – Bib & a Spider Crab, some egg cases hanging in the prop tunnel (broken pieces) good fun Air In 200 Out 180 Viz 3m Buddy Andy” Another of my rather terse descriptions of a dive that I found very enjoyable at the time.

I recall both Andy Stringer and I rooting around all sorts of metal pieces looking for anything that would tell us which way the wreck was actually lying. I did not know the wreck had been blasted by the Navy at that time, however it was easy to see that this was more a debris site than most I had dived so far, on similar lines to Herzogin Cecile in terms of distribution.

I was keen to find a discernible bow and perhaps anchor or chain locker location, but, despite a good look around, Andy had got low on air and we returned to the surface with no more idea than we had when we first descended on her.

I have seen many shell cases and detonators that have been recovered from the site, even the bell which went up for sale on the Bamford auction site not so long ago (Feb 2024), sadly we saw nothing of that kind on our dive though, just luck I guess!

As usual I am deeply  indebted to those who have provided the various photographs and background information used for this piece, Michiel Vos (https://anbollenessor.com/), AennaLa, U-Boat.Net and John Liddiard especially. It is poignant to personally remember many happy dives and several dive trips with Mark Milburn of Atlantic Scuba, a local Cornish dive legend, TV star and author, and someone I considered a friend

Salem Express began life as the Fred Scamaroni, a jewel in the crown of Compagnie GénéraleTransatlantique, or CGT, a French shipping company started in 1855 by the brothers Émile and Issac Péreire. The Fred Scamaroni’s keel was laid down in June of 1963, at La Seyne-sur-Mer, and she was delivered to fit-out at Port-de-Bouc shipyards, following which, her finishing touches were again carried out at La Seyne-sur-Mer. Her naming was in remembrance and celebration of a French Resistance hero of WWII, Captain Fred Scamaroni of the Free French Forces, captured and tortured to death at the hands of the Nazis.  The Fred Scamaroni had a relatively successful early career, albeit one that had an ever darkening and foreboding undercurrent from the outset, before her planned service commencement she had suffered a fire aboard, during fit-out, delaying her official launch into service by almost 12 months until 30 November of 1964

The French shipping company “Compagnie Générale Maritime” (CGM) had been established in 1855 to carry mail to North America on behalf of the French Government, from which the brothers Émile and Issac Péreire received a guarantee of subsidy and a contract to deliver for a period of 20 years. The French colonies were growing in North America and in competition with the British colonial interests, frequent, reliable mail services had become imperative between France and her New World colonists. The two entrepreneurial brothers acquired land (not presumably at too much hardship, they were in fact head of the Société Générale de Credit Mobilier, a financing organisation which became the main shareholder in CGM) near Saint-Nazaire and founded the Chantiers et Ateliers de Saint-Nazaire shipyard and brought across engineers from the Scottish shipyards of John Scott to train French workers and maritime architects

There were alternate shipyards already established in La Seyne Sur Mer, however they charged a hefty premium, which the financially astute Péreire brothers wanted to avoid.  The resulting ships engines would be purchased from Le Creusot, a former mining town in the Bourgogne region of Eastern France. Despite a disastrously impractical growth, and exponential diversity of pioneer shipping routes, which threatened to bankrupt the company through poor profitability, CGT survived and eventually thrived. According to the History of the Shipyards of La Seyne sur Mer (Shipyards in Provence “History of the shipyards of La Seyne sur Mer” Online resource: https://www.archives-films-paca.net/memoire-chantiers-navals/interviews-et-ressources/histoire-des-chantiers-navals-en-provence/item/1047-histoire-des-chantiers-navals-de-la-seyne-sur-mer.html Accessed 19/07/2024) : “In 1872, the Forges were powerful enough to acquire the very important Chantiers du Havre. In 1913, they included four sites (La Seyne, Le Havre, Granville and Marseille) and occupied a total of 45 ha, including 22 in La Seyne. Major works led in 1927 to the installation of two enormous caissons to obtain the largest basin in the world. After the two world wars, activity resumed thanks to the company’s recapitalization policy combined with the action of the staff engaged in the “battle of production”, initiated by the Communist Party and the CGT. The site was transformed and the FCM experienced a long period of prosperity until their liquidation in 1966”

Drawing down the unprofitable routes and focussing their efforts on transatlantic liner services, which concentrated on passenger service, migration and a smaller, more profitable number of regular routes between France and New York, Panama, Guadeloupe and Mexico. The company changed its name to Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, a name it held until merging with “Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes de Marseille” to form the Compagnie Générale Maritime (CGM) in 1976, partly the result of increasing oil prices in 1973 during the oil crisis, and partly due to the French Government’s stopping of the subsidies under which it had managed to continue up until that point. Compagnie Générale Maritime was a container shipping business, as were most shipping lines that remained afloat in that period, those who were not either went under due to direct competition with the easier, more practical, container based commercial model, or turned to alternate cargoes such as LPG and Crude Oil transport, or, as with CGM to the coastal “ferry” trade, which is where we see them commission the Fred Scamaroni, and several other ferries of the same design    

Pielstick Société d’Etudes des Machines Thermiques (Company of Thermal Machine Studies), more commonly known as SEMT, was a French company that designed and built large diesel engines. The Fred Scamaroni was fitted with two of their Pielstick PC2 Engines, specifically designed to be lower profile, which would suit restricted area applications such as roll-on-Roll-off ferries. The Pielstick were 6 cylinder, diesel burning engines with a 400mm bore developing 7,440 Hp each (14,880 combined HP), later PC series engines developed 16,300 Hp.  Founded in 1948, SEMT was bought by MAN Diesel in 2006 and the PC range is still available in its latest iteration

Watch the re-construction of La Seyne shipyards after WWII, it’s in French, however that’s hopefully not too much of a surprise, and it is remarkable footage of the modernisation and re-construction of the yards with some ship building too, it’s well worth a look

https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/afe04002056/chantiers-de-la-seyne

France had not long since emerged from WWII to a landscape of devastation, some of which can clearly be seen in the Video above, her shipyards were re-built but the legacy of those that defended France and gave their lives for France would not go forgotten. The new Ferry for the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique would become a source of pride on several levels, by far the most poignant being for its namesake, Captain Fred Scamaroni of the Free French Forces

Fred Scamaroni had passed studies at the college of Brive, then at the high school of Charleville-Mézières, following which he went on to pass his baccalaureate in Paris and turned to studying law, by 1934 he was head of the cabinet of the prefect of Calvados, Normandy, a position he held until the declaration of war. Fred joined the 119th Infantry Regiment based in Cherbourg however the hiatus of the phony-war, a period where war was expected but nothing had happened for some time, clearly affected him and he volunteered for service in the air-force, passing as a qualified observer May 17, 1940. In June of 1940 he made his way to England and volunteered for the Free French Forces. Fred was accepted and with his diplomatic past clearly noticed as an asset, he was offered and accepted, a mission to hand Governor General Boisson a letter from General de Gaulle. The World War II history site WWW.Normandy1944 has it that Fred “…….. Embarked on September 6 in Liverpool on the cruiser Australia, he arrived in Freetown in Sierra-Leone on September 17 and flew with eight volunteer aviators to Ouakam airport near Dakar where they must “fraternize” with the soldiers of Vichy and convince them to join the free French. Immediately arrested, they are imprisoned in painful conditions, sentenced to death, threatened with execution then repatriated to France, they are finally released on December 28, 1940. Fred Scamaroni, suffering from malaria, is hospitalized in Clermont-Ferrand and released on December 7 January 1941” (Online Resource: https://www.normandy1944.info/stories/fred-scamaroni: Accessed 19/07/2024)

Following recovery from Malaria, Fred went to Vichy, a French autonomous state that had aligned with Germany, Fred’s known sympathy with the Allies cause meant he could only get work as a clerk. Whilst in that job he founded a resistance network called “Copernic” and travelled to Corsica several times as an acknowledged Free French Forces covert agent. Corsica had been a French territory until 80,000 Italians invaded in November of 1942, joined by 14,000 Germans in June of 1943 as “…..Corsica, Sicily and Sardinia became strategic outposts to be defended. Furthermore, Germany feared that the population of Corsica was hoping for and would help with a possible Anglo-American landing. In December 1942, General Giraud, co-President of the Comité Français de Libération Nationale (French Committee of National Liberation) with General de Gaulle, sent the Pearl Harbor mission to Corsica on the submarine Casabianca to set up Résistance networks” (Ministre des Armees, in “Chemins de Memoire”: https://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/index.php/en/liberation-corsica-9-september-4-october-1943 On-Line resource accessed 22/07/2024). During a mission in Corsica (“Sea Urchin”) under the pseudo-name Captain François Edmond Severi (otherwise also known as “Pot”, and sometimes “Grimaldi”), Scamaroni was landed by the submarine HMS Tribune with agents from the Special Operations Executive (SOE) including Lieutenant Pamela “Jackie” Porter, Lieutenant Ticknell & Major Hellier, to prepare the liberation of the island and to unify the local resistance

Jackie Porter’s SOE history & Sea Urchin details can be read here: https://bylines.scot/lifestyle/jackie-of-the-special-operations-executive/

Despite a successful landing the mission was betrayed by a double-agent, Major Hellier was capture by the Germans and tortured into giving the details of the remaining agents before being executed. Only Lieutenant Ticknell and Lieutenant Jackie Porter would escape Corsica (Jackie, at least, would survive the war), Major Hellier had sealed Captain Scamaroni’s fate and he was captured at his home in Ajaccio by Italian counter-intelligence and given to the Nazis. The escape of Lieutenant’s Porter and Ticknell in no doubt owe a great deal to Captain Scamaroni’s courage and self-sacrifice, despite what would, I have no doubt, be barbaric torture (for there is no other kind) Captain Scamaroni said nothing, choosing instead to end his life, in a manner that itself can only invoke horror, in order to prevent the Nazis from learning anything from him (Online Resource: https://www.normandy1944.info/stories/fred-scamaroni: Accessed 19/07/2024) “Brought back to his cell in the citadel of Ajaccio, rather than risking speaking and being recognized under his true identity, he prefers to cut his throat with a wire, leaving a final message written with his blood: “Long live France, long live de Gaulle. ” He died three hours later, on March 20, 1943 at 8 p.m., without having revealed anything about his mission.”

The intended routes for the brand new Compagnie Générale Maritime ferry were obviously at the forefront of whom-ever was responsible for naming her, Marseilles to Ajaccio, Captain Scamaroni’s final battle ground and his resting place. What better, or more fitting, memorial could there be than the constant, and unhindered connection between mainland France and the Island of Corsica that Captain Fred Scamaroni gave his life for……….

Fred Scamaroni Notable Historical Routes/Events:

Keel Laid June 1963

Nov 30 1964: Launched & then towed to Port De Bouc for fit-out

Jun 1965: Delivered to CGT Marseille

June 26/27 1965: Sailed to La Seyne, Engine room fire delayed her in-service date

May 17 1966: First Service Sailing: Marseille – Ajaccio

May 27 1966: First docking @ Nice

Jan 20^th 1967: Collides with Ajaccio Quayside

July 01^st 1969: Transferred to CG Trasmediterránea Marseille

Apr 23 1970: En route to Bastia, Corsica, caught fire & returned to Marseilles

March 16 1976: Transferred to Societe Nationale Maritime Corse-Mediterranee Marseille

Fred Scamaroni Notable Historical Routes/Events (Cont’d):

Jan 31 1980 sold to Ole Lauritzen Ribe for Denmark $3,930,000. Re-named Nuits Saint Georges

May 15 1980: Entered Service form Dunkirque to Ramsgate for the Danish Olau Line

Aug 29 1980: ran aground outside Ramsgate

Fred Scamaroni Notable Historical Routes/Events (Cont’d):

Sep 04^th 1980: Owners (Olau Line) went bankrupt, Nuits Saint Georges laid up in Vlissingen, Holland and subsequently seized for non-payment of harbour duties and associated costs

Fred Scamaroni Notable Historical Routes/Events (Cont’d):

Nov 1980: Sold for 3.6m Dutch Guilders to Lord Maritime Enterprise, Egypt. Renamed Lord Sinai

1981: Entered service Aqaba-Suez

1984: Renamed Al Tahra

1988: Sold to Samtour Shipping Co Suez. Renamed Salem Express

1988: Suez-Jeddah

Dec 16 1991: Ran aground & sank Safaga

Routes & Details: Courtesy of Nigel Thornton & Ray Goodfellow (Dover Ferry Photos Group)

There is nothing unusual about the slow “death-in-service” of the Fred Scamaroni, a long history of hard work, initially as a modern and brand new vessel and then, following the usual high octane life of a Roll-on-Roll-off ferry, as profits reduce and the asset ages, she is sold on and becomes more of a work-horse than a thoroughbred. So it was with the Nuits Saint Georges, a short history of channel crossing between Dunkirk and Ramsgate and an eventual grounding off the port, her sale to the Egyptians after an ignominious period docked at Vlissingen where her humility was only compounded by the bankruptcy of the Olau Line, no doubt due in part to her need of repair and the fees whilst she lay alongside, waiting for a decision by her owners that never came. The Nuit Saint Georges was seized for unpaid fees and was sold on to an Egyptian concern, the “Lord Maritime Enterprise”, her new owners re-naming her the Lord Sinai and, latterly, the Al Tahra. Used in different seas, under different masters and in very different circumstances, to and from regular ports of call, as with any investment, a high return is only possible if an asset is well-used, as we see from her transfer to the less prestigious service and routes in Egypt, where clientele are “herded” rather than “Feted”, the Fred Scamaroni was now already in her death throws, albeit still afloat, sold again to the Samtour Shipping Line of Alexandria, and re-named Salem Express she now ferries passengers around the Sinai peninsula and takes part, briefly in the 1991 Gulf War as a troop transport

On her return from service she is based out of Safaga, her passengers now the thousands of workers en-route to the myriad  construction sites in Saudi and those going to, and returning from the Haj of Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, sailing between Safaga in Egypt and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. This was a cheap route for the less wealthy Muslim to undertake their pilgrimage, some might say an “honest” route, rather than the easily available, but considerably more expensive, jet flights connecting from just about any airport following the introduction of airliners in the early 1960’s

Safaga, Salem Express’ home port, is an island off the coastal Red Sea with a population of around 38,000 lying in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, which rises steeply from the Nile valley to an arid plateau, the familiar homeland of the Bedouin tribesmen. The lowlands slope upwards to a mountain range, the resultant peaks reaching 7,150 feet in height. The Port itself lies in the shelter of the Island making it an ideal anchorage when the Red Sea is belligerent, which it can be and often is. The Nile runs for 746 miles from the Aswan High Dam in the south to the Mediterranean delta, with two main branches at Damietta and Rosetta, it is one of the mainstay incomes to the Egyptians and large quantities of cotton are grown in the river delta. Egypt imports alumina via Safaga, destined for an Aluminium (MISR) plant on the banks of the Nile in Southern Egypt. One of the main reasons for the Aswan Dam construction was powering industrial enterprise and smelting Aluminium requires large scale and constant electrical supplies, the hydro-electric turbines of Aswan being ideal for such power transmission. The resulting Aluminium products, ingots, wire…. etc are exported out of Safaga Port

The port is both industrial and a transport hub, seasonally, tens of thousands of Islamic pilgrims travel from Safaga bound for Jeddah to see and worship at the Great Mosques of Mecca. The ferry port has room for six ferries at any one time, all moored stern first in what is locally known as ‘Mediterranean Moor’ style (which could be from “mooring” a vessel, to “Moor” from the colloquial term for “Arab”, known in Europe for centuries as “Moors”) to the quay. Other ferry routes include Duba and Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, and international trade to Sudan, additional African countries and even South East Asia and Australia

Those of us who have been lucky enough to holiday at Red Sea resort destinations, including those at or near Safaga, will have a picture in their minds about the relative calm of the Red Sea itself. Many will have been snorkelling and swimming in idyllic conditions, despite the occasional headline stories of shark attacks, which sometimes present themselves, on slow news days in TV News programmes. Mostly the Red Sea can be considered benign, peaceful…… even tranquil…..however, there are those of us who perhaps have spent time on Liveaboards, in the more remote areas of the sea, those who have been exposed to more inclement weather on occasion, as I myself have. Those people will maybe understand the Red Sea has another side, a more maleficent side, one that can rear up, very unexpectedly, and turn it into a dangerous place to be…..on occasion an incredibly dangerous place to be……..

For pilgrims returning from Jeddah on the 14^th of December 1991 all seemed calm at departure, in fact the weather could be described as distinctly average, the recorded temperatures at King Abdul-Aziz Airport shows the day held an average of 25’….but there were tell-tale low spikes recorded too, closer to 15’ and not at all “average”…….the barometer was dropping it seems. Nonetheless the Salem Express departed with a set of full decks, (two days late in sailing due to mechanical concerns, although what those concerns or repairs were has been seemingly lost in the latter years) as she always did, officially there were 690 passengers and crew, although there were always considerably more “unofficial” passengers. Lucky pilgrims found shade from the Sun in areas inside the ferry, but those outside would have enjoyed the Red Sea breeze and would have not felt themselves inconvenienced by being under a stair-well or on the open deck, that is, up until the Salem Express had put Jeddah behind her and the weather started to take a turn for the worse. I can find no specifics on when that turn took hold, but it is clear that the usual 36 hour, 521 nautical mile journey to Safaga would become, at first, a deluge of rain, and then deteriorate into high winds as well as a torrent of rainwater, leaving those who could not find shelter in Salem Express’ crowded interior at the full mercy of what would become talked of as a full-on storm. Captain Hassan Khalil Moro had worked for the Samatour Shipping Line In command of the Salem Express since 1988, he was clearly familiar and comfortable with the route, he would, no doubt though, have been keen to get back to Safaga following the enforced two day additional lay-over in Jeddah

Perhaps it was this that influenced him to use a short cut, or maybe humanity towards those forced to endured hours ensconced on the rain lashed decks, as Salem Express approached Sha’ab Hamdallah, loosely translated to “Young Man Thank God” to the immediate front of Sha’ab Sheer, a far larger outcrop and to the Port (Left) of Sha’ab Claude. Captain Moro is said by some crew to have used the shortcut beforehand, (saving almost two hours over the longer passage between the reefs to make a later turn to Port and enter Safaga bay), it is also said the shortcut was not an approved one, especially considering Salem Express was approaching at close to 12 O’Clock at night in storm conditions and pitch black of night. The Los Angeles Times Report describes the first sign of the disaster: “Captain Hassan Khalil Moro was in his cabin–he normally didn’t pilot the ferry, except to guide it into the harbor, crew members said, and on most nights he rested quietly in his cabin until the final approach. First Officer Mustafa Hamad Abdel Gowad was on the bridge piloting the vessel; Second Officer Khalid Mamdough Ahmed awoke in his cabin at about 11:10 p.m., ready to relieve Gowad at midnight. Three minutes later, he said, a crash resounded through the ship, which began shaking hard. Ahmed rushed to the bridge and found Gowad. “I asked him what happened. He said, ‘The ship is grounded.’ ” (L.A. Times: Murphy, K. Dec 17 1991: “Ferry Survivors Describe a Night of Horror, Heroism: Sea disaster: 485 are still missing in sinking of Egyptian vessel. First officer’s actions questioned”)

The Salem Express’ fate was sealed, she had hit one of the isolated rock outcrops near Hyndman Reef, it is a tragedy that, having dived her many times, all around her is empty, flat sea-bed, to have hit in such a manner with such tragic consequences must have been the most ill-fated luck possible. Kim Murphy goes on to write in her LA Times piece: “Egyptian authorities said Monday that they have detained seven surviving crew members in an attempt to learn how the ferry–which was nearing the end of its 36-hour journey from Jidda, Saudi Arabia, to Safaga on Egypt’s Red Sea coast–moved off course on a treacherous approach into the harbor and slammed into the reef, sinking in just minutes. Was it, as the ship’s second officer insists, because high winds blew the 1,104-ton vessel off course? Or was it, as some passengers and crew suggested in interviews, because the first officer was taking a shortcut into the harbor so the crew could get a full night’s sleep in Safaga? “What’s clear is that (the ship) left the proper sea lanes, and whether it’s a human error or whether the winds drove it off course, we can’t say yet,” said an Egyptian investigating officer. “This question of whether they were trying to take a shortcut is a technical question that we can’t answer yet.”” (LA Times. Online Resource: “https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-12-17-mn-596-story.html” Accessed 23/07/2024) The technical question will likely remain unanswered, whilst First Officer Mustafa Hamad Abdel Gowad was piloting the Salem Express and has said his piece, Captain Moro was lost with his ship, his body being found some days later in the bridge area of the vessel by divers hired to recover bodies by the Egyptian Government, and Second Officer Khalid Mamdough Ahmed was off-duty in his bunk until immediately prior to the impact

I first Dived the Salem Express from the Liveaboard vessel Contessa Mia, in August of 2011, twenty years after her loss, my Green Navy Dive Log records the dive: “Red Sea – Salem Express- A very atmospheric wreck which I will not enter beyond the external companionways nor the lit area of the car decks in respect to the many (1600 +) pilgrims who died when she sank hitting a low reef in poor conditions. We dropped on the bridge area and down to the sea bed on her starboard side passing along the walkway past the funnels & lifeboats beached under her. Along to the stern & into the car deck & the limit of natural light then out and up past the prop & over the hull to follow a centre line to the bows passing the shelter deck where the open deck had tables & bench seats & was covered with plastic “wriggly” sheets to the funnels & between them to pass the bridge & on to the bow to see the impact damage & the anchor. Up for 5 mins deco fantastic dive Air In 210 Out 100 30% Buddy Craig Viz 25m”

The loss of the Salem Express was announced to the world on the 16^th of December of 1991, a full day and night after her sinking, the Cairo based LA Times reporter Kim Murphy one of the first if not actually the first international newspaper writer to break the story: “A ferryboat carrying hundreds of Egyptian workers and pilgrims across a stormy Red Sea slammed into a coral reef and sank early Sunday, plunging up to 658 passengers and crew into the midnight waters about six miles off the coast of Egypt. As many as 470 passengers were still missing Sunday night after a daylong rescue effort hampered by high winds and 10-foot waves. Some were believed possibly still stranded on lifeboats that drifted from the rescue scene, where U.S. and Australian navy helicopters briefly joined an Egyptian armada plucking stricken passengers from the sea. Egyptian and Saudi authorities said the ferry apparently drifted off course sometime before midnight Saturday and struck one of the jagged coral reefs that lurk beneath the surface off Egypt’s Red Sea coast. The vessel sounded a distress signal before midnight Saturday and apparently sank about 20 minutes later, they said. Rescuers could not begin work until dawn because of bad weather, the authorities said, although three Egyptian air force C-130 transport planes dropped life jackets and rubber rafts to aid passengers from the stricken vessel. Low clouds, occasional drizzle and 10-foot seas plagued the relief effort throughout the day”. (LA Times. Dec 16 1991. Murphy. K. “Up to 470 Missing as Egyptian Ferry Hits Red Sea Reef, Sinks”)  

My second dive on Salem Express was the same day in August of 2011 after a couple of hour’s surface interval and breakfast. My log book entry states: “Red Sea “Salem Express” Second dive after 2 hours S.I. back in but to the bow & under the prow to see into the nose through the bulkhead joint then past the starboard anchor & down to run the whole ship length starboard side. Through the bridge galley to the companionway right to the stern. Into the car deck & down to the BMW which is inverted & to the light limit. I turned while Craig carried on. This was planned & I went to the props and between the rudder at port, then on up the hull to meet Craig at the loading door. We dropped in to do the Port side companionway the full length to the bridge then on to the bow top side & on up for 2 min deco Air In 220 Out 120 28% Viz 20m Buddy Craig 27’” I had stuck to my decision not to go beyond the light penetration zone and to respect those lost aboard in that manner. It would be another trip where I felt the loss of those souls perhaps a little less profoundly, and allowed myself to make my way deeper into the wreck. I recall my initial hesitation to do so was based on stories of interference with the belongings of those lost. I had no desire to see such acts which I consider to be grossly disrespectful, I visit shipwrecks to physically and emotionally connect to the history surrounding the loss of the vessel, I am always deeply aware of the human tragedies that are inseparable from shipwrecks but in the same way, to visit such places is to remember the souls lost aboard…..and to keep their stories alive when they can no longer tell them

It would be another two years before I could return to the Red Sea, this time in July of 2013, I was, again, lucky enough to dive the Salem Express and recorded it so: “Red Sea – Salem Express- Safaga Moored mid ships this meant we dropped down the shot & into the Port side of the wreck & went down the companionway to the bows – across the forecastle deck & to the bow door & the damage from ramming the reef dropping past the bent bow we then swam the starboard companionway bow to stern and exited at the garage to view the props and then penetrate through the garage & up to the Port side exit. Terribly poignant and eerie until we exited and swam a little off from the wreck paralleling the decks to mid ships then into the Port companionway – down into the galley & restaurant area on out to the stern exit – back to mid ships shot line to decompress & out Air In 180 Out 60 Buddy Craig Go Pro Filter Failure”

The 2013 trip was an absolute gem, we were with an experienced captain on Blue Horizon, a live-aboard that knew how to please tech divers and that stayed where we wanted to for as long as we liked, rather than trying to skimp on fuel, or get back North quickly. This afforded us a very rare treat, a night dive on the Salem:  “22/07/13 Red Sea – Night Dive – Salem Express. What an absolute privilege to do a night dive on such a wreck. Eerie does not get close to describing the experience of the traverse stern to bow down the companionway on the upper Port side then across the bows past the bent impact area and the sprung open door, up to the anchor then to the bridge & through the Port most windows to exit for’ard of the funnels. Over & round the stack and into the hall of the restaurant then back to the props via the rear of the Portside of the companionway to drop into the garage through the open stern doors. Back out to the props then mid-section winches & on to deco on the shot/mooring line. Wonderful dive Air In 200 Out 100 Buddy Craig”

Let’s take a minute to look at the increasing penetration of the Salem Express over the years I have now dived her, and the ethics and morals implicit. I started out in 2011 reluctant to do more than visit the wreck, she was only an occasional wreck on the Southern liveaboard itinerary, very much, I am told, dependant on individual skippers and their family ties to her by loss of friends or relatives. As her popularity as a dive increased, so did the visits by divers insisting on visiting her, as with all similar cases, this is driven by varied motivations, morbid curiosity, bragging rights, genuine respect and perhaps a sense of pushing one’s own mortality in the way scuba-diving naturally does, but with the increased focus on a wreck that can be intimidating in and of itself

I have heard many reasons given over the years, on the various dive trips I have taken to Salem Express, I have heard divers try to influence others not to penetrate the wreck, and those equally determined to do so. I have seen Egyptian dive guides who gave long speeches about the profound nature of the hallowed status of the wreck in dive briefs, and then found them routing through the cases of those lost for whatever reason known only to themselves……..My perspective is simple, I visit shipwrecks where lives have been lost, I do so with the utmost respect for those lives and for the relatives of those who lost family or friends in such tragedies. I do so out of a wish to physically touch history and to undertake very real time travel, back to a point where circumstance brought hubris to book. It is almost impossible to avoid tragedy in such circumstances, as I am sure any archaeologists will attest, wherever there is tangible history, there is also almost omnipresent loss. I also do so knowing that I am keeping the story of those who, tragically, lost their lives, alive and undying in the present day. I would truly hope, should I pass in similar circumstances, that others would do the same for me

The losses on Salem Express cannot be accurately stated, there are several reasons for this but the main one is the culture of the area itself and the outlook of the people of the region to some extent. I do not condemn any part of this perspective however my view is, by nature, a Western European’s view ……. Tickets were sold by the shipping agency for the Salem Express and would have been to her full capacity, there were clearly far more seeking passage on her than would obtain legitimate tickets, the deck crew and the locals know this and take advantage of it, as, I am sure do the booking clerks of the shipping company on occasion. It is not an irregular occurrence for booking agents to overbook places on modern aircraft or ships, knowing some passengers will cancel, or fail to make any particular departure for a multitude of reasons from health to traffic problems, this happens in 1^st world premium agencies, let alone what could only be called 3^rd world areas such as areas of the Sinai and Arab nations. Then there are the opportunists, those aboard turning a blind eye to boarders without tickets, or, worse, selling places for cash at point of entry to those less fortunate but desperate to travel…….it’s a cottage industry in the area and a source of additional income to those who, I can only imagine, are paid a pittance by their employers as it is……   Official figures place the passenger total capacity at 1256 and crew at 60, this from her Lloyds register and certification at launch, the estimates of actual passengers on the day wildly differ, from source to source, the official Egyptian Government figures for the lost are 464 and a believed total aboard of 658 recorded by the shipping agent’s manifest, which included 71 crew, however, it is likely twice as many died. The Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, declared on Egyptian television that 178 had been rescued. The official Lloyds Maritime Casualties Report states there were 644 passengers in total, of which there were 180 survivors, furthermore there were 117 bodies recovered, from a total of 464 victims. At no point will there ever be a full and accurate accounting as anyone who has been aboard a ferry in such areas will perhaps understand but it is likely close to 1000 people died in her sinking

The speed at which the Salem Express went down undoubtedly meant there was little chance for those below decks to escape, roll-on-roll-off ferries are latterly known for very fast sinking’s (Herald of Free Enterprise, Estonia…..) due to the huge open areas which serve as car and lorry parking, which sit just above the waterline to facilitate easy loading and unloading, if this area becomes deluged a problem called the free surface effect can occur, the water ingress, moving from one side to the other, acting as a tipping agent sending the ferry over far faster than would be expected with bulkheads reducing that occurrence (as in Titanic’s sinking)

The Captain was not on the bridge at the time of the course changes nor at point of grounding “Captain Hassan Khalil Moro was in his cabin–he normally didn’t pilot the ferry, except to guide it into the harbor, crew members said, and on most nights he rested quietly in his cabin until the final approach. First Officer Mustafa Hamad Abdel Gowad was on the bridge piloting the vessel ” (L.A. Times: Murphy, K. Dec 17 1991: “Ferry Survivors Describe a Night of Horror, Heroism: Sea disaster: 485 are still missing in sinking of Egyptian vessel. First officer’s actions questioned”). Survivors stories at the time were reported by Kim Murphy in her pieces for the LA Times (as previously cited): “First Officer Mustafa Hamad Abdel Gowad was on the bridge piloting the vessel; Second Officer Khalid Mamdough Ahmed awoke in his cabin at about 11:10 p.m., ready to relieve Gowad at midnight. Three minutes later, he said, a crash resounded through the ship, which began shaking hard. Ahmed rushed to the bridge and found Gowad. “I asked him what happened. He said, ‘The ship is grounded.’ ” The confusion on the bridge does not seem to have prevented the Captain from calling for help: “Hanan Salah, the ship’s nurse, ran into the radio room and heard the captain transmit: “Hello, this is Salem Express. We are due to enter port at 11:30. We’re 30 kilometers offshore, and we’re sinking!” Everything reported about the sinking leads you to conclude it was a harrowing and rapid loss, at night, far offshore in storm conditions, it is perhaps unsurprising an overloaded and ageing ferry, off-course for whatever reason, with an inaccurate and woefully under-represented passenger manifest led to such huge loss of life

The weather was challenging and the rescue attempts of the evening do not seem to have been effective although “……three Egyptian air force C-130 transport planes dropped life jackets and rubber rafts to aid passengers from the stricken vessel. Low clouds, occasional drizzle and 10-foot seas plagued the relief effort throughout the day.” The Cairo National radio station had reported that “…….Samatour officials as saying the ship had veered off course in bad weather and that attempts had been made, apparently unsuccessfully, to warn it”. Whilst the International picture had it that: “….. U.S. Navy officials in Bahrain said that warships on patrol in the Red Sea had not received a distress signal from the stricken vessel,” The Salem Express had undoubtedly gone down very quickly, the survivor reports included one from Second Officer Khalid Mamdough Ahmed, who said  “The crew managed to get only one of the 10 lifeboats into the water, and a number of rubber rafts floated into the sea from the decks. The lights on the ferry were extinguished. In about 11 minutes, the ship was under water, trapping hundreds of passengers still in their cabins on lower decks, despite some crew members’ attempts to rush to the lower cabins, yelling and banging on doors”

Second Officer Ahmed reports that he: “……was helping lower the first lifeboat when a rush of water slammed him into the smokestack. “I said, for sure there is no time for thinking, and I jumped,” he said. “People were screaming and panicking. You know the Titanic? Just like the Titanic. I was on the boat, and then I looked back, and there was no sign of it at all.” Ahmed went on to say he was “sucked down with the ship and grew disoriented in the dark water, unsure which way was up. But (he) fought his way to the surface and found the lone lifeboat close by. and made his way into It.” Surviving passengers did not paint a picture of the crew’s behaviour in quite the same manner “…….other crew members, angry passengers said, grabbed the available life vests and headed for the lifeboat, ignoring panicked passengers’ pleas for help”

Unless you have been in a situation such as this, (and I, personally, and very thankfully have not), it is impossible to imagine what truly occurred on that night, undoubtedly there were acts of heroism, and, no doubt, the opposite too! Likely, most would be in utter confusion and disarray, those lucky enough to escape the lower decks emerging to a picture from their worst nightmares, whilst those who had awoken at impact, or who could not find escape from the rain and storm, and were already awake, would be scrambling for any kind of means to get off the ship and then survive…….a picture that warrants “hell” in any imagination. Those who survived, by whatever means, through the night would have feared exposure, sharks and the feeling of isolation, adrift in the sea, far from land…….their only hope being rescue by emergency services as the weather gradually became flyable and ships could risk getting a little closer to the reefs themselves. Nurse Salah’s ordeal was documented by Kim Murphy: “…..nurse Salah sought to open a box containing an inflatable life raft. She finally grabbed an oar as the water closed in, clinging to it with a man. They clutched the oar until 4 a.m., when they came across a rubber life raft filled with water but still bouncing in the huge, wind-whipped waves. Inside the raft were three bodies. Salah said her companion bailed the water from the boat; they then pulled 15 people aboard. Everything was fine, she said, until 7 a.m., when high waves turned the boat over. Unable to hold on to its slippery underside, Salah found another man clinging to an oar and she grabbed it. About 9:30, she said, they spotted a ship 1 1/2 miles away. The man began to swim for it, although he although he apparently never made it as the ship sailed off. Salah waited until 11:30 a.m., when a tourist boat came by and rescued her”. One man, Ismail Abdel Hassan, an agricultural engineer returning to Egypt after working in Saudi Arabia managed to swim to Port from the wreck, an odyssey of some 18 hours in the water, another, Shaaban abu Siriya reportedly floated on his back until 3:30 a.m., then found a wooden door which three others were clinging to, two of the men were lost to crashing waves, Siriya and the last man managed to hang on until a passing tourist launch found them the next afternoon

The aftermath is no less a confusion, as with all such incidents it will not be the “truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth” and each agency and participant, at least those that survived, will tell a slightly different variation specific to their own perspective and agenda. From the ship itself there can be no testament from the Captain as Hassan Khalil Moro, by accident or design, went down with his ship……..what useful testimony he might have made could only have been one of partial responsibility, I have no idea what Egyptian law says about a Captain, it is likely he was perfectly at liberty to rest until the vessel was approaching port, however, on such a night, with reefs in the direct path of the Salem Express, I doubt it would be considered “best practice” for a Captain to allow the First Officer to command the vessel in such circumstances. The First Officer, Mustafa Hamad Abdel Gowad, on the bridge piloting the vessel at the time of impact, survived in the one lifeboat that got away safely, Ahmed, the second officer, according to Kim Murphy, said it is “….his job to chart the ship’s course, and no revisions were made in the routine approach to Safaga” and the authorities would state “…..the ferry apparently drifted off course sometime before midnight Saturday and struck one of the jagged coral reefs that lurk beneath the surface off Egypt’s Red Sea coast. The vessel sounded a distress signal before midnight Saturday and apparently sank about 20 minutes later” a statement which mirrored Samatour’s official position on the sinking, they would also assert that: “……all of the 4,117-ton ship’s operating documents were in order and the craft was believed to be seaworthy”. Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Sedki and Interior Minister Abdel-Halim Moussa visited the site of the disaster and ordered an investigation into the cause of the accident. Authorities eventually said there was no immediate explanation, but acknowledged that there were reports the Salem Express had drifted outside regular sea lanes 18 miles off Safaga where it grounded and sank……The Egyptian public did not perhaps entirely agree with either the Samatour, nor the Egyptian Government’s version of the sinking with at least one Egyptian journalist, Sara Abou Bakr, sceptical of the entire version of events which you can read for yourself here: https://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/04/07/the-dead-of-the-salem-express

I dived the Salem Express again in 2015 another liveaboard with Blue O Two, an outfit at least part owned, as far as I know, by an Army colleague I had served under at Warminster, Major Malcolm Strickland, mentioned elsewhere in this blog. Blue O Two were an excellent outfit and have only recently (2023) been taken over I am told. My two dives in August of 2015 did not add anything descriptive to those already undertaken, in any real way, so I have not included them here, suffice to say the feeling of an eerie melancholy still pervaded the Salem Express, and, I have no doubt, always will

The story of the loss of the Salem Express cannot but affect you as you descend onto her and, as I have just returned from another dive on her taken in May of this year (2024), she still invokes a deep sorrow for those who tragically lost their lives, as a result of either a second officer’s compassionate wish to reduce the suffering of those forced to remain on her decks during an awful winter storm off Safaga, or the crew’s rather selfish desire to get back to port quickly after a delayed sailing, or even perhaps a vessel that drifted off-course on a terrible night in very bad conditions and a confusion of poor navigation…………..no one will ever be in a position to say conclusively which it was, but perhaps a thousand souls, many of them passing completely anonymously and therefore un-mourned, were lost, whatever the reality of the circumstances…….. 

Why not take a look yourself: 2015 Salem Express Dive with Craig Topliss:

Those of you who take the time to read these pieces will know I am indebted to many who make them what they are and without whom they would be little if anything, namely Derek Aughton, Mark Milburn (RIP), Gary Newbold, and The History of the Town of Ajaccio (Facebook) for their excellent photos and to Holger Buss for his amazing photogrammetry of the Salem Express https://dive3d.eu/models/egypt/salem-express/ Also to Normandy 1944 for details on Captain Scamaroni https://www.normandy1944.info/stories/fred-scamaroni

Lastly, my express personal thanks and gratitude to all those attributed individually for the pieces used here

SS Numidia

The Steamship Numidia was brand new, launched 04^th February in 1901 by D&W Henderson and Company of Glasgow (her port of registration), for the Anchor line. Owned and operated by a Mr William Meiklereid again of Glasgow, when she left Glasgow 28^th Feb of that year, bound for Calcutta (modern day Kolkata, India) via Liverpool. Her maiden journey passed without incident, as far as there is no mention of anything unusual prior to her second sailing from Liverpool 06^th July of 1901, where she had loaded a “general” cargo of 7000 tons bound again for Calcutta, under her Master, Captain John Craig

The Anchor Line had its beginnings in 1838, started by Nicol & Robert Handyside, Nicol was the Russian Consul, an official appointed by the government of a country to look after its commercial interests and the welfare of its citizens in another country, although the “interests” of Russia at that time, expressly in Glasgow, even in Scotland in general were lost to me… However, in the 1890’s Russia completed their Trans-Siberian Railway pushing East, and the British were expanding our large-scale commercial activities in China through Hong Kong, and the “treaty ports” of China. Russia very much desired an all season port south of Vladivostok, and both nations were fearful of Japanese plans of expansionism in the Far East (apparently more so than they were wary of each other), meaning both saw a benefit to mutual collaboration. It, therefore, is not as surprising as it might seem that Russia had a consular representative in Great Britain and, as Russia was also a customer for British Shipping, including Warships, perhaps that makes a case for a Russian consul in Glasgow…….. The Handyside brothers traded with Russia and the Baltic under charter arrangements and were merchant ship-brokers operating as N&R Handyside &Co (Jisc Archives Hub: “Records of Anchor Line, shipping company, Scotland. Administrative/Biographical History” Online resource: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/93c7f198-d46d3c15a46ae692c2cfb038?terms= %22Anchor%20Line%20Ltd%20 (shipping%20company%20%3A%201852-%20%3A%20Scotland). Accessed 29/12/22)

In 1852 Thomas Henderson, Master Mariner, joined the company having retired from the sea, but bringing with him a desire to run shipping to Canada & the USA. In 1854 the first of many vessels was bought and a year later, in 1855, Thomas became a full partner, the business changed its name to Handysides & Henderson, converted a former clipper to steam power, and, trading under the “Anchor Line” title, began running steam packets across the Atlantic to New York

In 1857 two Anchor Line ships were chartered by the British Government to take troops to India to quell the Indian Mutiny, that year also saw Thomas’ two brothers begin the Finnieston Steamship Works Co primarily to construct steam engines (for conversions from sail to steam and for supply to other shipbuilders) but eventually becoming D&W Henderson c1858 and engaging in full ship builds of their own. In 1865 “Henderson Brothers” opened the Anchor Line Office in New York, followed by an office in Londonderry, Ireland, in 1869 which was quickly followed by offices in Liverpool & Dundee whilst services expanded to add Italy (Naples) to New York and increased to include India on the opening of the Suez Canal, which was heralded by an Anchor line vessel, the SS Dido, becoming the first vessel to pass through the canal February 17^th 1867, although it would not “officially” open until November of 1869

In 1690 The Honourable East India Company (EIC) had established a trade post in what was “Kalikata” under the Mughal Emperor Akbar (until 1605), Job Charnock of the EIC had attempted to establish trade at the Hooghly river but had not managed a sufficiently equitable relationship with the local officials there, and had moved on to what was then named Kolkata, and became, in English, Calcutta from that point.  (Britannica: “History of Kolkata, the early period” https://www.britannica.com/place/Kolkata/History Accessed: 30/12/2022)  The Hooghly river was both wide and deep at Calcutta making it a natural choice for a port of sorts, although there were marshes and swamps near, there were local Indian merchants who had moved down from the rivers increasingly silted upper reaches, so commerce was practical and there was clearly a market for trade in both directions, into and out of the Indian continent

There were various resistances to trade and “Empire” with notable sackings of the town in 1756 by Siraj al-Dawlah, which saw British prisoners interred in what would become known as “The Black Hole of Calcutta”, with many deaths attributed to the heat and appalling conditions. Robert “Clive of India” Clive re-took the town defeating al-Dawlah in June of 1757, building Fort William to consolidate the British presence there. The continued military presence and the increasing wealth of the town saw it become the British Capital of India in 1772, drainage reduced the swamps and correspondingly the outbreaks of Malaria, this had the additional effect of increasing the density of population, and the quality of the “palatial” residences being built by the wealthy local merchants

Calcutta’s influence spread throughout India and with the coming of the railways in 1854 Calcutta connected its trade to Peshawar, now part of Pakistan. This British influence in India, and the imposition of British officials had become an irritation to the Indian aristocracy and the Indian Brahmans, Priests who maintained themselves as highest of what was and still largely is a “Caste” or status divided secularity (where “untouchables” are the lowest “class” then workers, then traders, then warriors and at the upper level the Aristocrats & Brahmins……), this lead to inevitable discontent, which erupted in a rebellion, beginning amongst the locally employed East India “Sepoy” Troops spreading from Meerut through Delhi, Agra, Kanpur and Lucknow and was called by the Indians the “First War of Independence”. The British would not cede India and the Anchor Line was amongst several shipping companies to supply troops and much needed supplies to besieged British Troops, and some loyal Sepoy throughout India, resulting in bloody battles with massacres committed by both Indian and British troops. Following protracted sieges, notably at Delhi and Lucknow, and vicious sporadic fighting, the British quelled the uprising and eventually re-established complete control in July of 1859

  With their connection to India already made supporting the re-supply during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, continued trade to India and the carriage of those trading there to and fro, meant the Anchor line had a regular scheduled departure from Glasgow, calling at Liverpool and then sailing to Calcutta via the Suez Canal. Three of the Anchor line ships had been specifically built to undertake this trade route, the Assyria built 1900, yard number 418, The SS Numidia built 1901, yard number 419, and the Circassia built 1902, yard number 431. Numidia was built as a steam cargo ship of 6,399 GRT by D. & W. Henderson & Co., Ltd.at Meadowside Shipyard (85 Castlebank Street, Glasgow, Scotland), for the Anchor Line Ltd. She was launched and delivered on 04 February 1901 and her propulsion was provided by a triple-expansion steam engine through a single prop-shaft giving her a top speed of 12 knots. For those of you immersed in technical details here is the specification for the Numidia

Perhaps the only chance we will get to look at the Numidia is to look at her sistership Circassia II, the sad loss of Numidia on the Brother Islands on what was her second journey, means to date there are no photographs I’ve been able to find anywhere, and I include in that search R. S. McLellan’s “Anchor Line 1856 – 1956” a detailed history reference which has many of the line’s ships represented, but sadly not Numidia. I truly hope one will emerge but to this day not even the Anchor Line archives at Liverpool have yielded one. I will continue to look and if I find one I will add it to the piece, for now, Circassia II, Numidia’s sistership, shown below, is the nearest direct comparison we have and, as she was constructed in 1902 off the same plans, we can be sure Numidia looked pretty much identical, those photos and pictures you see on articles and wreck pieces similar to this one, claiming to be Numidia, are invariably incorrectly attributed, often to the “Numidian”

Numidia had a particularly striking stern, Victorian steamships had developed from the sleek sailing ships and clippers, some still operating well after steam power proved more reliable and generally (with distinct exceptions) faster than the best of the clippers. With the opening of the Suez Canal the few clippers still trading were generally on the Australian routes, where the wind could be relied on to make them competitive against the coal fuelled steamers. The residual full rig sailing masts & sails remaining on early steamships displayed the lack of trust in steam in the early days, on occasion they proved their worth too, when steam powered ships had failures at sea and limped back on sail power. But the other remainder of the sail era prominent on the early steam vessels was the overhanging, rounded stern, a beautifully stylised feature that persisted long after the sails and masts had gone for ever. Numidia had a particular stern, she featured a deeply curved stern hull transition down to the main deck which can be seen in the main Circassian photo at the opening of this piece, just behind the funnel of her tug at the stern on her starboard side, the cut features on the for’ard deck transitions from quarterdeck to main and again from main to forecastle     

The brand new Numidia set sail on her maiden voyage on the 28^th February 1901 departing from Glasgow, she was captained by John Craig and bound for Calcutta, it seems this was an entirely successful voyage which saw her back safe in Liverpool re-victualling and loading for a departure on the 06 July 1901. Numidia was carrying 7000 Tons of “general cargo” and casting off with a crew of 97. Numidia successfully transited the Suez Canal via Port Said exiting from Port Tewfik, the city of Suez, early on 19 July and continued south into the Red Sea. Numidia passed the island of Shadwan at 1900 that evening. Captain Craig, altered course at 2300 and two hours later, at 0100 in the dark morning hours of the 20^th the Big Brothers Island Light was sighted off of the port bow. John Craig altered the ship’s course again intending to pass a mile to the west of Big Brothers

Captain Craig, clearly happy with the Numidia’s progress and position, left the Bridge in the hands of the Officer of the Watch with the instruction that he be notified when the Big Brothers light was abeam of the ship. It is not clear exactly why Captain Craig was not woken, the belief at the enquiry into Numidia’s loss was that the Watch Officer had fallen asleep, but at 0210 the sound of Numidia running aground on the northern plateau of Big Brothers in clear view of the lighthouse rent the night! Captain Craig, on reaching the Bridge, tried in vain to get Numidia off the reef by reversing her, after almost two hours she was still firm on the rocks, Numidia’s bow had sustained serious damage and she was taking on water, realising the futility of the situation Captain Craig ordered the engines stopped

It didn’t take Captain Craig long to realise the bow damage had doomed Numidia, despite assistance from ships including the SS Rhipens, which came into view at around 07:40 on the 20^th July only hours after Numidia hit the rocks, and then took despatches from Numidia to Suez calling for assistance. All following attempts to get Numidia off the reef were unsuccessful, the bow was too damaged and the water in her bow was helping to pin her to the rocks, all that remained was for Captain Craig to give the abandon ship order and permit the crew to be rescued and taken back to Suez. Captain Craig remained with his ship for seven weeks after the grounding supervising the removal of Mail and cargo and no doubt ensuring the same was not looted from the site by local boatmen and tribesmen, as was often the case in the remoter of regions of the Red Sea at the time. Numidia inevitably broke her back on the reef, separating just for’ard of her bridge, although tides are minimal in the area, there is a range of a metre or so and there can be quite fierce seas on occasion too. The loss of Numidia would be laid at the feet of the Officer of the watch who the Board of Trade enquiry believed fell asleep, failing to navigate the Brothers Island leading to the vessel striking the reef, it would cost him his ticket for 9 months, although I do not know his details and cannot say if he sailed again after Numidia’s loss

The steep angle of the reef and the stresses of tide and sea state left the bow of Numidia in the shallows and the main part of the wreck upright but lying down the reef to its base, her stern and prop at around 80m, over the years she has become a part of the reef, especially midships where the upper length of her hull has collapsed into it and her bridge area is just ruined and indistinguishable metal and coral. I first dived Numidia on my fourth Red Sea trip, we were diving off the MV Hurricane (a great Liveaboard that burned out with tragic the loss of 3 British divers in June of 2023), this was the first “Southern Red Sea” expedition and a new area to me entirely, my Green Navy Log records: “28/04/10 BIG BROTHER ISLAND “Numidia” This is an awesome wreck and actually is defying gravity as she is almost vertical on the reef. One good storm and she looks as though she would disappear! We dropped down the Port side to 50m at the stern mast which is still upright in and around the lower deck which is easily accessible as the wood is all gone. Again there is a classic engine room air intake in the hull but more broken. Up along the prop shaft tunnel and into the broken through centre section, this is heavily rotted but navigable with caution. Out onto the deck area round the mid ships block house & then through into the centre section to come out of the between decks to decompress again on the reef where we saw two turtles and a conger – sorry spotted Moray ell to be accurate! Plenty of Pipe Fish & Big Eye Jacks and shoals of Anthea along with beautiful hard & soft corals – amazing dive! Buddy Craig & Gaz & Claire Air In 200 Out 100”

 My next dive on Numidia would be just a year later, clearly the Southern Red Sea Wrecks had impressed me and another entry in the Green Navy Log records: “02/08/11 Red Sea “Numidia” Big Brother, dropped in & down the side to 40m & up through the port companionway, half way up we dropped starboard into the engine room to exit the bridge which is broken open. Back in through the Starboard Bridge area and down & through the bridge area coming out at the rear of where the funnel would be – in and through again and out the Port side to see the whole hull going into the deep – wonderfull! There were too many fish & corals to mention but two Napoleon Wrasse got close & a 3’ Barracuda being cleaned on the reef by a tiny & brave blue cleaner Wrasse – a magnificent dive Viz 30m Air In 210 Out 150 Buddy Craig 28%”

I was lucky enough to get back to the Red Sea in 2013 and again we were on a wreck safari including the Southern wrecks, this time there was quite a current as you will see “28/07/13 NUMIDIA – RED SEA _ Brothers A maul to get down to her in a very fast current (4kt ish) but wonderful to rest at the hatch combing looking at the stern rail & bollards. Into the hull for a circuit through the hold winding through the collapsed decking & bulkheads – engine room & to the break at the for’ard bridge area. Round the hull and on to the reef to deco and watch her disappear from view. A fantastic dive Air In 200 Out 100 Buddy Craig”

I have often heard divers extol reef diving over wreck diving, I have never really understood that perspective, I love the colours and diversity of a reef as much as anyone, however every wreck acts as an artificial reef anyhow, the first minute or so a ship goes down fish and marine life are drawn to it. I have dived in some barren locations where the only thing there is a wreck, and usually, as a result it is teeming with life, fish of all sizes, crustaceans, eels, soft and hard coral and that’s not just in warm seas, anyone who has dived the James Egan Layne will attest to the fields of dead man’s fingers down her sides and the shoals of Bib & Pouting swimming through her

Numidia is a very good case in point, her hull settled on a reef, undoubtedly there were corals and marine organisms already, but those have now colonised Numidia too, and what’s more Numidia has history, a connection to distant pasts and many lives even after only two brief voyages, you don’t generally get that from an isolated Atoll or a rock outcrop or a barren sea-bed, unless of course some poor unfortunate vessel happens to land on them…….and when you’ve finished your exploration of as much of the wreck as you can, then there is decompression……..that’s what reefs are for!

The Anchor Line was another of those Liverpool Shipping Lines that made the city the hub of Britain’s international trade, for the most part far more trade passed through Liverpool than did London, the Anchor Line was a piece of Liverpool’s history, although began in Glasgow around 1854 with the Handyside Brother’s outright ownership of their first vessel “Phantom”, Following the docking of “Tempest” out of Bombay 29^th December of 1856, Liverpool would be the main departure port for their Atlantic & Mediterranean sailings, eventually becoming equally as important to them as Glasgow and New York (McLellan R. S. “Anchor Line 1856-1956”. P17: Anchor Line Limited Glasgow 1956)

My last dive on Numidia was August of 2015 with Blue O2 off Blue Melody (another fantastic Red Sea Dive Liveaboard), on the Best of Wrecks tour, there were some staggeringly good dives on that trip, some you might read of elsewhere in this self-indulgent retrospective, but you can find those if you will, my Navy Log write-up says: “04/08/15 NUMIDIA Big Brother Island Red Sea – Fair current when we dropped in & descent was rapid which “pinched” my ear – down to the stern hold and a look round to see the beautiful lines of this iconic steamer sunk in 1901 – swam up the deck to enter just short of the accomm/bridge and then wended our way through the starboard gangway & in and out of the various rooms – most are featureless now but collapse has meant you can access the engine room & the upper holds then come back into the bridge & accomm block through the gaping holes left in the hull and bulkheads. Wonderful dive with half an hour deco swimming with a shoal of fish on the reef past magnificent fan corals & brain corals & hordes of Red Sea fish Great! Air In 200 Out 70 Buddy Craig”

The loss of Numidia bears scant comment in the Anchor Line History with Mr McLellan recording it thus: “….The following year one ship was sold and one lost, and three new ships joined the fleet. One of these, the Numidia, was lost on her second voyage to Calcutta; she went ashore on Northern Brothers Island in the Red Sea and became a total loss.” (McLellan R. S. “Anchor Line 1856-1956”. P55: Anchor Line Limited Glasgow 1956) ………so ended the story of SS Numidia

As ever without the reference sources and photos this piece would not be what it is, I will be forever grateful to those who’s shoulders I stand on: Derek Aughton, Jesper Kjoller & Gary Newbold for the Photos of our diving, Rico Oldfield for the brilliant wreck Illustration, Ned Middleton & R. S. McLellan for the history & archive material & my long time dive buddy Craig for his patience

Now why not take a dive on Numidia with me, but be advised this is a long one…..