Giannis D

  The Giannis D began life in 1969 as the Shoyo Maru, built by the Kuryshima Dock Company of Imabari, Japan, as a “General Cargo Vessel” of 2,932 gross registered tonnes. Giannis D’s yard number was 471 and her IMO was 6925666, she possessed two cargo holds forward, with Bridge and Engine Room at the Stern, her dimensions: Length 99.5m x Width 16m with a draught 6.53m. Giannis D’s machinery was built by Akasaka Tekkosho KK of Yaizu, Japan, she was fitted with a six cylinder diesel motor also from Akasaka Tekkosho KK Yaizu, driving a single propeller shaft & prop, delivering a 2,200 kW (3,000 BHP) output.  The Giannis D had two reasonably generous cargo holds, three efficient deck cranes, with four “jibs” or “booms” and was capable of producing a top speed of around 12 knots

The Shoyo Maru was sold in 1975 and renamed the Markos, in 1980 she was sold once more, to the Dumarc Shipping and Trading Corporation based in Piraeus, Greece, and re-named Giannis D (where the D stands for the name of the shipping company). As a general cargo ship Giannis D would have been mostly used as a coastal trader, tramping cargoes of opportunity. In April of 1983 the Giannis D, with a cargo of wood, left Rijeka (Croatia) headed to Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and then to Al Hudaydah (Yemen)

It is a rare thing to be in the right place at the right time, Peter Collings, one of the earlier wreck and reef explorers of the emergent Red Sea scuba diving upsurge of the 1980’s, and a writer of articles and e-books on the area for many years, must have thought himself very lucky to come across the Giannis D, abandoned, in 1983, but yet to find her final resting place. Peter has written on the identification of several of the Abu Nuhas wrecks and it was his articles that spurred my own interest in the unusual, but oddly common fates of the “Big Four” (Giannis D, Carnatic, Kimon M & Chrisoula K) on Abu Nuhas, before I had even dived them back in the early 90’s when still in the British Army, bored, on my bunk in Tidworth and dreaming of clear Blue Sea, Pure Blue Skies and the wrecks of Sha’ab Abu Nuhas   

  After crossing the Suez Canal Giannis D headed south but, according to official reports, was off its course to the northwest corner of Abu Nuhas reef where it crashed 19/04/1983. At 4:00 am on April 19^th 1983 the ship’s captain issued a distress call requesting the rescue of the crew in view of the severity of hull damage, a 12 meter tear, the Captain then ordered the crew to abandon the Giannis D due to her growing list, they were taken by Egyptian tug to Santa Fe platform, where a helicopter transferred them to Ras Shoke. The loss of the Giannis D being cited as “an error of navigation” is an odd statement as 240 degrees off course is an exceptional error, considering there are only 360’ on a compass in the first place! I read the testimony of one of Peter Colling’s eye witnesses to several of the Abu Nuhas wrecks, either a very unfortunate, unlucky individual, or from another perspective, one of the unwitting pawns of cynical and perhaps, essentially corrupt, shipping “traders” (for want of a better, less legally endangering term), running vessels registered under Greek home ports in the 1970’s through to the 1990’s. Mr Stephan Jablonski, a Polish mariner and marine engineer, much like my father in his Blue Funnel days, but, unlike my father in at least one important aspect, having been on 4 separate wrecks within around 5 years

  I will steal none of Peter Colling’s thunder here, I was fascinated with his e-book “Tile-Wreck-Final-Proof.PDF” and urge the reader to dig it out and read through the evidence themselves, it is edifying stuff I assure you! Whichever way the sinking of the Giannis D is looked at, “Compass error”, Human error (for this read “compass error by an idiot”…), or “something else” ……. it is the “something else” which has ominous undertones, it is a bizarre picture, Giannis D heading steadfastly down the Red Sea on a steady bearing when, for no apparent reason, a 240’ alteration “occurs”…… and places the vessel on a direct collision course with a widely known and shockingly obvious (from the 3 wrecked ship’s bows still prominent and embedded into it) presence as Abu Nuhas hove’s, ever faster into view, and conveniently stoves in the bow of her 4^th victim….. Cue the horror of the crew (or at least those like Stephan Jablonski, at work, buried in  the engine room and holds), and the call to any passing maritime “Uber” drivers, to invoke the free lift back to port to cash in the insurance cheque for both the vessel (oddly, far more valuable than at her last purchase price), and her always very perishable and fairly valuable “cargo”….of which there is of course no sign on the deck, or in the hold of the vessel, when loss adjusters get investigators to the stranded wreckage (obviously guv’nor….it was nicked or it washed away….). Or perhaps I share an “elevated” level of cynicism with Peter Collings and his friend, and eye witness to at least 3 of the four sinking’s, Mr Jablonski……..

The “Giannis D” is now found in three separate sections – Bows, Amidships and Stern, lying more or less parallel to the Reef, sadly only last week (June of 2021) I heard yet another careless dive-boat had moored up from her “H” Frame in less than perfect seas, the constant wear of idiot captains had long worked its punishment into her metalwork, and now the H frame is lying on the bottom rather than upright as a haven for decompressing divers waiting to be picked up by their tender

Lloyd’s Casualty List 22/04/1983: “GIANNIS D (Greek). London Apr 21 – Information received, dated Apr 20, states: Mv Giannis D, (from Rijeka), cargo sawn softwood for discharge at Jeddah and Hodeidah, grounded at Sha’b Abu Nuhas, approximate position lat. 27.35N, long. 33.56E, last night. Crew abandoned vessel, which is listing, and taken by an Egyptian tug to Santa Fe platform and then by helicopter to Ras Shoke. Owners signed Lloyd’s standard form with salvage tug Salvanguard, which proceeding to vessel.”

  The ship was written off by her insurers as a “constructive loss” which means, effectively, there is no point in trying to recover her, other than offering her out to a salvage contract, meaning the insured will be compensated to the full value of the vessel and cargo. This was not by any means the first time, or the last, that an ageing Greek ship would find its way onto Abu Nuhas with a cargo likely to be written off by the insurers, the Kimon M, the Carnatic (an older, 1860’s sail-steamer) and the Chrisoula K beat her to the depths in a similar fashion, although Carnatic was under a British Flag when lost and is perhaps the only wreck on Abu Nuhas that seems to have had a genuine navigational error (failure by her captain to take a sextant reading of her position) cause her demise. Giannis D remained stranded, hard into the reef for several weeks afterwards, until a storm broke her in half and she sank to the base of the reef where she sits today at position 27° 34′ 42″ N, 33° 55′ 24 in 10-28 meters of water

  My first ever dive on the Giannis D, one of what would become many over the years, was written up in the little Red Wreck Log as: “03/08/97 Ghiannis D. The ideal wreck, the stern leans at 50’ or so & is broken away from the bows, a Greek freighter who ran into Abu Nuhas on 19^th April 1983 So she’s still in fine condition an easy penetration as light is everywhere the engine room is marvellous the huge engines stretching forward with easy access then out and round the stern, along the port companionway & up onto the bridge area finally out along the huge gantry fabulous dive” This dive was in the days of single cylinders and stab jackets, my first ever expedition to the Red Sea off the Liveaboard Princess Dalal. I have not yet found any photos of the Princess Dalal, which is a shame, she had that old but graceful feel about her, there was not the “frills” of the current luxury live-aboards, she was more an “Arab” boat, if that is the right feel to convey, she was not the lithe and nimble, flash-dancer of the Red Sea, more the fading diva, still echoes of the regal, but with that undeniable latter-day Sophia-Loren, or Maria Callas appeal

The wrecks of Abu Nuhas have, seemingly, been resolved from my first dives in 1997 to today (June of 2021), although, as Peter Collings has it, there are still those using misleading references to the wrecks and those still incorrectly identifying the wrecks. The illustration above shows the orientation of the islet but has Kimon M as unknown (“Unbekkanntes” in German) and identifies the Marcus incorrectly as the Chrisoula K, I am convinced Peter Collings is correct when he says the main body of Chrisoula K sits in deeper water to the south of the Marcus, and that the confusion occurred because the two bows (Chrisoula K and Marcus) are lying so close to one another. When I dived the wrecks of Abu Nuhas in 1997 there was still what I believe to be the bow of Chrisoula K on the islet but the two others from Marcus and Kimon M were underwater

My next opportunity to dive the Giannis D came in November of 2008, I had a family holiday booked with Ellen and the kids, this time in Hurghada, just a beach holiday to get away from the chilly UK November weather really, but I had Mark Hill and his family with me and Craig Toplis who had become a regular dive buddy over the last couple of years, all of us had the same idea, let’s see if we could get a ride out to Abu Nuhas  for the day….or perhaps two? It didn’t take much persuading and we ended up on a trip out on the 25^th, it seemed a shame to have so many wrecks nearby…..but only dive 1…..then a cunning plan sort of edged into my mind, what if we tried to get all of the Nuhas wrecks in one go……? Could it be done, would we have enough gas, what would the deco look like as the distance itself was a little daunting, given the current that could creep up on Nuhas, Mark and Craig were up for giving it a go, but the distance and deco meant we would probably manage only 3 of the wrecks if we got that far. I was, by now, back in my Green Royal Navy Divers Log (courtesy of Chuck Russet of JSSADC from my BSAC Novice Diver’s course way back in 1990), the little Red Log having been filled by 2000 and it records: “25/11/2008 THREE WRECKS IN ONE DIVE ON ABU NUHAS – EGYPT. Starting with Chrisoula K Dropping onto the stern and round the rudder & prop She’s on her Starboard side – round to the bridge & then through the tool room past the lathe & on into the hold through the cargo of floor tiles round to the bows passing many colourful fish & corals notably 2 angel fish & a spotted ray. A five minute swim with the reef on the left took us to the Carnatic – this has the bow still intact but all from the chain locker to the stern is collapsed the stern is still there and the stern rails are hanging there but the decking is see-through now with the wood rotting away. Next was a ten minute swim to the Giannis D which again is keeping the reef on the left. We met her at the bow and passed that to reach the stern which is the main attraction. We spent most of the time in and around the bridge – passing the prop to make the corridor alongside the port side & up across the front of the bridge again plenty of life – pretty corals & dozens of types of fish five more angel fish, a big parrot fish and another spotted ray – we spent 20 mins on deco round the bridge & the gantry’s & funnel & along to the hull fracture – all in all buy one get 2 free! Great diving! Buddy – Nick Mark & Craig. 32% 40% deco Viz Monster!” You can see that there was still, even in 2008 some confusion introduced by the dive guide Nick, who was still calling the “Tile-Wreck” Marcus, in error, the “Chrisoula K”. Either way this was an epic dive and I am not sure anyone has undertaken it before or since?

I would next dive Giannis D off the Liveaboard MY Hurricane, April of 2010 again with Craig as my buddy and this dive was an hour on her alone, one of the best dives I had ever done at that time, and another of the longest write-ups I have recorded in my log: “26/04/10 Abu Nuhas “Giannis D” there is little you can say about this wreck that isn’t superlative. The Giannis is iconic – sunk in 1983 (I was 23) she is in 3 pieces – stern – mid-ships & bow. Twins allowed us to do every bit of her at the price of 18 mins of deco on the crane davit & funnel. We went from the stern down the starboard side down to the prop & round the stern to the bridge rear access doors – in to the left hand door & down the corridor – 2^nd door on the right is the engine room & we spent 10 minutes or so in amongst the rockers and cylinder head then deeper down to the generator & lower gantry’s. I really spent some time thinking of the times my dad & Keith used to take us round the Blue Funnel ships in Liverpool I miss him! Out of the engine room & into the bridge down and out of the Port doorway & along the gangway to the mid-section, in and out of the debris & the hull until we reached the bows which are on their Port side across and round the fore – deck then back past the winches to see the break & along the starboard mid side to the bridge & in and around that till we deco’d off on the funnel Viz 35m plus Air In 200 Out 100 Buddy Craig”

By now I was hooked on Red Sea wrecks, it is safe to say the variety, the visibility, and the thrill of long penetration dives on these wrecks was now all consuming. It was only a year later that I would return to Abu Nuhas and dive Giannis D once more. Before we look at that dive I am minded of the piece elsewhere on this blog which considers the conundrum of true “shipwrecks” and places them in context with deliberately sunk or “placed” attractions. It seems contradictory to hold Giannis D in such reverence as a “shipwreck” when in all honesty she is highly likely to have been a deliberate sinking on the orders of her owners, the Dumarc line. I have stated, again elsewhere in this blog, that I have no interest in diving “placed attractions” and consider them nothing more than litter….so how do we square the circle on Giannis D then? I think it is down to the circumstances of the sinking, there was nothing of the “dive-store dream” of a new “wreck” on their doorstep, solely in order to attract unwitting divers into a financial outlay, to explore a sanitised and “safe wreck” about Giannis D. Quite the opposite, every attempt had been made to construct a believable story of navigational error, every member of the crew other than those actually involved in the navigation of Giannis D, and probably even some of those officers, had been kept deliberately in the dark about the intention to lose the ship nefariously

At the time of her sinking the insurers were convinced of the “accidental” nature of the loss, and there was nothing “sanitised” about the actual sinking itself….Giannis D motored directly into Abu Nuhas, indeed it is strongly believed she was near full throttle when she hit the reef, there was no concern for those aboard by whomever knew this was to be her last journey either, they were disposable, just means to an end, and that end was an inflated insurance claim….and it paid off too! Now, even today there is that element of nagging doubt, that feeling there might have been a legitimate error on behalf of whosoever was on the bridge at the time, and that “human need” to believe no one is callous enough to risk the lives of fellow human beings in such a cold and calculated, criminal financial enterprise. The absolute essence of the matter is, we will never truly know if Giannis D was a genuine marine accident, or a successful act of sabotage……..and that is where I can lay my head comfortably, Giannis D is a remarkable and iconic Red Sea wreck    

So we return to Giannis D July of 2011 from the Liveaboard Contessa Mia, one of the nicest Liveaboards I had been on to that day, spacious and well fitted, the crew and support staff were excellent throughout and the food was great too, I did not lose any weight on the trip, ahh well, best intentions and all that…but enough of that, to the wreck, the dive log records: “31/07/11 Red Sea “Giannis D” on Sha’ab Abu Nuhas This was in choppy seas and a “bounce” to get out. Down to see the mangled prop & round the stern deck past the winch & into the Port Gangway past the crew & storage cabins & down into the engine room, far too many divers with torches everywhere to be comfy. Still waited a while & managed to go around the rockers & head area then along to the bulkhead – massive Puffer fish deeper into the workshop deck level down from the engine – swam round the engine room & out of the main deck “lights” then on across the main hull debris, huge sections of hull lying on the reef & on to the bow in and out of the wreckage, great swim & the bow is awesome, lying to Port you look down it to the reef & over the deck anchor winches, brilliant view we then swam out & up the main mast, back along that to the hull break & towards the stern for an epic view of the bridge and entire silhouette of the ship including funnel & massive bridge gantry – an awesome photo for someone capable enough. One last swim down the Port companionway & out at the stern to pass the funnel & deco on the gantry Great Dive Buddy Craig Air in 200 Out 100 deco 2 mins @ 4.5”

  The main three extended dives noted here are representative of the full extent of Giannis D and although I have had more dives on her these describe the most of the wreck without too much repetition. It is enough to say that Giannis D represents the best of the shallower wrecks of the Red Sea, there is so much to explore in relative safety. Of course no wreck is “safe” there are always hazards, from disorientation to entrapment, from failing to monitor your gas or air, to missing deco stops or safety stops, but, of all the more modern shipwrecks, I believe Giannis D to be perhaps the best of them

For those who want a little of everything in a wreck, there are the darker corners of her engine room, the machine-shop workstation and its mezzanine decking, and to the rear bulkhead the electrical panels and pipework, then there are the engines themselves with open rockers running their length, and the access mezzanines alongside, where the light gives a less claustrophobic feel and the reassuring sight of exit points in all directions, through to the companionway Port or Starboard, for’ard to the bridge or out of the engine room skylights, all of which the photographer will find irresistible

  The outside of Giannis is already iconic, wherever shipwrecks are pictured it is almost inevitable you will find a shot of Giannis D’s stern, but on from that there is the bridge with its resident shoal of Glass fish and onward again are the open and twisted holds, huge and empty, with twisted metal everywhere, swim-through’s with the Egyptian Sun streaming through whilst you wind to the bows, broken from the main of the hull by the gargantuan forces of the ocean and the immovable rock and coral of Abu Nuhas, the hawse pipes and bow massive against the reef and teeming with life, and more of those darker areas to wind in and out of, lots more to see than meets the eye at first glance. It took 3 trips and twin twelve litre cylinders before a measure of real exploration of Giannis was realistic, and over the three dives Giannis just became more and more on each subsequent dive, so let’s leave her with a last and beautifully atmospheric view of that perfect stern…….

I must thank Peter Collings for his e-book pieces on the wrecks of Abu Nuhas, and for the web-photos of Giannis D on Abu Nuhas as she sank

As always, I will be eternally grateful to Derek Aughton & Mark Milburn for the use of their excellent photos of our group dive expeditions, and Derek for his organisation of several of the trips themselves

I should also mention the stunning representation of the wreck site by Rico Oldfield, simply the best wreck illustrator I have ever seen

Operation Overlord & Portland Harbour….A Diving Mystery!

1944 and the allies are massing on the South Coast to take the offensive to Hitler on the shores of the Normandy Beaches. Preparations are as covert as possible and deception is the name of the game, there are battalions of “funnies”…… inflatable tanks and lorries, being placed along the Eastern coast ports and disguised in just enough manner as to attract attention from the Luftwaffe and from any German sympathisers engaged in spying operations along the coastal counties

Operation Fortitude and Bodyguard saw misinformation passed to the Germans and other deceptions, like the 255 Dummy landing craft made from wood and tarpaulin, and inflatables made from rubber, assembled at Dover to give the impression Dover would be the disembarkation port. Seen close up the dummy landing craft are obviously unconvincing, but from a Luftwaffe pilots perspective they were very believable…..

Churchill and the allies, with Montgomery commanding the British and the allies, and Eisenhower commanding the US Army and the Canadians, are building huge invasion forces and transportation caches in the Southern ports and surrounding areas, to await the perfect moment to cross the Channel and begin the invasion of Europe. Across the 20 odd miles of the English Channel, Erwin Rommel has taken charge of the defences and fortifications on the French coastline, a wall of gun emplacements and artillery backed with tens of thousands of German troops, they know the Allies are coming, they just don’t know exactly when…..or where

In Weymouth and Portland, by June of 1944, the seaside towns have been transformed by the tens of thousands of US troops massing for the short trip across the Channel. The harbours are lined with ships and transports, supplies and ammunition arrive by train and lorry, lines of supply from all over the world, streaming in to ensure the invasion bridgehead can be sustained……..and it just keeps coming. Churchill and Eisenhower must have been terrified the Germans would discover where the troop concentrations were the highest, where the landing craft and support auxiliary craft were berthed, and when the invasion was planned. Truth be known there was probably little Hitler and his generals could do, air superiority was firmly in the hands of the RAF, strengthened by the fighters and bombers of the USAF that had been flying sorties and “thousand bomber raids” on Hamburg and Berlin since 1943. But there was always the chance that, with enough intelligence and enough will, the German Luftwaffe could have a disastrous effect on the landing plans being thrashed out under Whitehall

The planned allied actions would involve all of the ingenuity of the combined nations and some of the most innovative problem solving seen globally to that date, the Mulberry’s, Whales and floating roadways have been examined in detail elsewhere in this blog, I won’t repeat them here. This piece is where tribute is paid to those who landed on the beaches themselves, those who transferred from troop-carriers over the side, fully kitted, hanging from rope nets slung for the purpose of access to the smaller, shallow draughted landing craft assault (LCA’s). Alongside them those who sailed ashore in Sherman duplex drive tanks and the “Hobart Funnies”, the mine-flail carrying Sherman’s from landing craft “Tank” vessels (LCT’s), and the myriad of other small work-horse landing craft, that delivered tens of thousands to their destiny on the shores of Normandy and the beaches of Utah (Pouppeville), Omaha (St Laurent Sur Mer) Gold (Arromanches) Juno (Courseulles) and Sword (Ouistreham) from 06:30 on the 06^th June 1944

  The various landing craft types in June of 1944 were varied and classified briefly and curtly in alpha-numerics, in typical military style, by their function, Landing Craft Assault: LCA, Landing Craft Infantry: LCI, Landing Craft Tank: LCT….etc.  These Landing Ships and their smaller Landing Craft would become iconic in the months to come, film of those disembarking into the tiny “Assault” and larger “Infantry” craft would roll down history, in hundreds of hours of film, of those giving their lives to liberate lands they had never seen before and to throw back the German invaders once and hopefully for all of time to come……

One of these heroic little craft seemingly ended up at the base of the breakwater in Portland, becoming a popular dive attraction, found not far from and along with the bombardon and its tug, which have already been covered elsewhere in this dive blog. So which type of these brave craft was it that fell before the main event, ending up at the base of the harbour wall in Portland in June of 1944? The wreck is supposed to be a “Landing Craft Tank, one of the LCT variants according to local sources and definitely, it is said, a WWII wreck, although there are no known written reports to back that assertion that I have seen. The LCT silhouette seems to be somewhat similar to an LCT Mark 5 and the profile, as seen on the side-scan imaging is certainly similar to the Mk 5. Now despite the shape and size being a “fair” indication for a Mk 5, this doesn’t make a lot of sense, firstly the length isn’t quite right, the measurements are 27m for the Portland landing craft (LCT Mk5 length c36m) and there are no LCT Mk5’s directly noted as lost in Portland, the only losses in the LCT register being noted as “lost in operation Neptune, Normandy Landings, N France, June 6, 1944” (Online resource: naval-history.net/WW2BritishLosses4Amphib.htm Accessed 13/03/2021) Now that doesn’t mean whoever registered the loss didn’t lack any more information than the operation title and intended theatre, it just seems unlikely that the only 4 Mk 5’s lost (2049, 2229, 2307 and 2498) were not noted as “Lost in Home Waters” as was the usual entry for those floundering or destroyed this side of the Channel

The LCT lost in Portland was supposed to have gone down in 1944, so the dates for all Normandy LC variants “fit” but the profiles were distinctly different, or the size gives the vessel away. The side-scan profile shows a wide flat drop ramp with little curvature to the bow, vaguely consistent with a MkV LCT, the only other likely variant is an LCT MkV(A) or “Armoured” which you can see from the photo below of LCT MkV(A) 2012 as used by the 100^th Flotilla with British Commando units (5^th Independent Battery Royal Marine Armoured Support Group) who arrived on Sword Beach June 06^th of 1944 in zones Queen Red & Queen White. If you look at the line of the Gunwales from Drop Ramp to Bridge (front bit to command bit) you will see the lines look similar to that shown on the side-scan image, and that the remains of the Bridge in the side-scan image resemble the layout of the Mk V with the wheelhouse “gone”. However close inspection of the side-scan sonar would reveal the Drop Ramp meets the gunwale and within a metre or so there is a reduction of height, which then seems to descend back to the bridge area evenly, although the Portland landing craft seems to have come to rest slightly stern down, as if the bow is raised on the sea bed

Now I tried every avenue I have to determine exactly which type of landing craft sits at the base of the breakwater at Portland, I even disturbed Budgie from his Covid 19 induced reverie out in Tulum in Mexico. In conversation, it turns out Budgie knew of several landing craft in the harbour in various locations, some of them old wooden “Higgins Boat” types, long ago rotted away to remain only as engines and transmissions on the sea floor, but at least one more similar to LCT Mk5 inside, and remarkably one also outside the breakwater. Although these were present, as Budgie put it, with “little left of them that we could take a “customer” to see, we used them for Lobster mostly”, so it is unlikely there is much more to be gained as insight from local knowledge either. Budgie also pointed out most of the fishermen and “older guys” of the time, from whom Budgie got most of his information from, have long since passed

     I have no measurement for the LCT MkV (A)’s but I do have dimensions for the actual LCT at Portland which was measured by a diver (Becky9) posting on the Royal Navy Research Archives back in May of 2014 “….wheelhouse roof is missing, it’s around 27m long, 6m wide. It has two engine bays…..”  (Online Resource: Becky9 in “Post war Landing Craft – Portland Harbour Landing Craft Wreck” www.royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk/SMF/index.php/topic,586.0.html Accessed 13/03/2021). That would make it far more likely the LCT at Portland was a “variant” as the length (around 27m) is at odds with most LCT Mk V’s which were 34.8m x 10m according to dimensions quoted in The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (www.pwencycl.kgbudge.com/L/c/LCT_class.htm), this pushes us more towards a later landing craft perhaps, and Becky9 has a theory which has some merit. Becky believes the Portland LC is a Vosper Thorneycroft prototype from 1964, an LCM(9), specifically L3507 which is down as “stricken 1980’s” in the navypedia.org web-site (On-Line resource: navypedia.org/ships/uk/brit_aws_lcm9.htm Accessed 13/03/2021)  the dimensions are perfect, quoted length 27.5m beam 6.80m and powered by two Paxman Diesel Engines (twin prop). Even Budgie admitted there was no direct evidence the landing craft at the breakwater was a 1944 wreck, just that it had always been “known locally” as a war wreck

The clear drop from the Ramp to the gunwale can be seen on the photo of L3507 as can the high ramp, which protrudes well above the gunwale where they meet. On the prototype during its trials at Instow, (a place I know very well, having undertaken winterised and waterproofing trials with “ATTURM”, the “Amphibious Trials & Training Unit Royal Marines” as it was known when I was there), the bow Drop Ramp was level with the gunwales as can be seen in the video link embedded below. It was not uncommon to see the bow ramp changed for one with longer “reach”, (that was happening even in the war years), so the trial bow ramp could easily have been switched for one that extended above the gunwales. This fits well with the silhouette of the side-scan, which indicates a very close resemblance, and also shows a closer fit with what remains of the bridge, as the small bridge “wings” port and Starboard seem to show in the side-scan albeit with the roof on both sides missing. It would not take a leap of faith to think the roofs were thin steel, which would have quickly perished even if the LCM only went down sometime after the 1978 photo….. What doesn’t fit so well with Becky9’s proposal is how a disparity of some 34 years was “lost” in local folklore, (there were no tales of a later wreck, Budgie was explicit on that point) especially considering L3507 was described in admiralty records as “stricken”, a naval term for “removed from the records”, not a term used for “sunk”, and, as such, that means she was still afloat at least until 1980, nor does it explain how such a recent wreck could possibly have been believed to have been a WWII era loss……

You can watch the ATTURM Instow Trials of LCU L3507 here:

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060044448

  Anyhow, when I dived the Portland Landing craft I had little curiosity in regards to which type it was and to be honest the little craft was kind of underwhelming: “13 07 97 Portland Dorset Landing Craft: Very low viz made this eerie but still little to see – the historic interest is there & the wheelhouse is still just about in one piece but the wreck is barren & only of limited interest as it is largely a skip with no cargo & a hut on it. Buddy Michael 12L Nitrox 32% 50% Deco Dry Bag”

I am embarrassed by my curt treatment of the little landing craft at the time, I can see why the interest just wasn’t firing me up on the day, however I have always been fascinated by the war years, my mother having told me of her time as a child in Liverpool and the bombing raids, the gas-masks and the privations of rationing. I don’t really know why this pivotal type of craft, with its historic role in the freeing of half the globe from Nazi oppression, didn’t spark more in me? Perhaps it was because there was, in truth, little to the actual wreck itself, it wasn’t a complex piece embedded a foot or so in the mud in Portland harbour, it really was little more than a skip with a hut welded to it, but to those advancing under fire onto beaches it must have been a sleigh-ride into Hell itself…..

In truth, until someone can make “positive” identification of the era and type of the landing craft at Portland, she seems doomed to be a mystery, like almost every one of her peers during the war years, given the most cursory of references in naval records and, in all but one case it seems, not even investigated when reported lost……. a mysterious, if ignominious end

David, Goliath……. and Inconvenient Truths

The Aeolian Sky was a modern titan, 148 metres long and 14,000 Tonnes, as she navigated the English Channel November 02^nd of 1979 heading West. The Storm coming in from the south-west was making the Channel an increasingly nasty place to be, but the Sky was shrugging this off easily, her size making the weather little more than an irritation. The Aeolian Sky was sailing out of Hull, bound for Dar es Salaam, Africa, and had not long left Rotterdam, The Anna Knuppel was   heading in the opposite direction, back to Hamburg and the Anna Knuppel would perhaps not have been feeling quite as at ease, at 84 Meters and 2497 Tonnes fully laden, the weather would not have been so easily brushed aside as she made her way East. Neither ship’s captain would have taken the weather lightly, the English Channel is one of, if not “the” busiest waterways of the world and the shipping lanes, whilst easier to navigate using today’s electronics, were not by any means an easy sail even in good weather back in 1979   

This being a diving blog, and the section you are reading being dedicated to shipwrecks, the conclusion is inevitable, however the circumstances and the outcome are perhaps not quite so predictable….. Given the size differential between the Aeolian Sky and the Anna Knuppel (some 11,000 Tonnes), and the conditions at the time, and given that the Aeolian Sky was a brand new ship out of the Japanese shipyard at Hashihama, built by the world’s pre-eminent engineers (using the most modern technology possible and valued at £3 million, a huge sum in 1978 when she was launched), one might have expected the rather diminutive Anna Knuppel to have simply been ploughed under the immense bow of the Aeolian Sky, but fate is fickle indeed………

When the fates of the Aeolian Sky and the Anna Knuppel brought them to the exact same place and at precisely the same time the resultant impact left the Aeolian Sky, behemoth that she was, mortally wounded, and the Anna Knuppel battered but unbowed. The Anna Knuppel would not only live to see another day, but stand by the stricken Aeolian Sky to give assistance, should it be possible in the storm in which they were both caught, on that dark and fog shrouded night, somewhere round 04:30 am, just before the dawn on 03^rd November

As dawn began to break the situation looked optimistic to begin with, the Captain of the Aeolian Sky signalling for assistance and the French dispatching the tug Abeille Languedoc, out of Cherbourg, to undertake the towing of the wounded Aeolian Sky. Assistance came from the UK too, in the form of a Royal Navy helicopter from Lee on Solent, which managed to lift 16 of the crew between the Aeolian Sky and a Dutch Navy vessel, the Overijssel, before experiencing engine problems and being forced to return to the mainland

  The Abeille Languedoc arrived at the Aeolian Sky somewhere around 8 am, some 4 hours after impact and sent a salvage inspector across to her. Inflatables were used to ferry most of the remaining crew, less the Captain, the salvage inspector and a couple of crewmen, to the Abeille Languedoc. Those staying aboard would make fast a tow-line and help on her journey towards the safety of Southampton. At this point the bows of the Aeolian Sky, where the impact had occurred, were swamped and for’ard deck cargo was coming loose and floating away. The tow-line from the Abeille Languedoc was secured to the stern of the Aeolian Sky, even at that point it was becoming evident there was a possibility that the Aeolian Sky would not survive the journey to Southampton and might sink while under tow. There were calls made to the coastguard at Dover and, at some point, in what I would see as a very inconvenient truth, the port authorities at Southampton refused entry to their shipping lanes, believing the Aeolian Sky might flounder and block entry to the port, a potential disaster in terms of the trade into and from Southampton and a huge financial risk to the port authority and indeed potentially the city itself   

It took a day for the situation to go from impact, through potential recovery into a spiral of inevitability for the Aeolian Sky, and, whilst finally under tow to Portland, having been again refused entry, this time to Portsmouth, on exactly the same basis as her refusal from Southampton. Sinking further by the bows off St Aldhelm’s Head around 12 miles from the safety of Portland harbour, still in the midst of the South Westerly gale, the Aeolian Sky was finally abandoned to her fate and slipped below the storm lashed Channel seas. Might the Aeolian Sky have been saved should Southampton or Portsmouth port authorities have been more accommodating? The Abeille Languedoc was forced to change towing direction once both Southampton and Portsmouth refused entry, meaning that, with the storm coming in from the South West, she was now fighting to make headway with the not inconsiderable stern of the Aeolian Sky making that far harder than running with the wind in the opposite direction…….  I have yet to see anything from that day to this in terms of an enquiry, I am sure there was an enquiry, it is unthinkable that there might not be in the circumstances, however neither the Aeolian Sky nor the Anna Knuppel were UK registered vessels, but we shall see, I will keep looking!

The Aeolian Sky is one of the best dives I have done off Portland, her size and her cargo make her one of the most interesting and her depth makes her achievable for most sports divers, whilst still offering technical divers plenty to see over extended dive durations, using decompression to enjoy longer dive-times. My first time diving on the Aeolian Sky was 13^th of July 1997 off one of Budgie (Eric) Burgess’s ribs out of the Breakwater Hotel, I remember a good journey out on what was a bright day with calm seas on the way, a good job considering the Sky lies some 11 or so miles off Portland, the little Red Book recalls: “Aeolian Sky. A Greek freighter that went down in 1972 after an engine room fire popped some plates from the hull and the pumps packed in. Originally lay upright within 6m of the surface till blown in half for clearance, Stern (Aft) section now over on Starboard side. We dropped to 29m and there was at least 5m left to the sea bed (H W Springs) then up and around the damaged area – she’s huge – it took 5 minutes to recognize where we were on her, huge damage to the area but companionways still intact – can’t wait to return 36% Nitrox 50% deco buddies Michael- Tim- Carl”……How wrong can you be? I had asked about the Aeolian Sky when Budgie suggested we went out to her, but hadn’t had time to ask Budgie anything of her history. At that time I was only just getting into the history of the wrecks I was diving, the interest had been sparked, but there was no internet (that would take until 1983 to be “real” and 1990 before Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web…) and research was either local dive-guides, which weren’t cheap, or word-of-mouth. The information in my log came from our skipper on the RIB out and over the site itself, clearly not a diver himself and going on what others had probably told him along the way. Either way I clearly should’ve bought the Dive Dorset guides or the Dive Wight and Hampshire, either of which I think had a piece on the Aeolian Sky. My next and last dive on the Aeolian Sky was 02^nd April of 2005 and I remember it very well, the ride out on a local RIB (not one of Budgie’s), was bloody nightmarish, I was on my twinset and the rib was full. I had ended up towards the bow and slightly twisted in an awkward position in order to hold on, as an over-enthusiastic young skipper seemed to target every wave on the rather choppy sea of that day. The persistent and rapid raise and crash of the RIB bow, coupled with my rather poor seating, and difficult hold on the lifeline running the length of the hull, left me delighted to roll back into the sea off Portland that day and my log records: “Portland Dorset Aeolian Sky. Horrendous journey out by RIB seasick and damaged back! Wreck was very low viz (1m max) and difficult to locate any references but stern – before the bridge is suspected. Air in 230 out 100 Buddy Jim” I really was pre-occupied with the damage I had sustained out and on the way back in, I had to lie flat on my back for well over an hour before I even considered properly de-kitting. The Sky is another wreck I really should go back and experience in a far better way!

  If you fancy owning a piece of history you might want to take a look at the Lavinia, on Ships for sale Sweden https://shipsforsale.com/en/ships-en/shipid/1019/cargo-tank-ships_8_lavinia where you will find, for a very reasonable £500,000 you can sail away your very own genuine historic ship, perhaps you might even negotiate a small discount if you mention the work inevitably done on the Lavinia’s bow, following her brief appearance on the world’s stage and her giant killing role in the demise of the Aeolian Sky……..

How two such ships collide in a storm, whilst navigating the shipping lanes of the world’s busiest waterway, is only one of the unexplained mysteries of the Aeolian Sky. For weeks rumours of a treasure aboard her set the South Coast diving community alight, millions of dollars were supposed to have gone down with the ship, local divers were keen to see if they would be the first to find the fortune and get rich doing so. The rumours were true, the Aeolian Sky was not only carrying a mundane cargo of chemicals, Land Rover parts and steel pipes, she had two railway engines, diesel locomotives bound for Tanzania…….and she was also carrying a secret treasure on behalf of the Government of the Seychelles, 60,000,000 Rupee worth of their currency which had been commissioned from, and printed by, Bradbury Wilkinson and Co. Ltd of New Malden in Surrey, and it didn’t take long for those notes to start appearing locally…..  The first notes were handed to the authorities by a fisherman from Lulworth, he had picked up 4 of the Seychelles 100 Rupee notes at Christmas of 1979, it didn’t take long for the authorities to act, a team of commercial divers were sent down to the Aeolian Sky to recover the 12 wooden boxes of banknotes from a cabin, some believe the Captain’s cabin, others the Purser’s accommodation and even the medical bay has been whispered to have been the location. Whichever location it actually was, that information remains with the loss adjusters, the authorities and, no doubt the commercial divers assigned to search the wreck. The approximate Stirling value for the 12 sealed boxes of notes was £4.5 million, a huge amount, no matter, the serial numbers were known and recorded and would have been cancelled almost immediately by the Government and Treasury of the Seychelles Islands. Still the notes would have found some value, if not just as souvenirs of the time, perhaps sufficient numbers of notes might have been “laundered” by unscrupulous means? Who knows, the mystery still surrounds the wreck, the divers found only open, empty rooms wherever they searched, had someone beaten them to the prize or had the sea claimed them to follow the currents of the Channel to the Gulf Stream and then where………?  

The Bombardon & Tug………. of Mulberry’s & Men

  This is a dive I have taken several times and one that holds a personal family investment of a scale I can only reflect on, the dives carried out on the wreckage of two of, perhaps, the second world war’s most pivotal, if unsung historical pieces. Lying in 16m of sheltered sea at the base of the harbour wall, the Bombardon & Tug are a tangible link between my step-father, Vic Marley, and I on many levels, but more of that later……… Some of you will have read the opening lines of this dive in the “Training” section of this blog, a smaller and only partial telling of the bigger picture as I hope will become evident as we progress this piece, and look a little closer at the sea bed in Portland harbour and, perhaps it’s most important but little celebrated wreck site

  Anyone who has dived from the Breakwater shore or the Aqua-Sport Hotel will be very familiar with the Caissons floating just off the Left side of the beach and a couple of hundred yards out from the Aqua-Sport Pier. These would be hard to miss no matter how poor the weather may be, standing some 10m from the water a feature of the harbour for as long as I have been diving Portland. Set in the harbour since April or May of 1944 and expected to be part of “Operation Neptune”, the Allied code-name for the D Day invasion of France that took place 06^th June of 1944, the equipment required for the re-taking of Europe from the Nazis had to be in place in Normandy to supply the beachhead for that invasion to be effective Somehow the Caissons at Portland were left behind, I have no idea why, perhaps they were late into the operation and everyone had already deployed, perhaps they were “surplus to requirement” (unlikely), or maybe their “ride” across the Channel didn’t make it to Portland to tow them….who knows (and I’d love to update this piece if anyone can enlighten me?) but what they have become, in glorious isolation, is an iconic reference to an operation of staggering audacity and one that ultimately set Europe free, a visual and physical reminder of the largest seaborne invasion in human history! I suppose the Caissons themselves need some explanation too, they are clearly huge, visibly made of concrete or some such material at first glance, making it difficult to imagine exactly “what” their purpose or function might be…….When I called Operation Neptune one of “Staggering Audacity” I meant it quite literally, the ingenuity of those who planned a massive and violently opposed beach landing knew the success or failure of the enterprise pivoted on the ability to sustain, and therefore re-supply, those fighting through the beachhead and into the heartlands of Normandy and on into Germany itself

The story I have always heard in regards to the sinking of the Bombardon and “Tug” is that the tug was towing the unit in the harbour during a storm and the bombardon floundered, perhaps due to a leak or just instability, and that she dragged the tug down with her. I have tried over the years to verify that story and, despite the “power of the Internet” have yet to confirm any part of it. The lie of the two vessels isn’t definitive, although if the Bombardon did drag the tug down then I would have expected them to remain in line with each other, clearly not the case when you get down there as the Tug is lying with the Bombardon close alongside, the Tug facing towards the centre of the Bombardon

Of course that doesn’t categorically say the sinking was not the result of the Bombardon dragging the Tug down with her, it just is somewhat at odds with the lie of the wreckage. Then there is the “Tug”, since the diving I did on the units there has been speculation that the craft alongside and almost under the Bombardon is more likely a “Vic Lighter”, a variation of a Clyde “Puffer” commissioned or requisitioned by the Navy for harbour duty during the latter stages of the war. It is true, both “regular” Tugs and Vic Lighters were likely to tow Bombardon units, those who have posed the VIC as more likely have had a far better look around the vessel than I managed over my dives, and the sonar scan would certainly point towards the hull shape of the typical Clyde Puffer, or “VIC”, the Navy abbreviation for “Victualing Inshore Craft”!

  I have dived the Bombardon and Tug several times over the years and always found it fascinating, and somewhat confusing, I have never quite shaken off the belief there is a “whale” down there along with the Bombardon. It might be that my memory fails me but the belief persists as between the tug itself and the Bombardon unit the metalwork seems too “open” and “latticed” to me to just represent the Bombardon alone…..but it is a very long time since I dived Portland and the Bombardon, and, at that time I had no real appreciation of what actually comprised the “Mulberry” harbours, my dive log records: “…The Bombardon & Tug Nitrox IANTD Inst Cse Drills in zero viz (kicked silt) Then around the wreck for a look, she tipped the Bombardon over & towed the tug down which rests on its side with ½ in silt, great swim up between the two of them, Atmospheric & would have liked more time to ferret about but it was great to hang on 5 min deco above the barge & see the outline disappearing in the murk.” That dive was on the 03^rd May of 1997 and my buddy was Don Shirley along with an IANTD Nitrox student of Don’s called James

The next dive I took on the Bombardon would be over two years later in September of ’99 off Budgie Burgess’s Maverick, with a buddy and great friend of mine Mark Hill, one of the early divers of FSAC detailed in another section of these ramblings! That dive was recorded as: “….Bombardon & Tug, Refreshing to get on one I’ve only “skimmed” before. The unit has holes in along its side and shelters Bass among other life (Wrasse etc) Large Bass on the odd glimpse we got plus a large shoal of Pollack. The Tug lies next to the unit and would warrant more time than we had to look round properly – next time!” Neither of those dives was sufficient to be honest, I need to go back and take another dive at some time. Unresolved in my mind is still the Bombardon structure, I now know the full structural make-up of the Bombardon unit and it is so frustrating to have a picture, residual in my mind, that says there was a distinctly different shape and structure between the tug and the Bombardon itself, I just can’t “categorically” coalesce that into the reality of a “Whale”…….I just know the Bombardon did not have the significantly “open” appearance of the lattice effect of the whale units, even after so long underwater, but that is what I distinctly recall on the dives…..perhaps it really will be “next time”! 

  June 06^th 1944, all the French ports were heavily defended and well garrisoned with German troops. Rommel, the German Afrika Corps Field Marshall of Tobruk and El-Alamein fame, the decorated “Desert Fox”, had been placed in charge of Germany’s “Atlantic Wall”, the defences placed coastally and stretching from Norway almost to Spain, designed to throw any assault back into the sea, and, whilst he was quite late to that endeavour, he took the task very seriously indeed. The obvious points of approach were heavily defended with combinations of anti-landing steel-work, mines, heavy artillery and inter-sectional fields of fire covered by multiple machine gun and infantry positions, considered practically impregnable to all intents and purposes…..at least that was the impression

The problem was clear from very early on, and was articulated by Winston Churchill himself in a memo, referred to as the “Mulberry Minute” contained in, or following his memo “Piers for the use on Beaches” of the 30^th May 1942, which also adequately reveals the 2 years of preparation that went into the final operation: “….They must float up and down with the tide……..the anchor problem must be mastered. Let me have the best solution worked out. Don’t argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves…..” (Wikipedia: In “Allan Beckett, The Mulberry Minute” Online. Accessed 14/10/2020) 

That was only part of the problem, but probably the most important, along with the fact the beaches in question had shallow gradients, necessitating long roadways between sufficient depth of sea to dock supply and troop ships, and the sand of the beach. Churchill knew from bitter experience at Gallipoli (see the “Best Dives” section of this blog) that beach landings were monumentally difficult to prosecute and sustain, without sufficient docking facilities for the attacking forces, he had himself submitted a plan to take the islands of Borkum & Sylt (offshore of Holland and Denmark) using caissons sunk and filled with sand during the first world war in 1917, to effect re-supply and troop landings, although that was never undertaken at the time. It would take another 25 years, a second global conflict, and the problems of Normandy landings to bring a similar, ingenious design to the forefront, almost overlooked for a second time, a Welsh civil engineer named Hugh Lorys Hughes submitted a design for the use of floating, sinkable “Caissons” as part of a jetty to the war office. If it hadn’t been for his brother, Alain, a commander in the naval reserve, who championed the design to the war office, the Mulberry system may never have been initiated

  So we have the Allies preparing for the invasion of France, the Germans defending some 2400 miles of coastline, and engineers designing the means to deliver a sustainable military operation on a scale never seen before, from the sea to the beach, a gathering storm the like of which the defending German army could only imagine, a storm Erwin Rommel had imagined in very real detail, and was determined to stop in its tracks, on the beach, before the attacking troops could even escape the beach

Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel was one of Germany’s best, not just a soldier of both wars, Rommel was a published military strategist (Oberstleutnant Rommel: “Infanterie Grieft An” Published 1936, (Written when Rommel was a Lieutenant Colonel, roughly translated as “Infantry Attacks”)) Rommel’s personal belief was that the Atlantic wall was just a fantasy, and that Hitler had conjured it out of “cloud cuckoo land”. Rommel had watched in 1940 as the German army simply by-passed the French Maginot line, another massive static defensive “wall” built to prevent Germany invading France, modern asymmetric warfare or “Blitzkrieg” had made such emplacements a thing of the past, a dinosaur, Rommel knew the Atlantic wall would fall, but his job was to defend the beaches and he set out to do so

Rommel knew “first-hand” how to prosecute a military attack, and therefore how to defend against one too. Rommel knew his best defence over the 2000 miles plus of the Atlantic Wall, an almost impossible task, was to win the beach, essentially pin down and destroy the attacker as they tried to cross the open beachhead. The guns placed to defend the beaches of Normandy were sited to fire across the beach…….. not directly out to sea, that meant fewer troops would be needed to man fewer defensive weapons, as any fire from the guns would cover the beach out to the effective range of the weapon itself. Rommel set out to destroy any ships attempting to land troops, to do so he had stakes driven into the beach topped with mines, any ship using high tide to get in close to shore would not see the stakes, they were laid deliberately to be under the surface towards the high water mark

  So the scene is set, the German defences in place and all that remains is planning the Allied assault…… I have already said that Operation Neptune was a staggeringly audacious plan, to assault Normandy Beaches at low tide, (bringing everything necessary to deliver massive military force in a sustained attack), across twenty odd miles of English Channel, to arrive in broad daylight in June of 1944, relied on two years of planning and a year of practice. When it came down to the time to risk everything for real, it all came down to a gamble on a weather window predicted with spectacular accuracy by the meteorologist (Group Captain) James Stagg, who, despite conflicting reports, advised the American General Dwight Eisenhower to delay through the 4^th and 5^th of June due to cloud cover and high seas. Stagg was under extreme pressure to get things right, tens of thousands of lives depended on it, Stagg predicted a lull in the weather on the 6^th of June and advised Eisenhower it was the only opportunity…….Stagg was right, the 6^th of June 1944, although marginal in terms of conditions, offered reasonably clear skies for air cover and choppy, but manageable seas on the French side of the channel

So how was all this to be put together and what were the pieces of the “whole” puzzle? Well, the battlefield looked exactly like this from the air:

  The breakdown of constituent parts into “systems” gives us the outer defences against the sea,

The Bombardons:

A line of floating units linked together to take energy from the incoming tide and achieve this by dispersing the waves as they impacted the outer line of Bombardon “+”’s floating at the limits of the landing areas, the Three arms of the + invisible as the main of an iceberg is, the uppermost arm of the “+” showing as a vertical barrier to incoming waves

Then there were the Mulberry (Phoenix) Caissons:

Another line of units, sunk in place to provide an outer harbour and dock where liberty ships and merchantmen could dock and unload equipment and ferry vehicles and stores, ammunition and men ashore

Then there were the Lobonitz Piers:

These ingenious pieces of the puzzle acted as floating pier supports allowing roadways to connect and to maintain safe passages at any state of the tide, rising and lowering on the pier pillars seen in the photo as the tide ebbed and flowed

Finally there were the roadways themselves:

These were the floating “Beetles” anchored with Allan Beckett’s ingenious “Kite” anchors at each corner, holding them in place with greater “bite” than any other anchor type available weight for weight. Then there were the “Whales” at either side of the roadways, the skeletal framework holding the roadways together and sitting upon the Beetles in lengths up to a mile out to sea

And so the systems finally come together and form the road to the freeing of Europe, very viscerally and literally built upon the bodies of those who gave their lives and their futures to secure a future for those they would and could never know…………

It should not be forgotten by any generation what awaited the young men assaulting those beaches, the defenders were well placed, well supplied and knew the Allies were coming…..they didn’t know exactly where…or when….but they knew they were coming, and that the only real way to stop them…….was on the beaches of Normandy

  But before any of these technological marvels of their time could deploy, the beaches had to be secured, those golden stretches of sand covering some 50 or so miles of Normandy coast. And so disembarkation began, the first waves of troops aboard landing craft, ferried to shore having descended nets over the side of their transport ships, driven against an ebbing tide towards Gold, Sword, Juno, Utah and Omaha beaches, the code names given to Longues-sur-Mer (Gold), Saint Aubin-Sur-Mer (Sword), Courseulles-Sur-Mer (Juno), Pouppeville (Utah) and Sainte Honorine-Des-Pertes (Omaha), some more heavily defended than others, the American 1^st Infantry landing at Omaha taking by far the worst casualty’s. It was wave upon wave of allied troops across these 5 beaches that secured sufficient hold to enable the deployment of the Mulberry harbours and the steady re-supply of those ashore facilitating the relentless push off the beaches and on….eventually to Berlin, D Day was a beginning….the beginning of the end of the Third Reich

That “choppy but manageable sea state” had done nothing for my step father, a Royal Marine Commando of the Forward Artillery Observation detachment. Berthold Victor Marley (Vic to everyone then and after), had hated his early deployment in the Navy. Vic had been assigned to motor torpedo boats, fast craft designed by Vosper Thorneycroft and high powered, ideally suited to Channel patrols and picking up downed pilots and crew from fighters and bombers shot down by the Luftwaffe over the channel, or attacking Nazi shipping foolhardy enough to be close enough to England’s South coast to be chased down and torpedoed in hit and run manoeuvres……. But Vic was constantly sea-sick and his role as radio operator and signaller on the little craft was a constant nightmare, when Vic heard the Navy wanted volunteers for Commando training, and that meant no more MTB’s, he didn’t hesitate. I know something of the training for special forces and the Commando training was no cake walk, up to Scotland with long arduous marches carrying heavy kit in poor battledress was no joke I’m sure, but Vic passed the exercises and got badged up, I don’t know if that stirred something more in him, or if the training team saw some quality beyond the Green Beret earned in the glens and hills around Lochaber and Achnacarry camp, perhaps it was his skill with radio signalling, but it wasn’t long before Vic was assigned to Forward Artillery Observation, an elite amongst an elite…… part of 4^th Special Service Brigade formed in March of 1944, specifically for the D Day invasion

  Vic didn’t speak of his D Day experiences so this is second hand and from my late mother’s conversations with Vic’s own mother and sister…… Vic had a lasting back injury which was treated by state of the art tech of the ‘70’s, a heat lamp, which gave some degree of relief of the pain from a broken piece of his spine, the result of his eventual extraction from the beaches of Normandy. It turns out Vic, at just 19 years old had parachuted into Normandy (Operation Tonga at Ranville we believe) before the landings, at night, with the assistance of free French resistance in the area, squirrelling himself away, along with colleagues from forward artillery observation, dropped a mile or two behind enemy lines off Sword Beach (in the general “Roger” area by Ouistreham) in order to call in the naval bombardment and radio in corrections to the navy gunfire trying to shatter any opposition to the beach landings

    That part went well, a couple of days later, when the allies had overrun the positions, Vic had to break cover and identify himself to the friendly forces without getting himself shot, and then it was back to the beach to re-join the war effort in another theatre…. That’s where it went wrong, gaining a place on a ship returning injured troops to the UK, Vic’s ship was torpedoed, or perhaps struck a mine, his back was damaged in the explosion, and the ordeal of getting up three decks and out of a sinking ship put him in a body cast, when he eventually got pulled from the water by a fellow marine and found himself back in Southampton after waking in a hospital following surgery……. I believe it was almost a year in and out of various plaster body casts before Vic was discharged from the service, his war over, as indeed was the main of WWII by that time, just one story amongst hundreds of thousands of the day, but one that represents a couple of days in the lives of the men who won back the freedom of this country with courage, tenacity and personal sacrifice…….

Rest Well Sir, Thank you for your service! At the going down of the Sun….and in the morning  

RIP
Lest We Forget…….

Port Stanley, South Atlantic Ocean

    The John R Kelley was built by Goss & Sawyer out of Bath Maine in the United States of America in 1883. At the time she was said to be the biggest sailing ship ever built in the USA, a “full-Rigged Ship”of 2,364 Tonnes, built for carrying big cargoes, known colloquially as a “windjammer” for her huge yardage of sail, between New York and San Francisco……but this is not a story about One ship alone, it would be foolish to write of the John R Kelley without at least passing mention of the Cyrus Wakefield, another American Schooner also frequently sailing the New York to San Francisco trade route and also renowned, but for far darker reason…..  

The John R Kelley was one of three ships (including the Ships: E F Sawyer & Charles E Moody) commissioned on the retirement of master mariner, John R Kelley, born in Phippsburg June 14^th 1828. John Kelly had been  captain of the ship “Genoa” at the age of 23, following an apprenticeship under his father (Captain Francis Kelley) from the age of 16 (Little, George T: “Genealogical and Family History of the State of Maine” in “Kelley (IV) Captain John R.”: Lewis Historical Publishing Co New York 1909). The shipyard of Guy C Goss and Elijah F Sawyer (Goss & Sawyer) was started in 1865 and lasted under that name until 1873, when they were joined by Benjamin F Packard, becoming Goss Sawyer & Packard until 1883, just a year before the John R Kelley was launched and the yard became the New England Shipbuilding Co (Online resource: shipbuildinghistory.com/shipyards/emergencylarge/texas.htm: Texas Steamship Company, Bath ME. Accessed 10/09/2020)

  Although the New England Shipbuilding Co, latterly named the Texas Steamship Company, closed in 1921 the site can still be visited in Maine, where Bowery St and what remains of the Pier and slipway on the Kennebec River still exist and, up to the date of publishing this post, have yet to be re-developed. The Cyrus Wakefield, another three masted Sailing Ship, was launched in 1882 just over a year before the John R Kelley, in Thomaston, another Maine Shipbuilding yard, just 40 miles from the Bowery St yard of Goss Sawyer & Packard

The New York to California sailing route had been established during the California Gold Rush of 1848 to 1855 when tens of thousands from across the USA, and indeed the globe, converged to pan the streams of California to find their fortunes, or to feed the logistics behind their need to survive whilst trying. Everything from grain to shovels, pots and pans to horses and carts were carried across the country or around Cape Horn, the record for that route was held by a clipper, the Flying Cloud, which completed the journey, some 12,000 miles, in just 89 days, lightning fast considering the cross country route, at its shortest (through Panama) usually took between 120 to 200 days to travel the 2,445 miles in a wagon train, with all the trouble that implied….. Although the Panama Canal had been started in 1881, it would not be completed until 1914 and the sailing ship attraction, if not the speed itself, (which was mostly comparable with that of the land route) was a considerably cheaper journey which involved less personal effort than the wagon train alternative

Now the seafarers of the Cape Sail-ship and Clipper days were a special breed, known as “Cape Horner’s” these were tough men used to harsh conditions and the often appalling weather, almost normal when sailing around the Southernmost tip of South America, (a desolate and mostly inhospitable place in those days) and the coast of Patagonia. To join the crew of a sailing ship like the John R Kelley or the Cyrus Wakefield even in the late 1800’s meant you either knew what you were in for or you wanted to escape from something even worse….. if that is imaginable? Whilst the Master of the John R Kelley, Captain O E Chapman, was known as an outstanding mariner, respected amongst all those that sailed the Southern route, the Master of the Cyrus Wakefield was held in a different light amongst his peers, indeed Captain Frederick Thomas Henry, his First Mate F Williamson and Second Mate Leonard, seem to have been reviled by most that sailed with them  (San Francisco Call, 31 August 1898: “CRUELTY ON THE HIGH SEAS”) the Boatswain (Bosun) of the Cyrus Wakefield, J A Jansen is quoted as saying “I have travelled in some pretty hard ships, but the Cyrus Wakefield takes the cake………When they got tired of beating us they started in and threw our clothes overboard, and when the men said they would have the law on them Second Mate Leonard laughed and said. ‘We’re going to Frisco; there’s no law in that hole” and, in validation of that piece, the Sacramento Daily Union reported (Sacramento Daily Union, September 01^st 1898: “CRUELTY CHARGED. Serious Accusations Against Mates of Bark Cyrus Wakefield.”) “To-day members of the crew of the bark Cyrus Wakefield, which arrived here last night from Baltimore, swore out warrants for the arrest of First Mate F. Williamson and Second Mate Leonard, charging them with brutality, assault and other violations on the high seas” The two captains and the conditions on board the two sailing ships could not have been more different it would seem

So the journey’s begin, the John R Kelley left New York for San Francisco on March 15^th of 1899, unknowingly  on her last journey, all must have seemed well to Captain Chapman, his holds full of the general cargo expected to make some $150,000, at least that was the value placed on it with insurers, although the John R Kelley itself was not insured, despite the owners (John R Kelley and James F Chapman & Co) placing a value of $75,000 on her……The list of cargo is known well, detailed in the San Francisco Call 17^th June of 1899 (San Francisco Call, 17^th June 1899, Volume 86 No 17: “LOSS OF THE AMERICAN SHIP JOHN R. KELLY”) and is seemingly quite likely to have been a significant “overload” in modern terms: 200 tons No 1 Tonowanda Scotch Pigiron, 26 barrels iron casters, 89 cases linoleum, 27 cases and half a barrel hardware, 400 drums caustic soda, 85 cases chalk crayon, 111 barrels iron pipe fittings, 650 kegs horseshoes, 6 cases blacking, 76 cases spools, 6 cases leaf tobacco, 5 cases hardware, 20 cases hair renewer and whisker dye, 60 bags ginger root, 50 bags cocoa dust, 1 barrel iron castings, 2 barrels sumac extract, 66 bundles 1 barrel stove castings, 890 kegs horseshoes, 3 bales burlap, 3 barrels varnish, 950 pieces boiler tubes, 3909 pieces 289 bundles welded iron pipe, 443 bars steel, 10 cases ball blue, 9 cases blacking, 440 plates iron, 80 packages marble, 193 packages pumps, 50 cases cider, 100 cases sheep dip, 294 bundles welded iron pipe, 405 bales carpet lining, 217 iron range boilers, 143 boxes 4 casks ink, 115 boxes mucilage, 31 cases cotton, 5 crates candles, 7 boxes 1 barrel iron strap hinges, 1 barrel whiting, 1 pump (cased), 40 barrels stamped ware, 20 crates chair seats, 320 steel beams, 46 channels 3037 steel rails……….You can read the rest for yourselves below but by now this is looking like a hell of a cargo and perhaps even a very dangerous load, unless there is an element of the Atlantic Conveyor lading list going on (see the Falkland islands war reports of 1982 and the “claimed” cargo of the vessel Atlantic Conveyor, sunk in the conflict, where every army stores warrant officer involved claimed every piece of lost kit they had on inventory…… “apparently” your honour)

  The John R Kelley was a big ship, 256 feet 9” long, 45 foot wide and a draft of 27 feet 8” and a net weight of 2,255 tonnes laden, as already mentioned, perhaps the biggest sailing ship in the USA merchant fleet of the time, however that cargo list seems quite incredible to me, perhaps there is someone who can spend the time estimating the weight and size of such an inventory, sadly that won’t be me, I shall just remain amazed at such a scale and scope of cargo, and of the belief it must in some way have contributed to the damage caused to the John R Kelley whilst en route and approaching Patagonia. The damage said to have “disabled” the ship forcing Captain Chapman to re-route to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands in order to make repairs, the San Francisco Call reporting (same issue and piece) that “….it is a very dangerous place to enter and the chances are  that something gave way at a critical moment and the ship went ashore”  The John R Kelley just failed to make it to Port Stanley, becoming unmanageable off Cape Pembroke in the Falkland Islands, and anchored up near Tussac Island 25^th June of 1899, in violent weather that prevented any rescue attempt until the next day

News came to Port Stanley of the fate of the John R Kelley following a desperate dash by Charles Coulson (Jr), ward to the lighthouse keeper on Pembroke Point, a Mr James Hocking. Coulson rode 7 miles in appalling conditions to Port Stanley to raise alarm that the James R Kelley was floundering on the rocks off Tussac Island, an effort that prompted the American Consul of the time to write: (On Line Resource: falklandsbiographies.org/biographies/129 accessed 15/09/2020) “I cannot exaggerate the conditions and the darkness caused by the wild storm. It was terrible and no reward is too much for this noble boy” The journey had taken Charles Coulson an hour and a half, risking death throughout, riding the banks of Cape Pembroke, but the act of unselfish bravery resulted in the launch “Sissy” making several attempts from Port Stanley to rescue those aboard the John R Kelley, an act that resulted in a presidential award to Sissy’s captain from the USA in gratitude

So to the Cyrus Wakefield, which sailed from New York on the 04^th April of 1899 bound for San Francisco and undoubtedly taking the same route as the John R Kelley, although if previous reports are to be believed, conditions on board would have been very different for those crewing the ship. The master on the journey was Captain Henry and the First mate still Williamson, clearly both had managed to avoid answering the charges of brutality and assault brought against them in August of 1898…..But, as always karma has a place in every story, and in every man’s path…… (San Francisco Call 05^th July 1899: “CAUGHT IN A STORM OFF CAPE HORN”) “The American ship Cyrus Wakefield, now on her way here from New York, has been particularly unfortunate this voyage. Heavy weather was encountered off the Horn, and in consequence the vessel was damaged and had to put into Port Stanley. Captain Henry died and was buried while the vessel was in the Falkland Islands” Now it may seem fortuitous that such a man as Captain Henry might be severely injured in a storm whilst navigating around Cape Horn, but when you add in a report that the First Mate Williamson was injured during the same storm, it might perhaps provoke a feeling of impending unease, even a deep seated curiosity as to the circumstances of such injuries…….

I spent quite some time looking for reports contemporary to the time, as men of such violence as Henry and Williamson seldom come to entirely  “natural” endings, it did not take long to find Graham Faiella’s book “Misery, Mutiny and Menace: Thrilling Tales of the Sea (Vol. 2)” (Published by The History Press) in which claims are made that Williamson had argued with Captain Henry continually since leaving New York and that Williamson eventually took a hammer to Captain Henry and used the heavy seas breaking over the ship to cover his murder. Is this just a flight of fancy to sell a “Penny Dreadful” article in a book unashamedly seeking a ghoulish audience by its title alone? If it were not for the charges laid in August of 1898 then I might have given scant regard to such an accusation, however, the background allegations of brutality towards previous crews on the Cyrus Wakefield means to do so would be perhaps ill-considered…..  

So the John R Kelley limped into Port Stanley Approaches in the midst of a horrendous storm, no one aboard was injured much more than bruising in the maelstrom of Cape Horn in May of 1899 and yet on the Cyrus Wakefield a lesser weather set, in June of the same year, supposedly caused the death of the Captain and the serious injury of the First Mate…….unless you lean more towards the accounting of events in Graham Faiella’s book…. The account here has First Mate Williamson responsible for the murder of Captain Henry and using poor weather as the cover-up: “On June 15, about 7:30 p.m., shipped a heavy sea on the port quarter, which struck Captain Henry and knocked him off the after-house down on the deck. He struck against some iron and received some terrible injuries to his chest, back and hips, and his head was cut to pieces. We carried him into the cabin and did everything in our power to restore consciousness, but failed, and Captain Henry died at 8:20 p.m.” (Log Book Entry, Cyrus Wakefield, First Mate Williamson, Quoted In Faiella, G. “Misery, Mutiny and Menace: Thrilling Tales of the Sea (vol. 2)”, History Press) The basis for an accusation of murder by First mate Williamson comes from testimony of the steward of the Cyrus Wakefield, Thomas Visiga, who further claims others who witnessed the event were paid off by Williamson on reaching Port Stanley and subsequently dispersed about the globe, making it impossible to prove the events (Visiga, T. Quoted In Faiella, G. “Misery, Mutiny and Menace: Thrilling Tales of the Sea (vol. 2)”, History Press) “The Captain and mate were always quarrelling, mate Williamson did not like the old man, and told him so on numerous occasions. On the night of the killing the mate got a hammer from the carpenter at a quarter to 7 and when he came down from the poop he still had the hammer in his hand and there was blood on it” When the Captain is eventually brought in to the cabin and laid on his bed Visiga has it that Captain Henry was still alive and describes events: “Captain Henry was carried in from the deck and laid out on the cabin floor. The mate went to the medicine chest and, making up a mixture, tried to get the Captain to take it. The dying man rolled his head and I heard him say, “No, no! don’t let him, Mr. Johnson” His mouth was forced open, however, and Mr. Williamson made him swallow it, saying, “Drink it down; it will do you good.” About 8:30 p.m. the Captain died.”

The assertion quoted in “Misery Mutiny & Menace…” by Thomas Visiga originally comes from the San Francisco Call of 12^th November 1899 and goes on to allege “When we got into Port Stanley the mate took possession of the ship’s money and paid off the man who was at the wheel when the captain and mate were quarrelling near the wheelhouse. He also paid off the four men who took refuge in the rigging just before the sea broke aboard and who had seen everything that took place. Then he left the ship himself and Captain Chapman of the John R Kelly took command” As Thomas Visiga goes on to say First Mate Williamson “left the Ship” it would seem, if everything Visiga alleges is true, the foul crime against Captain Henry went unpunished and the Laudanum administered by Williamson, finally ended Captain Henry’s suffering and ultimately his life

There are opportunities to look further into the case if an autopsy was properly carried out in Port Stanley on the body of Captain Henry, perhaps there was a report of events logged with the Port Stanley judiciary at the time? For two such prestigious sailing ships to have entered Port Stanley waters, one to flounder just in the last few miles to the port itself and one to dock with the Captain dead, to have gone mostly “unremarked” seems bizarre. If, as Visiga alleges this was a foul murder at sea, how was the crew allowed to disperse from port Stanley, without question, on the word of someone (Williamson) who had been subject to a warrant for arrest, on grievous assault charges in New York so recently?

Faiella’s book and Visiga’s San Francisco Call allegations raise serious questions as to the conduct of those in command of the Cyrus Wakefield and perhaps also the procedures surrounding the handling of the death of Captain Henry on arrival of the Cyrus Wakefield at Port Stanley. If, however, the allegations of Thomas Visiga have embellished Captain Henry’s death, questions surrounding motive must be investigated, what would such allegations do for Visiga, those responsible had vanished, unpunished and into history from Port Stanley. There is unlikely to have been financial gain for Visiga from the story itself, and what benefits Visiga in the telling anyway, revenge against poor treatment by Williamson perhaps? No mention of any conflict between him and Williamson is made by Visiga during his telling of the voyage, it seems the story has much more to give, something a criminal historian might take an interest in, it would certainly make a great additional entry into the history of Port Stanley and those who “rounded the Horn”….men of iron, in ships of wood!

One thing of this story is, however, certain, the death of Captain Frederick Thomas Henry is unlikely to have been mourned by those who sailed on the Cyrus Wakefield, equally, many who sailed on that “Hell-Ship” would be horrified, if unsurprised, to find First Mate Williamson might have escaped justice for murder

  So to the John R Kelley of 1996, and again we return to Exercise Southern Craftsman and our final Falkland Island diving location, based out of Port Stanley, my little Red Log book records: 03 February 1996, my 167^th dive “Ran aground 1892 steam ship SS Kelly, on Kelly’s Rock outside Port Stanley S.A. wedged between two outcrops of rock. Heavily Kelped at the surface which when underwater gives the effect of a forest round the remains. Really atmospheric lighting! Viz about 8m. The hull is timber, Copper plated at the waterline & below, near enough all of the length is still there but most of the bulk of the hull is gone plenty of marine life & a couple of large fish loads of nooks & crannies & holes – great dive” I have no idea who told us the John R Kelley was a steamship and I excuse my ignorance in not correcting that in my wreck log simply by lack of experience and a desire to report what was seen rather than what was not, I saw no boiler, but that wouldn’t mean to me at the time that there “were” no boilers, I saw no real pipe-work that would have been associated with a steamship of the era either, but again, the condition of the hull, filled mostly with the decay of a hundred plus years and the marine life obscuring detail, would not have caused me to comment either

I knew there were sailing ships of that period that had been converted to dual use, mounted with steam engines and sail, who knew if this had been one such ship, the hull was clearly large enough to have accommodated that type of arrangement. I note the date we had been given for the sinking was as inaccurate as the type of ship we were diving, but such was “as it was” so to speak, we had done no prior research on the wrecks of the Falklands (as we had not intended to carry out more than general diving in the areas of interest), to find there were wrecks was a surprise to me at the time, beyond those of the 1982 war, from which we had been gallingly and selfishly denied access by the MoD in short order! My recollection of the dive on the John R Kelley is one of real enjoyment of the kaleidoscope effects the kelp had on the light, she is a shallow wreck at 8-10m maximum and winding along her hull, looking at whatever was about was as much a gentle light show as it was a wreck dive. I mainly recall there was not much of her that was more than one level, her hull almost down to the waterline in most places, some framework evident and a mast spar if I recall correctly, but mostly an interesting, atmospheric root rather than an opportunity for involved investigation in stark contrast to the history of the ship herself

The epilogue of the entwined fates of the John R Kelley and the Cyrus Wakefield leave one ship sunk and irreparable, from which all usable cargo, fixtures and fittings was sold for £200 to a Mr Louis Williams (with the ships pumps being sold the day after for £150), and one ship “captainless” and docked at Port Stanley

I remember being in the post office in Port Stanley before we left for Weddell Island, at the start of our diving adventures, there were ink bottles in a small cabinet at one side of the counter for sale, marked “from the wreck of the John R Kelley”, I knew if I bought one the chances were it would get broken or lost over the next month of living somewhat rough nomadic existences across the islands, so I let it be and decided I would pick one up on the outward journey back home. As luck would have it, on our return the post office was closed and I left disappointed, it has taken 24 years to now, but with the help of Tara Hewitt from the Falkland Islands Museum & Trust, I have finally managed to keep the promise I made to myself so long ago

There followed a natural and perhaps ironic twist where Captain Chapman, formerly of the John R Kelley, took charge of the Cyrus Wakefield and brought her, from the dark voyage south from New York, to her eventual delivery of Captain Henry’s body to the port Authority in Stanley, finally in to San Francisco, along with the One remaining crew member, the steward Thomas Visiga, who would go on to tell a story of deceit and an unpunished murderer at large……

I would like to personally thank Ken Gross at the Walsh History Society & Camden Public library, Tara Hewitt of the Falklands Islands Museum Trust and the Jane Cameron Memorial Archives, to whom I am indebted for their permissions and help with the detail of this piece and for providing some of the photographs used

If you read the comments below you will see Paul Regan of Florida got in touch recently, Paul had the good fortune to purchase one of the navigational instruments off the John R Kelley. I am very envious of such a wonderful piece of the Vessels History and am delighted that Paul has allowed me to publish a picture of the ship’s Octant. An Octant allows the ship’s navigator to use a small mirror to measure the height of the Sun above the horizon giving the ships latitude, it’s position North or South. This when used along with an accurate chronometer and distance travelled would give the ship’s position. I think you’ll agree, it is a wonderful piece in beautiful condition and I’m grateful to Paul for getting in touch……..and if you ever tire of it Paul……

Epilogue

In my research of the John R Kelley over a period of a couple of years I believed I had found as much as I would ever uncover, little did I know at the time…..

As I looked for information on an unrelated wreck, another schooner written up on this site, the Crompton. I was in dialogue with Kelly Page at the (Boston) Maine Maritime Museum and it turned out Kelly had a diary that might be of some interest in respect to schooners that sailed out of the USA…….. The Keene Journal is exactly that, a daily diary (otherwise known as a journal), and was written on the John R Kelley in 1899 by Lydia Ford Keene, teacher of Captain Chapman’s young daughter, who was also aboard and relates their journey on the last voyage and shipwreck of the vessel John R. Kelley. To say I was delighted is somewhat of an understatement, this helped make Christmas of 2021 an exciting time. I suggest anyone interested in the John R Kelley, or schooners and Cape Horner’s, reads what is a wonderful insight into a travelers’ perception of life aboard such ships. I found the detail of a week’s menu very interesting, but there is detail specific to the loss of the John R Kelley that I want to share here:

(Keene, Lydia, F. “Log Book, Lydia Ford Keene” Online Resource: https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Lydia+Ford+Keene%22 Accessed 08/01/2022)

Lydia Keene goes on to describe some of the trivia of the aftermath surrounding the anchorage of the John R Kelley, down the headland from Port Stanley. It is a relief to all aboard as you will see if you read the journal, but Lydia does have a little more to add that I feel compelled to share:

“Capt. C. told me a week ago he had made up his mind that none of us would ever reach port. The heavy cargo had broken the ship. That was why she acted so queerly in the gale, and why the bow sprit rolled from side to side, and why the companion way doors worked up and down. During the gale he had decided that, if she foundered, he would lock the companionway doors, so that the fish could not get at us, and we would go down with the ship. Had we been a day later we should not have made port”

I would like to thank Kelly Page of the Maine Maritime Museum for kindly sharing the Keene Journal, from which these excerpts are taken, and to any living relatives of Lydia Ford Keene who should be very proud of such a fiercely brave and ground-breaking young woman

Weddell Island South Atlantic Ocean

  In Greek Mythology Castalia was a Naiad, a water Nymph, divine and sacred to the springs and rivers of the countryside. Daughter of the gardener Achelous, Castalia was believed to have come to Delphi in search of Python, but, pursued by the God Apollo, whose advances she would rather avoid, she turned herself into a fountain on the mountain of Parnassus North of Corinth. From that point onwards anyone who drank at the spring of Delphi or listened to the waters could be gifted the art of poetry by Castalia, indeed the waters of her spring were used to purify the temples of Delphi, where the oracles would speak in tongues to the likes of Leonidas, the Hoplite warrior king of Sparta, before the battle of Thermopylae………What better name for the sleekest of Yachts out of the Inman and Son’s shipyard at Lymington……

Shipbuilding at Lymington stretches back to the 1300’s when Lymington supplied 9 ships to King Edward the First in “defence of the Realm” between 1272 & 1307. Ownership of the Lymington Yard, now the home of prestigious Yacht Makers Berthon, can be traced to John Rogerys from 1513, then Charles Guidot, up to 1667 when it was bought by a John Coombes, all manner of wooden ships were traded initially and then, when Thomas Inman bought the yard in 1819, a move towards large schooners or “Gentleman’s sailing yachts” began to dominate the firm’s output. The origin of the America’s Cup can be traced to the race around the Isle of Wight between the “Gentleman’s Yachts” Alarm, Arrow and Lulworth, pitted against the yacht America 22^nd of August 1851. Castalia was one of those magnificent gentleman’s sailing yachts, a schooner, built and launched 07^th July 1874, at 120 tonnes and officially numbered hull 68834, Castalia was registered with Lloyd’s of London (1875) under the ownership of Adrian Elias Hope (son of a wealthy regency furniture designer), and skippered by O. Andrews

On the 07^th July 1874 Charles Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 20^th Earl of Shrewsbury, 20^th Earl of Waterford (Ireland), 5^th Earl Talbot and Viscount Ingestre, was approaching his Fourteenth birthday and in school at Eton…… This just two years before the death of his father, his inheritance of the family’s hereditary titles……. and just Five years from his scandalous elopement with the wife of a commoner, Ellen Miller Mundy (Nee Palmer-Morewood) of Shipley Hall, in the parish of what is now the Borough of Amber Valley. More on the Miller Mundy family and Viscount Ingestre a little later, suffice to say destiny had an interest in the Nymph of Delphi and the errant Ellen Miller Mundy….. and a place for Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, the Viscount Ingestre

Castalia began her almost clandestine career in the ownership of A.E Hope, but came quickly under the new ownership of a John B. B. Coulson between the years of 1876 and late 1879, possibly even until the end of 1880. Now it should be obvious Castalia is not just a plaything, she was built at 120 Tonnes and designated a schooner, (a description of her rigging more than anything else), which certainly sets her above the weekend sail boats that hug the shores of Cowes, never to see the open ocean, but for their Victorian Gentleman Owners’ fear of spilling their martinis….  A typical Schooner of the time generally had Two masts, fore and aft rigged sails, occasionally “square rigged” but could oddly have up to Seven masts. It would be somewhat unlikely for an Inman & Son’s Schooner of that era to have more than three masts and it is reasonably assumed, in the absence of any other information, that two masts was the rig of the Castalia. Sadly, despite extensive searching, Castalia’s records at Berthon’s, (Latterly custodians of Inman & Son’s records) seem to have been amongst those lost to fire during the war years, long after her sinking, when Lymington Gosport and the Southampton area bore the brunt of Hitler’s Nazi bombing raids against British shipyards and coastal ports

Colonel John B. Blenkinsopp-Coulson was a descendant of Randulph de Blenkinshope of the town of Blenkinsopp, West of Haltwhistle in Northumberland, and landowners of that town since 1240. Little is known about Colonel Blenkinsopp Coulson (or of his ownership of Castalia), save that he built Blenkinsopp Hall, situated on the North bank of the Tipalt, and whose son William Lisle Blenkinsopp-Coulson (1840-1911), himself a colonel in the British Army, became well known as a philanthropist. There was a memorial fountain, (proposed by no less than the First Secretary to the Paris Embassy at the time, George Graham) erected in memory of Col William Lisle Blenkinsopp-Coulson, in honour of his charitable work with the “Humanitarian League” and many children’s and animal welfare charities. Once again Castalia seems to have slipped the net of publicity, despite being in such highly regarded ownership

Somewhere between 1880 and 1881 the Castalia is sold to Benjamin Nicholson of Portsmouth, Yacht Designer for Camper and Nicholson, where she stays for a brief 18 months or so, perhaps undergoing a refurbishment or re-fit before, in July of 1882, passing into the hands of one Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, Viscount Ingestre and 20^th Earl of Shrewsbury, 20^th Earl of Waterford and “Premier Earl of England”

Castalia is now owned by, literally, the highest ranking Earl of England (known as the Hereditary Great Seneschal) in the reign of the Queen of half the globe, Alexandrina Victoria….Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Here the Castalia nears infamy, through no fault but that of circumstance, of which, more later.  At this point in her history we know as much about the Castalia as can be known, we even have listed crew for both Benjamin Nicholson’s ownership and that of Charles Chetwynd-Talbot

In his defence, the Viscount Ingestre, Major Charles Chetwynd Talbot of Alton Towers, (his family home until his dalliance with Ellen Miller Mundy, wife of Alfred Miller Mundy of Shipley Hall in Heanor, Derbyshire) came to his titles very young. Only 16 when his father died (as was I when my father died) the inheritance of such power and position, let alone his father’s death itself, must have a considerable effect on any young person. It is inexcusable to most, for Charles to have become involved with a married woman, (indeed, a married mother with a child), it was especially inexcusable to Victorian society who shunned Ellen, (eventually Countess Chetwynd-Talbot on her marriage to Charles 21^st June 1882), from that point onwards. The role played by the Castalia in all of this is not yet played out, the circumstances of the elopement of Ellen with Charles was scandalous on more than one level, becoming an international news item, reported in many rag-tops of the day, including the Chicago Daily Tribune (June 23 1882): “England has a new premier countess [the earldom of Shrewsbury is the premier earldom of England] who is not likely to be received at court by the Queen with open arms”  Perhaps the Tribune knew more than most at the time? Indeed the Miller Mundy family, or more accurately the Palmer Morewood side of the family (Ellen’s side) had a scandal of their own. Ellen had Five Brothers, of whom the eldest, Charles, had inherited the family titles and lands. (Ellen and her family was distantly descended from Lord Byron, the infamous womanising Lord, & Poet) At a Christmas gathering of the family, towards the end of the evening Charles had been drunkenly confronted by the four remaining brothers, in an attempt to force him to relinquish the family fortune. Charles had steadfastly refused to do so, despite being beaten and stripped bare, indeed beaten until unconscious. The four brothers threatened Charles’ life with a pistol pressed to his head should he not agree their demands, but, holding against the assault, eventually the brothers fled empty handed, telling a servant his lord was indisposed through drink, before making their escape. Now it seems “somehow” those Four brothers made their way from England, fleeing the wrath of Charles on his recovery, and his reporting of the threats to his life and the assault on his person, something the magistrates frowned upon, so much so the extent the warrant for their appearance at court to answer the charges was set at £20,000, a huge sum in the day. Indeed the scandal was reported in the New York Times of 29^th January 1882: “….Had these civilised savages been lower in the social scale, it is said they would have been charged with a more penal offense and been offered no opportunity of liberty. Now they are reported to be laughing at the law in France or Spain. One account which reaches us from Alfreton declares they are about to embark for a cruise in the Mediterranean in the beautiful yacht of the Earl of Shrewsbury. “These four young aesthetes, their divorced and divine sister, and the lordly libertine,” says my correspondent “will make, no doubt, a merry crew.” It seems the Castalia had reached a zenith, now the most regal of getaway craft it could possibly be imagined

How might the Castalia have been “appointed” for such a prestigious client as Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, Viscount Ingestre?  Or, put another way, what would the Castalia have looked like if we were to sail her today? I have used a contemporary 120 Tonne schooner, the Ianira, sistership to the Castalia to give the closest look we perhaps can achieve in the circumstances, she certainly has the lines of an Inman & Son’s boat and is Schooner rigged of the day. For all her involvement in the notoriety and events of the time the Castalia remained a very private ship, I spent over two years trying to find any photos, plans or even mention of her (other than that included here) including dialogue with her makers at Berthon’s, Camper & Nicholson’s, her former owners the Falkland Islands Shipping Company, even the Falkland Islands Historical Archive, and could until recently, find nothing, even the curators of Ingestre Hall, Charles Chetwynd-Talbot’s archivists have no records of Castalia, it’s as if she were a ghost, something time wished to forget………

  How does such a thoroughbred, of the type Castalia must have been to attract the likes of Viscount Ingestre, the Earl of Shrewsbury, simply disappear….I have no answer to give, but I know where she went to die, and I have visited her resting place and touched her bones…….but let’s not dwell on that end yet, let us look at the remainder of her life and the passage into history of the finest Inman & Son’s had to offer in 1874……. James Hammond was instructed to sail from Eastbourne 05^th July 1881, Ellen Palmer Morewood having joined The Earl of Shrewsbury on the Castalia after a fracas in Strasbourg, where her husband and her brother had pursued Ellen and the Earl to confront them with their affair, both returned from Strasbourg to England via Paris and had joined the Castalia in Eastbourne and sailed (presumably amongst the Mediterranean ports) until arriving at Flushing, the Dutch port of Vlissingen 21^st of October 1881, returning to England around the 25^th of October 1881: “In July, 1881, the yacht was off Eastbourne, and a lady joined it with Lord Shrewsbury.” John Hammond the master of Castalia was asked if the lady was the countess and did the yacht sail with the Earl and the lady on board: “Yes…after a sail the yacht returned to England about October 25^th, and Lord and Lady Shrewsbury went to a hotel in Southsea”   (Hammond. J: Quoted in the New Zealand Herald 29^th Nov 1913). In another article (Priestley, K.C: Quoted in the Evening Post: 02^nd December 1913) reported that “…….Mrs. Miller Mundy joined Lord Shrewsbury’s yacht, ‘Castalia’ at Eastbourne. They went away from England and were absent until 21^st October 1881, when they reached Flushing”   and then that “….on 24^th November 1881, went to the Hotel Windsor, Paris, staying there until 31^st December of the same year. Next day they joined the yacht at Toulon and were cruising about together until 11^th March 1882.” 

The Earl of Shrewsbury’s ownership of the Castalia continued until somewhere around 1887 when, approaching 15 years old, she changed hands, becoming the property of the Falkland Islands Company. Now the Falklands Islands Company (FIC) had been founded in 1851, being granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria a year later (10^th January) in 1852, primarily to establish a shipping link to England with interests in farming, land owning and even a Falkland Island Hotel. The islands farming heritage goes back to the withdrawal of French interests in 1767, according to the FIC company history, in 1842, Richard Moody, the Islands governor wrote (Web Resource: the-falkland-islands-co.com/about-us/company-history/ .accessed 16/08/20) “….there are forty thousand head of cattle, fat, magnificent and better than the animals of the South American mainland, ready to be exploited by a well-financed commercial organisation” This information led to the setting up of a contract granting Samuel Lafone, an English merchant in Montevideo, sole rights to manage the cattle in the Southern Peninsula of East Falkland, now known as Lafonia, for fairly obvious, if seemingly rather egocentric reasons! The contract was purchased from Lafone in 1851 by the newly formed FIC. The Islands current farming of sheep can be traced to Frederick E Cobb, appointed to the position of “Colonial Manager”, it was Cobb who realised sheep were the most profitable resource despite the rather poor quality of the local flocks of the time, once properly managed and clear of disease the stock had risen from 35,000 unhealthy animals to 150,000 healthy wool producing specimens

When the Falkland Islands Company bought the Castalia it can only be imagined their intention was for the transport of people rather than commodities. It would not be beyond the wit of man to convert Castalia, but why go to the expense when far more suitable craft could have been purchased, presumably far cheaper, for the purposes of mere cargo? Far more likely that a fine schooner like Castalia would attract those with business interests and those looking for exotic travel between the lands of Argentina and the Falkland Islands, indeed Castalia’s known journeys would perhaps bear that out…… Castalia sailed from Portsmouth, departing 27^th of September 1888 commanded by Captain E F Collard, reaching Port Stanley 15^th December of that year. The passage took Castalia to Monte-Video, somewhere she would become used to in the next five of years. Interesting to note that the passage from Monte-Video to Port Stanley was storm lashed, Castalia lost her Jib Boom and Binnacle on the trip. On her arrival one Frederick Cobb (The aforementioned Colonial Manager of the FIC) recorded of Castalia “….She has a lamentably poor, undersized crew…” (Bishop. T. (F.I. National Archivist): e-mail correspondence to C Jones 04/20) and that Castalia carried too little ballast, to which he added 15 tonnes of iron!

Over the five years Castalia was owned by the FIC she seems to have mostly run the Port Stanley to Monte-Video route, twice in 1889 under skipper Mc. Laughlin up to June of that year, and then somewhere between June & September she transferred the helm to Frances Rowlands for her second trip, arriving safely back in Port Stanley on the 20^th October 1889. The journeys are recorded by the FIC which was also the Lloyd’s Shipping Agent for the Falkland Islands (and I believe still is). The Lloyd’s records are available to view on-line at the Jane Cameron National Archives of the Falkland Islands and a review of departures sees Castalia appear to have been in ballast out to Monte-Video, returning presumably with cargo of some sort, to some small amount, but more likely with human cargo

There are no Castalia journey’s in the Lloyd’s register for 1890, however the Falkland Islands Magazine record her bound for West Falkland carrying the Cobb family, Mr, Mrs and Miss Cobb, (20^th November of 1890) presumably the ubiquitous Colonial manager of the FIC and his family, I find it odd that there is no marked departure from Port Stanley noted in the Lloyd’s register, however, it may be that local “coastal” voyages were unmentioned as a matter of course, whilst international travel was mandatory, it would be fascinating to find the truth of the matter as it may explain a later anomaly too……..

Whatever the reason the voyage is not recorded in the Lloyd’s register, the trip around the Northern limits of East Falkland to the  accessible anchorages, most likely Pebble Island or West Point Island, is normally 2 days by sail, the weather not often favourable in the South Atlantic Ocean most of the year round! Castalia’s next voyage is recorded in the Lloyd’s register and sees her again bound for Monte-Video, departing on the 13^th November and again noted to be “in ballast”. Nothing is remarked in the register on her return to Port Stanley 21^st of December of 1891 her cargo is noted as “general” (annotated under the entry for the schooner “Ione” where “do” is taken to mean “ditto”), nor any passengers noted. There are no further entries in the Lloyd’s register for Castalia but there were definitely other journeys, the Falklands Island Magazine again records a Mr George Cobb and his family arriving from Lively Island in Port Stanley aboard the Castalia 07^th October of 1892, the last mention for that year. There must have been at least one more sailing from Port Stanley, there may have been several (that cannot be determined)  however,  it is inevitable that there was a sailing to West Falklands, specifically, Weddell Island, around March of 1893 as the next entry in the lifetime of the Castalia would be her last………

Castalia appears briefly in the Falklands Islands Magazine of April 1893 “…During the good Friday gale, the Castalia dragged ashore at Weddell and was damaged on the rocks.” Lloyd’s list of Thursday 04^th May 1893 reports (Para 15: “Maritime Intelligence”) “CASTALIA. – Stanley F.I. (by Tel. from Montevideo, May 3, 8 p.m.) –Castalia schooner, belonging to Falkland Islands Company, ashore at Weddell Island, Falklands; considerably damaged.” The Lloyd’s list a month later, 23^rd June of 1893 reports “CASTALIA. – Stanley, F.I., May 19. – The schooner Castalia is not yet afloat, in consequence of the tides serving badly at this time of year. A Diver, however, proceeded to Weddell Island this morning, and it is hoped she will shortly be got off and sufficiently repaired to be brought here.” The final and sad demise of Castalia is borne to the world in a brief sentence in the Lloyd’s list of Friday 28^th July 1893 and reads “CASTALIA. – Stanley, F.I., June 27 (by Tel. from Montevideo received July 27.) – Castalia abandoned, being c nsidered a total loss.” Thus ends the Castalia, forlorn and abandoned off the settlement at Weddell Island, not only in sight of shore, but hard against it and the hidden rocks of the headlands of a remote Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, brutal and unforgiving, wild and untamed, with weather that can turn in minutes from benign to terrifying and which, in a gale on Good Friday of 1893, took the Castalia, the Nymph of Delphi to ruin

05^th January 1996 and Exercise Southern Craftsman is in full swing, we are doing a shake-out dive in our first location and my little Red book records: “Ran into the wreck of Castatia on a checkout dive. She was a Schooner (100 Ton 80 x 20 ft) wrecked on Good Friday 1893 little remains of her but Rib Spars and a good length of hull timbers which are heavily rotted & covered in kelp but we were short on time towards the end of the dive – worth another look & a good root round.” Even then there was ambiguity around the Castalia, as borne out by the incorrect naming of the wreck from the outset…. We did return to her two days later (07^th January 1996) and the Red book notes: “ Castatia Pre-Survey buoyage down on to the wreck then along to the stern. Fixing buoys for the survey team (to remaining wood work) then in & out amongst thick kelp along the remaining timbers. A good dig round but I feel the Islanders stripped her bare for timber etc. Atmospheric though, after 100 years below.” The last sentence was prescient as during my correspondence with the Falklands Islands Archivist, Tansy Bishop (to whom I am very grateful for the assistance with this piece) notes: “The Castalia was abandoned by the Falkland Islands Company Ltd as a total wreck in June 1893.  All of the vessel’s gear, etc, that could be was collected and sold by auction” which is not surprising considering the lack of timber available on the Falkland Islands and the need to re-use whatever could be obtained at the time

As usual, there’s half a story in the dive log and the remainder in my head, the first encounter with Castalia came as a surprise, neither I nor my buddy on the day, Chris, had any idea there was a wreck anywhere on the island (Weddell Island, our first stop in the Falkland Islands on exercise Southern Craftsman, there’s more on the Weddell dives elsewhere on here). I was genuinely surprised to be in amongst wooden ribs, so much so that it took a couple in a row before I realised what we were gently finning through. We didn’t have long left in terms of air, we had already been out 15 or so minutes, on a shakeout dive from the shore, off a decent rock plateau covered over at high tide. The dive had been uneventful and it looked like we would have to wind our way to shore through the kelp until it dawned on us this was a little more than just kelp. I had come in at an angle to Castalia, and was somewhere near the Transom in the last few rib spars before some more substantial wood appeared which turned out to be her stern, which meant she had come to rest Port side against the rocks off-shore by 80 or so meters in around 6-8 meters of water, enough to have most of her hull underwater when she went aground. The second dive was a mission, as soon as Don Shirley heard we had come across a wreck he did some calling and talking with the owners of Weddell Island and the name Castatia came up, we know that was a mis-pronunciation or mistake at the time but it meant we could do a little research of our own, and Don instigated a video run down the keel of the wreck. For this we set up buoys as start and end point and a run line down her keel. On the second dive we found way more wreckage than we’d originally came across, the first dive had informed us of her “lie” in the water, the second allowed us to see the extent, including a ferret around her transom where we came across a couple of Brass letters still attached to the stern, two A’s and an L if I recall correctly, but it has been a while and I can’t honestly be sure

Castalia had an illustrious life, feted by the high and mighty of English society, her owners ranged from English Military to English Nobility and her passengers from Lords and ladies to would be murderers and to those seeking new lives on distant, windswept islands so remote as to be of a different realm…..and yet Castalia sailed unnoticed for most of her life, her name an occasional whisper, almost out of earshot in a wind that steals detail, a ship of the finest heritage, fitted in the most lavish way, by the most prestigious yard and the most sought after designers and yet, like the Marie Celeste, she ended up abandoned against a shore so distant as to be unreachable, with no headstone save 3 Brass letters under 6 meters of sea…….

Although at time of initial posting for this piece there were no known photos of Castalia, I am deeply indebted to Mr Robert Rowlands, ancestor of Captain Frances Rowlands, master of the Castalia on the night of the worst storm the South Atlantic had seen in years on that Good Friday of 1893, for the photos of Castalia hard ashore at Weddell island and for the following account of Castalia’s loss from Captain Rowlands himself, given at the time:

“We arrived at Gull harbour, Weddell on Thursday noon with  much rain and  fresh breeze from the north and landed the passengers but could not work cargo, anchored in 5 fathoms and paid out 30 fathoms of chain on the starboard anchor and had the Port anchor prepared to let go, the barometer  showing 29.40, about 8pm rain cleared and pleasant night and being very tired went to bed at 9pm,at about midnight the blast of wind awoke me and it was a great hurricane from the south east, I jumped out of bed without my boots, hat or coat and rushed forward and let go the port anchor and paid out until both anchors pulled alike, about 45 minutes past midnight a sudden blast of wind came down upon us that no anchors   could hold and touched the ground on the port side to the rocks and to my mind, I should say and judge she is badly damaged”

It is awful to imagine Castalia dragging her anchors, her lines straining against the inevitable, seas pounding her sleek flanks until it was all too late and fate and the Gods took Castalia back to the waters, not of Delphi and the gentle streams of the oracles….. but of the raging South Atlantic Ocean and the kingdom of Poseidon……..

I would like to personally thank Tansy Bishop, National Archivist of the Jane Cameron Falkland Islands National Archive, Anne Dixon & Giulia Callegari of Camper & Nicholson’s, and Anne Andrews, researcher & publisher of the Ingestre Family history, for their assistance with information for this piece, for which I am truly grateful 

Revision January 2021:

  I must also thank Mr Robert Rowlands, ancestor of the Castalia’s Master during most of her time in the Falkland Islands, Captain Frances Rowlands, for his correction of several inaccuracies in my initial post. I am indebted to Robert for the information provided and for his provision of the photos of Castalia and her sistership the Ianira

Kyle of Lochalsh, Skye, Scotland

  HMS Port Napier was initially intended as a refrigerated cargo ship, designed and under construction at Swan, Hunter, Wigham & Richardson for the Port Line.  Port Napier was named after the destination of Napier Port, of New Zealand, the port having grown around the Hawke’s Bay area, overlooked by Bluff Hill. Hawke’s Bay had been named in October of 1769 by Captain Cooke on his voyage in the Barque Endeavour, after, and in honour of, Sir Edward Hawke, First Lord of the Admiralty (www.rootsweb/napier: “Napier – New Zealand Bound” accessed 28/06/20)

    In 1939 local Government approved a new build of 197 houses in the Napier port area to meet the need of the growing population and increase of international trade, the construction of 134 houses started…. just as the world descended into World War II, with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, in September of 1939. The Port Line, recently re-branded, having originally been the Commonwealth and Dominion Line up until November of 1937, were prolific in the transportation of goods to and from the Antipodean region, having shipped the girders used for the Sydney Harbour Bridge from Middlesbrough between 1927 and 1932 (whilst under the ownership of Cunard), its business being predominantly frozen meat, hence the original intent of the Port Napier’s design. Under construction at Swan Hunter Wigham & Richardson’s Wallsend Yard in 1939, the Port Napier was requisitioned by the Admiralty and conversion to a minelayer began

The Admiralty was getting a fine ship for whatever money it would end up spending, although the design would be modified over a series of design changes, and permissions sought from the Admiralty by many hundreds (it seemed to me too many to go through in the time I had available, and that was after spending a couple of hours reading requests to move flanges and change materials…..) of communications between her designers at Swan Hunter Wigham and Richardson and the various hierarchical approvers at the Admiralty

Port Napier’s hull was improved by the addition of 2” armour plate, internal narrow gauge rails were fitted and her holds modified, four minelaying doors were cut in her stern, to allow the stern deployment of mines, pushed into the sea whilst tethered on their railway trolleys, and the Port Napier was given armaments in the shape of Two 4” guns, at her bows and Two 1.6”, 2 pounder guns along with Four 20mm anti-aircraft cannons. She was designated M32, and would join her squadron, the 1^st Minelaying Squadron, at the Kyle of Lochalsh, opposite the Isle of Skye in Scotland on successful launch. The reasoning behind her conversion to mine laying duties is well explained in a Kyleakin Local Historical Society talk by a Kingussie man, who lived through the times and witnessed the events surrounding the Port Napier’s arrival and subsequent sinking, Bill Ramsay (Web resource: kyleakinlocalhistorysociety.co.uk/portnapier.html Accessed 09/08/2020)  from the 27th October 2010: “The Admiralty had thought to close off access to the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans by laying a barrage of mines across from Orkney to the Norwegian coast, but later in July 1939 a new scheme was planned. They decided to lay minefields from Greenland, across the Denmark Strait to Iceland and from there to the Faeroe Islands, and thence to Orkney. Other fields would be laid from there along the route by Cape Wrath and the north west of Scotland, thereby closing the passage through the Minch. A minefield was established at the south end of the Irish Sea, with another on the east coast of Scotland and England”.  The make-up of the First Minelaying Squadron, as the Royal Navy would call it is again described by Bill Ramsey “….. fast merchant ships of the Blue Funnel Line, Prince Line and Port Line, the Southern Prince (10,917 tons gross), the Port Napier (9847 tons gross), the Port Quebec (8490 tons gross), the Agamemnon (7592 tons gross) and the Menestheus (7494 tons gross)”

  For those who love their figures, these are from the records of the Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Wallsend Yard records held at the Tyne & Wear Archive:

Name:                PORT NAPIER

Type:                  Refrigerated Cargo Ship completed as a minelayer

Launched:          23/04/1940

Completed:       06/1940

Builder:              Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd

Yard:                   Wallsend

Yard Number:   1569

Dimensions:      9847grt, 5906nrt, 503.3 x 68.2 x 29.8ft

Engines:             2 x Oil engines, 2SCSA, 5cyl (26.5 x 91.25ins)

Engines by:        Wm Duxford & Sons Ltd, Sunderland

Propulsion:        2 x Screws

Reg Number:    167578

Eventually the Port Napier, for all the design iterations, was completed and the Admiralty inspectors and Lloyds of London inspectors signed her off, approved as 100 A1, which is as good as given to any ship I know of (other than those of the Blue Funnel Line which were always 100 A1+ being considered “better” than the Lloyds classification could achieve) it is telling though that the Lloyd’s inspector clearly and unequivocally excluded the Admiralty alterations in the approval notification:

Now there are at least Two mainstream narratives on her sinking, the primary being the Port Napier was being Victualed (Fueled & Cargo’d) at Kyle of Lochalsh when she caught fire and had to be towed out and set adrift to prevent catastrophe to the quayside, and the second where she drifted from the Quay, fouling the anchor chain of another vessel whilst dragging her own anchor into the channel to Kyleakin and had to be cut free to drift into Skye, where she caught fire. These are ignoring a third suggestion, in certain circles, that she had been the victim of Nazi saboteurs who set her on fire in the harbour and…..well you get the picture! What is clear is that the Port Napier was alongside the dock at the Kyle of Lochalsh for several days before the incident on the 27^th November of 1940. She had been loading with mines for days, there were 550 to go aboard and they had been arriving at the Kyle railhead and being transferred by the dock workers, from the ammunition trains, until most if not all of the intended munitions were on board

   It is difficult to fathom the true sequence of events that led to the initial drifting of the Port Napier, if she was, as some report, still dock-side, and if common practice for the time meant detonators had already been placed in each of the mines before Port Napier’s planned departure (It’s not easy to fit detonators on a rolling or pitching ship, and time consuming too, far easier to fit in the calm of a port, whilst docked….), then she was in a very dangerous condition if fire did break out aboard. If there was little, or ineffective fire-fighting equipment at the remote Kyle dock then it makes sense to cut her adrift and hope the tide and current take her far enough away to make any detonation as safe as practical in the circumstances. If the “gale” theory, where the Port Napier dragged her anchors out into the loch, fouling another ship on the way, and then, on being freed by whatever means, beached against the Skye shore in Loch Na Bieste, and then caught fire, is correct then that is a series of very unfortunate events even Lemony Snicket would find hard to swallow. I rather favour the “fire breaking out dock-side” reports personally, and the tow out into the main channel, whatever happens after that being the “will of the Gods” in terms of drift, direction and eventual resting place. It more suits a logic I am comfortable with if you prefer, I can’t see a moored ship, even in a storm, drifting away from a dock, and why would her anchor be payed out if she was dockside? I can, however, see a close knit community realising they were ill-prepared to fight such a fire, in such a perilous circumstance, cutting a ship away from a dock….. and, yes, it is logical to let God or “happenstance” do its worst once the unlucky ship had been cut-away from her moorings, her anchor could have been dropped to slow any drift towards shore later. There is another equally logical explanation, a sort of half-way house if you like…..Let’s say loading had completed and the Port Napier was ready to sail, it would be natural to anchor up outside the harbour to await instructions and in order to allow other ships to dock. In such circumstances it makes it far easier to imagine her dragging her anchors in a gale, to drift across another ship’s lines taking her with the Port Napier, indeed Bill Ramsey’s history society account seems to agree with this “The Port Napier was at anchor one evening before setting off and a fierce gale caused her to drag her two anchors. She was almost uncontrollable without ‘tugs’ in a howling gale at night in confined conditions. Every effort was made to get underway and re-anchor in safety, when the ship was blown across the bows of an anchored collier and her screws fouled the collier’s anchor cables…..” and all stories fit from then……

In his piece on the Port Napier (www.submerged.co.uk/portnapier: accessed 28/06/20) Diver Peter Mitchell (sadly now deceased) has it that:  “Very quickly the Port Napier was careering completely out of control, and soon she smashed into an anchored collier who’s anchor chain fouled her propellers. With both engines stopped the Port Napier and the hapless collier continued to drag right across the Loch towards the Isle of Skye, where finally their combined anchors got a grip and brought them up safely in a shallow bay close to the shore. The next morning the Port Napier started the job of clearing her propellers and it was decided that they might as well complete her refuelling while they were at it. Halfway through the refuelling a fire started in the engine room and within minutes it was completely out of control. With the engine room a raging inferno, attention was concentrated on the two mine decks directly above the engine room, which of course were full of armed mines. Whilst the rest of the crew abandoned ship, the mine party, with almost unbelievable courage, went back to the mine decks and started to remove the detonators. After about twenty minutes the lower mine deck became white hot and it became obvious that the ship could not be saved. The mining party was ordered off the ship, and the Port Napier was left to burn. After a while the fire seemed to die down and once again a party of volunteers scrambled back on board to see what could be saved. Once on board however the crew found that the fire was burning just as fiercely and moreover the mine decks above the engine room were now starting to buckle in the heat. The volunteers started to chuck mines down the stern chutes, but soon the heat and smoke became too much for them to endure and so they had to abandon ship once again. They were not a moment too soon. As they safely cleared the ship there were two huge explosions. The first blew bits of the ship onto the Isle of Skye, some going two hundred feet into the air, and the other explosion shot a huge column of smoke and flames that mushroomed out over the Loch like a dark stain” I can’t verify where Peter Mitchell had this account, but it is descriptive enough to have come from a first-hand account contemporary to the sinking, it certainly fits the latter part of the “drift” scenario, and does not concern itself with the “dockside”, or “at anchor” question, sadly as Peter died in 2015 the trail runs cold

  There is a memorial to the disaster where a decommissioned sea mine and its base are set at the junction to Station Road and Main Street in Kyle of Lochalsh. The inscription on the memorial plaque says:

It would seem the official version of events favours the storm dragged anchor scenario, it is not often a commemorative plaque inscription is not well accounted for prior to casting or engraving, so this seems to confirm the fire aboard started following the Port Napier’s grounding against the Loch Na Bieste shore on Skye. Suffice it to say the brave souls who went onto the Port Napier to try to clear her of mines must have been horrified when fire was reported in her engine room, 550 mines in one place is likely to yield an incredible explosion, each Mark XIV sea mine, a 1920’s design prevalent in the early stages of WWII, contains either 320lbs or 500lbs of explosive depending on configuration

   The only “official” notifications that I could find are terse to say the least, the first is the “Report of Total Loss, Casualty, &c.” issued at Lloyds for the vessel Twin M S “Port Napier” of the Port Line, 88 Leadenhall Street, London E.C.3. 01 July of 1940. This record, No 89556 in wreck book 96/41 states that “Very confidentially reported that this vessel was destroyed by fire on Government Service in November, 1940.“

There is a second and more enquiring letter, presumably from the owners, Swan Hunter Wigham & Richardson, specifically it would seem from a Mr Reed. It seems Mr Reed had asked of the loss of the Port Napier and had been directed to the Admiralty with his enquiry “Do you know anything and was she Marine or War, as the B.T. return “Burnt” may mean anything?” The result of such seemingly impertinent “digging” was an abrupt and thwarting response, (clearly approved for issue by a second level of administration from the penned underlining of “very confidential” and handwritten addition of “Broadsheet” following Lloyd’s List after it had been typed), “Mr Reed, This vessel was destroyed by fire, November, 1940 She is regarded as a marine loss and is very confidential. Never published in Lloyd’s List.” Evidently not even Port Napier’s owners would be allowed the full circumstances of her loss…….

My first dive on HMS Port Napier was taken on the 08^th of July 1995 as part of exercise Triton Triangle with TIDSAC, I remember the caution our D.O. Norman Morley gave us as we approached, “……we are at high tide, this wreck will show as the tide falls and we do not want to be parked over her at that point!” That meant locating a mooring location on Port Napier and putting a temporary buoy there so we could return over the remainder of the expedition, we had more than one dive planned on her! So my log records our first dive went like this: “Port Napier of the Port line of ships commandeered to be a mine layer. Set adrift when she caught fire with a full load. Wrecked opposite Balmacara. After tying off the buoy to the forward mast we dropped to the bow at 22m then worked along to the stern section, heavily broken midships, a lovely gun up for’ard, plenty to see & great viz (4m) a fair few large Pollack & Wrasse came off towards the stern in 14m deployed delayed SMB & had a 1min stop at 6m – great wreck” I had loved the wreck from start to finish, we had done 36 minutes on her and I wanted as much more time as I could get. I had noticed how broken the Port Napier was amidships but not yet realised this ran 2/3 of her hull from stern to almost the bow guns, of which there were actually Two, one either side of her forecastle area

The damage I had seen was not all the result of any explosion, it had been mostly deliberate and controlled by those clearing the remaining mines from her holds, only around 30m or so of hull had been damaged by the mine going off and sending her to the bottom, thankfully the remaining mines remained intact. The Royal Navy surveyed the Port Napier in 1940 then abandoned her until 1944 when they returned to try to gain access to her remaining dangerous cargo, wartime reporting restrictions had kept the loss secret until peacetime and she had lain undisturbed, with the still dangerous mines in place, until the Navy decided that the wreck should be made safe. In 1955 recovery work began, the salvage team, from HMS Barglow had developed a plan to remove a section of the plating on the ship’s port side to provide access to the holds. A lift system was devised then teams of divers began working to clear the holds. It took until 1956 to complete the work but then the Port Napier was finally declared safe, all mines and ammunition for her guns having been removed and the ship was again abandoned to the sea

My second dive on HMS Port Napier was the next day, Saturday 09/07/95, I was again buddying Mark and the little Red book records: “Penetration dive on the Napier, following the guide rope, through the railway tunnels which dropped the mines from the stern doors. Very eerie, the first section did have some light from the damage above. Once into the second stage all light had gone as it is intact throughout, very still and gloomy, but a really great dive which ends up in an ascent through the broken midships area, we found the seaward side after some disorientation & popped the delayed up from the broken mast abaft midships” Again this is the abridged version of events and falls short of a saga, but this was, in truth, my first wreck penetration and came with all of the apprehension and tension that implies

  I vividly remember the initial hesitation at the stern mine doors when I thought, there is a thick rope there, if I follow it and it remains a black-out in there I just turn around and follow it back out…… Every diver has heard tales of those foolhardy enough to enter shipwrecks, some of those tales don’t end well…I wasn’t aware of any divers losing their lives on the Port Napier, but neither did I wish to become the first….. this was about adventure and risk-reward, I could risk a short swim into the stern and along the mine rails, I could turn back if I didn’t like it or it became silted or darker, as long as the rope held I would be fine……as long as the rope held! It was over in an instant, the decision to go….I finned forward and Mark followed, it got darker for a short while, but ahead I could see shafts of light from above, streaming in to illuminate areas, and so I knew I could head forward if nothing else changed, I looked back to ensure there was nothing coming down from the rusting hull behind us, disturbed by our exhaled air and our fin strokes….. nothing, I could see the stern exit illuminated as a picture window might have appeared at dusk in failing light….I turned back to the shafts of light ahead and swam forward, there was tortured metal above wherever light streamed in, I could exit at points above me if needed, but there were more shafts of light ahead…….and she draws you forward…. It’s easy to see how divers are tempted into areas they should perhaps not be, but our story ended safely, we chose an easy exit, keen not to tear our dry-suits and end the exped prematurely, and we came out of the hull somewhere forward of midships and continued to the mast, the base at least still in place, sticking out horizontal to the sea bed below. I was elated, I had seen things I knew most others had not, I had been inside a ship sank 55 years previously in an event history will never forget, and I was a part of that, I had touched it, felt the hairs on the back of my neck raise, my heart rate increase and that fight or flight response that said…..well…are we going in then…….and I loved it!

   HMS Port Napier’s mines were made in Dagenham, Oxford and Birmingham and their explosives were fitted in Bandeath near Stirling. If you are wondering what it looks like when one of these mines goes off? Here’s one that was detonated in a controlled explosion by the UK military in 2019 after it was dragged up in a fishing trawl…… now  what if 550 of these went up in close or instantaneous succession……….

My next dive on Port Napier was on the Sunday, the following day (10/07/95) and again my buddy was Mark, this time we would try another area to start with and the log records: “Dropped down to the bow section & swam under to enjoy the view, round to the midships after passing the forward deck gun. Through the damaged mid-ships section & over the boiler to play with a very friendly Cuckoo Wrasse then down the wreck & past large Pollack/Coalfish & up for a 1 min stop @ 6m” This was a more scenic tour of the Port Napier, clearly, I wanted to make sure we spent time around the wreck too, Mark had enjoyed the penetration dive as much as I had but there was plenty more to see on the main of the outer areas of the wreck too. On the surface, waiting for the second dive pair to surface, we could clearly see the pieces of bridge section blown onto shore following the initial mine detonation that sent Port Napier to the bottom

  It would be another Three days until we returned to the Port Napier for our last dive of the exped, it was by far the most popular dive we did in the area and I couldn’t wait as we had agreed this would be another penetration if all looked good when we were down there. I couldn’t have asked for better weather, nor better viz and the log records: “Port Napier, the last dive on the Napier so another penetration – we entered mid-ships & once over the damaged area finned to the stern rapidly, located the roped mine tunnel & went through until we exited up @ 3m in midships, worked our way back through the closest hold & then went over the side & along to the bow & the foredeck. Spent some time around the gun & then came off the wreck & deployed the delayed for a 1 min stop @ 6m” I did not convey any of the wonder I had inside the hull, the light shafts knifing through the gloom, the torchlight picking up endless fittings and tortured steel shards, once pieces of deck supports and bulkheads….in truth the description just does not do the dive justice, but I use my log as a reminder more than a descriptive, it keeps me focused and means I do keep up a regular log book, rather than end up leaving log entries to the future and forgetting to fill in the dive details, at least that means the dives are captured and can be recalled at leisure, or for pieces such as this

I do not think there is a picture of HMS Port Napier, if there is I have yet to find it and I have spent several years looking, the two most common pictures used to represent her are those below, one is the first of her name, initially of the Commonwealth & Dominion line, launched 1912 (sold 1938)

The second picture is the third Port Napier, of the Port Line and built at the same yard as the 1940 ship, Swan Hunter Wigham Richardson, but launched in September of 1947, some Seven years later, this is perhaps the ship most used to represent the actual wreck, but is, nonetheless inaccurate

Be sure I will upload an accurate picture should I ever manage to obtain one, and if anyone reading this knows where I might find a genuine photo of the 1940 HMS Port Napier I would be excited to hear from them!

EPILOGUE: Jan 2022

Its quite amazing to me the co-incidences that come together to add something to a piece like this, another of my passions is steam trains, related of course to my love of steamships, the two are almost indivisible, without one there could not have been the other so to speak. I was lucky enough to visit the National Railway Museum in York just after Christmas this year and spent a wonderful afternoon around the exhibits, from locomotives to memorabilia, from Stephenson’s 1829 “Rocket”, trialed at Rainhill in Liverpool, my home town, to Nigel Gresley’s iconic “Mallard”, the fastest steam locomotive ever when in 1938 she reached 126 MPH, a record that still stands today! There, on a wall, high above, in the back room which is an absolute hoard of railway treasures and many steam ship models too, almost lost in amongst other plaques was this one:

Built by Walpole, Webb & Bewley, Dublin, Ireland for the London and North Western Railway in 1868, The Countess of Erne was a Steam Paddle-Ship and likely named after Mary Caroline Crichton (Nee-Hervey 1753-1842) the Countess of Erne, Ireland, from a peerage created in 1789 for John Creighton, 2^nd Baron of Erne of Crom (Gaelic: Caislean na Croime) Castle in the county of Fermanagh. The Countess was not the first of her name by any means, in 1842 a 66 foot steamer of the same name paddled down lough Erne on Friday 23^rd December 1842, watched by hundreds lining the Lough shore “…to catch a glimpse of the wonderful sight of a steam boat on Lough Erne” (K.Wilson: Lough Erne Heritage, in the Fermanagh Herald 01/2018). Sadly that steamer was lost to a fire 25^th June of 1846 and lies in Lough Erne near Belturbet, one of her regular stops on runs between Lisnaskea and Enniskillen…..another odd example of the “Six degrees of separation”, as Lough Erne and Enniskillen were a big part of my 7 months in the province, back in the day….

Our Countess of Erne lies in Portland Harbour, inside the breakwater in around 15m of water, lost after breaking her moorings in a terrible gale in 1935, and sinking as a result of being dashed against the breakwater itself, now sitting upright on the silty bottom of Portland harbour, at the base of the rock foundations of the wall itself

The Countess of Erne had been a commission for the Walpole, Webb & Bewley shipyard of Dublin from the London and North Western Railway, she was to be a paddle-ship, passenger steamer of 825 tonnes and to be completed and launched in 1868. The Countess was completed on time and to order and had an illustrious, if short, career as a passenger and cargo ferry between Holyhead, Anglesey and Dublin from 1869-1873, after which she was re-routed between Holyhead and Greenore, the only privately owned Port in Ireland. Her owners, the LNWR were formed on 16 July 1846 by amalgamating the Grand Junction Railway, London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway, thus fulfilling plans for the Great Western Railway’s route North from Oxford to Birmingham. The company owned approximately 350 miles of rail connecting London with Birmingham, Crewe, Chester, Liverpool and Manchester (Wikipedia) with headquarters at Euston railway station

The Countess seemingly had a charmed life between 1869 and 1873, however she collided with and sank a vessel named “Dodder” during her time on the Greenore run, and, in 1883 she collided with the collier “Captain Parry” (Sweeney, P: “Liffey Ships and Shipbuilding”. Mercier Press) after which she was repaired and then sold in 1889, after Twenty years ferrying travelers between Britain and Ireland in the glorious days of steam. That is no mean achievement for a paddle-steamer, the crossing can be a rough one and has, on many occasion, been abandoned by even modern ferries, as I found out on a dive trip back in April of 1998 when we were forced to travel from Bangor in Wales, to Holyhead on the isle of Anglesey, in order to embark for Ireland, as the Bangor ferries couldn’t get out of the harbour. It was touch and go out of Holyhead too, with high seas all the way across the Irish Sea, with my Three lads loving running across the deck of the ferry whilst it rolled to 45’ each side, whilst most other passengers were Green and throwing their breakfasts over the side and down the corridors…..  

So the Countess was a survivor, it must have been painful for her when in 1889, after Two decades sailing passengers across the Emerald seas, she was sold to the Bristol General Steam Navigation Company and used for a couple of years between Bristol and the Southern English coastal ports before being sold for scrap. That wasn’t to be her final ignominy though as, far from being scrapped, the Countess was converted to become a coal supply barge, and would eventually find her way to Portland in Dorset and drudgery, her once fine paddles removed, her proud decks burdened with Temperley Gear to transfer coal from her holds to those in harbour about to undertake more glamorous journeys…….

  Another twist of irony, or, if you wish, another knife in the Countess’s keel, would’ve been the use of Portland stone, quarried just half a mile from her ignominious mooring in Portland Harbour, to represent the company crest at Euston station, headquarters of the Steamship owners of the London North Western Railway……..

The Bristol General Steam Navigation Company had been founded in 1821 by eight Bristol merchants and started services as the “War Office Steam Packet Company” with routes to Ireland, operating a War Office contract shipping troops, recruits and convicts. The War Office contract expired in 1827 and the company changed its name to “The General Steam Packet Company” in order to avoid confusion with London’s “General Steam Navigation Company”, their direct competition for shipping and passenger services to the continent. In 1834 the name was changed again becoming “The  Bristol Steam Packet Company” although that was short-lived quickly becoming, in 1835, “The Bristol General Steam Navigation Company” until  1877 when, in its final iteration, it changed to become “The Bristol Steam Navigation Company”, a name it kept through a Hundred years continuing in shipping until 1980

The Countess continued her service with the Bristol General Steam Navigation Company for the next thirty odd years, fueling the steam-ships coming into and going from Portland harbour, her holds today can be seen as clear, which shows she retained her hull shape, however it is clear the Countess was fitted with the coaling gear of the time, which could be one of several designs called “Temperley” and consisting of, variously, derricks, or beams, on masts with bucket and draw-string type arrangements for lifting large buckets across to those requiring coal, or the type of belt conveyor invented by William Arrow of Glasgow in 1893 and appearing on several coal ships of the day, although almost impossible to find in photographs of the era…..

Coaling, or sometimes “Bunkering” was a dirty and dangerous affair carried out by “Trimmers”, men of the ships engineering contingent (there were 73 Trimmers on Titanic), who were responsible for loading the coal for the ships boilers and keeping it from catching fire, something it often did as coal dust is notorious for spontaneous combustion in dry, hot environments such as a ships coal bunker….. The job was physically hard, lifting, shoveling and man-handling tons of heavy coal required to fuel long journeys aboard ships sometimes crossing the Atlantic, worse still, as we know today, the effects of coal dust on the lungs is terrible, causing cancer and other respiratory diseases, these were tough men and their job was harsh and unforgiving, one of, if not, the worst job aboard any ship!

  For those of you who love the technical detail, here is what I have, sparse as it is: Builders: Walpole, Webb and Bewley, Dublin, Ireland in 1868, The Countess of Erne was a Paddle Steamer of 241.4’ (73.6m) length with a Beam of 29’ (8.8m) and a Draught of 14.3’ (4.4). She was 830 Gross Tonnes and was powered by Two oscillating steam engines of 350 hp at 20psi her yard number was ON 58409 and she was launched September of 1868 and could make 13 Knots, by far the fastest of the LNWR paddle steamers of the day

Sadly the Countess was seemingly stripped of all her fixtures and fittings before her employment as a coaler began, there is nothing of her oscillating engines remaining, nor of her upper deck structures. It may be that somewhere, who knows where, there are remnants of this once majestic paddle- steamer of the LNWR. It is nice to think there is something left of the Countess, perhaps not the complete engine, but maybe there are pieces…….

By the time the Countess was nearing the end of her service and being stripped out, Isambard Kingdom Brunel had introduced the propeller to the world, in 1843, on the ship SS Great Western. The Great Western was not the first ship to be fitted with a prop, that honour belongs to the SS Archimedes, built in London 1839, but she was instrumental in changing global opinion, and the move to propeller driven vessels heralded the beginning of the end for elegant paddle steamers like the Countess of Erne and, in another of those ironies, the SS Great Western suffered the same fate as the Countess of Erne, ending her working days as a coal hulk in port Stanley in the Falkland Isles in 1884………

My first dive on the Countess was 24^th May of 1995, I had just passed my 100^th dive (she was 107) in the log-book, and the little Red Book says: “Down the shot to the “Countess of Erne” in 14m max, there’s no bridge or superstructure, just the upright hulk of a cargo steamer, heavily silted & heavily rotted allowing great ferreting about. We circuited the stern, the prop’s long gone, and toured the whole length dropping in and out of the holds. Plenty of life, a few large Wrasse & Spider Crabs, couple of Blennies, a wonderful wreck to do and a “dream” for 1^st time wreckies to practice penetration”

Both me and my dive buddy Toots loved the Countess, who wouldn’t, she is sheltered in the harbour, she is complete enough, her hull being intact, and she has the most wonderful swim-through’s, with complete safety as her decking has long gone. There is plenty of life on and around her and, as long as you are a careful finner (the Countess is covered in fine, deep silt and poor finning makes her the “mistiest” thing you will see, or, more honestly, really not see!), you can spend pretty much as long as you like on her, as she sits very shallow at 14m or so. This was to be the first of quite a few dives I would do on the Countess, and I still believe she is one of the best “introduction” to wreck dives and line runs that you can get!

The Countess sat against the harbour wall in Portland after breaking her moorings in a huge storm that raged in September of 1935. The Times (Issue 47172 18^th Sept 1935) carried the news with this entry, “-Countess of Erne: Portland, Sept 17 –“ Coal hulk Countess of Erne, owners the channel Coaling Company Ltd., during the early hours this morning wrecked on Portland Breakwater during a terrific south-westerly gale” 

The countess wasn’t always recognised, for some years in the 70’s early divers believed they were diving a local wreck called the Himalaya, indeed, it wasn’t until the research of Oxford BSAC in 1973 and ’74 that her real story surfaced. The club’s project officer, Colin Fox, decided the wreck they often dived would be a good subject for further study. Following several surveys over the year, and much wider research, during which Colin wrote to the Queen’s Harbourmaster, and several local residents connected with the breakwater in various ways, (as former crew or local observers) feedback allowed the club to build a picture, and a back-story, leading to the publishing of an article: “A tale of Two Hulks: The anatomy of a club project” in 1976, the article contains a quote from one of those local sources, a Mr. W.A. Symons:

   “……..the ship you are diving on is not the Himalaya, she was bombed and sank on her moorings at least three-quarters of a mile from the breakwater. These are facts, for I was on a tug at the time, and we tried to save them and put them ashore but no luck ………In the middle 1930’s–about I would say 1936–in a strong blow, a coal hulk went ashore there, we went to her assistance but she was sunk on the tippings with her stump masts and Temperly gear (a form of rig used on hulks for loading and unloading coal) just above water, this gear was removed by a local firm Basso & Turner and the ship slid down the tipping and would I presume (be) very close to the stones at the bottom of the Breakwater. The name of this one could be COUNTESS OF ERNE ex-railway paddler”

So, finally, the Countess of Erne was recognised for whom she was, and what she had been all along, despite years in the wilderness as a coal hulk, and then years presumed to be the Himalaya. Now she stands against the breakwater, a great dive and a wonderful opportunity to train, or just to gently & carefully kick back and breeze around, one of my favourite shallow dives and a haven, for wild-life and divers alike……. in any weather

Update: 13/11/2021. I was grateful to receive an e-mail in regards to the Countess of Erne piece from Colin Fox a couple of days ago, Colin was Oxford BSAC’s Project Officer in 1976 and provided a correction to the information from Oxford BSAC’s piece on the Countess “A Tale of Two Hulks”. The author of the piece being Colin Fox himself, and not Alex Gibson as was originally stated in the piece. The attribution to Alex Gibson came from the Oxford BSAC web site, where part of the piece is reproduced, with Alex identified as the author. It is my pleasure to put things right and to have corrected the attributions within this piece. It was also a delight to be sent a copy of Colin Fox’s original piece submitted for publication, detailing Colin’s first dive and his dive and subsequent research on the Countess of Erne.

19th June 1994 and just 8 days after my 34th Birthday, I am on the Jamaican Defence Force (JDF) fast patrol craft “Thunderhawk” and about to dive a wreck shared with our military diving expedition by the local ex-pat BSAC club in Kingston Jamaica….life couldn’t be much better….I will walk through the expedition in another post………. but for now the HMT Texas calls…….

  I don’t know how many of you are even aware that the Mighty British Royal Navy had an extensive fleet of Naval Trawlers? As a matter of fact the Royal Navy had several, all with different designations, purpose built or requisitioned, operated mainly during World War I and World War II. There were mine sweepers, anti-submarine vessels, escorts, port entrance guards and occasionally Q Boats, armed but covertly, in an effort to get U-Boats in close and engage them. Most HMT’s or “His Majesty’s Trawlers” were purpose built to Admiralty specifications for RN use and were categorised by “class”, where a class was made to follow the same pattern as the first of its type, examples being “Castle”, “Tree”, “Battle” ……..etc. Then there were some 215 trawlers “requisitioned” into the Royal Navy, of no specific class. These were commercial trawlers that the Royal Navy classified by manufacturer, such ships were far more diverse than traditional naval classifications. Seventy-two requisitioned trawlers were lost after being “pressed into service” if you like, reminiscent of the press gangs of Nelson’s day, basically those “classless” ships were already sailing, small ships that the Navy liked the look of, or had a purpose for………HMT Texas was neither of those, she, along with 22 others in “lot B” of the Royal Navy’s 1918 procurement from the Kingston Shipbuilding yard, was a bit of an anomaly…… Born, seemingly under a shadow of indecision and delay, it was this order that contained HMT57, the craft that would end her days (Ironically) off Kingston Jamaica 19^th of July 1944, in a collision which sent her to the bottom…………..  

  The dry-dock in Kingston Ontario was built by the federal government of Canada in 1890, the yard was a repair facility until it was leased to Kingston Shipbuilding in 1910.  Kingston Shipbuilding endured following both World Wars, and operated the yard right up until 1968, when it became part of the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes of Canada, and can be visited if you are lucky enough to be in the area….. 1917 and World War I was in full swing, the British Admiralty ordered the construction of 36 naval trawlers from Canadian shipyards, as part of a building programme intended to improve the state of seaward defence in Canadian waters. The trawlers were constructed at shipyards along the Saint Lawrence River and in the Great Lakes. Twenty-two trawlers were constructed and sent to Quebec City to be completed and commissioned before the Saint Lawrence River froze over during the winter at the end of 1917. Once completed and commissioned, the vessels were then sent on to Sydney, Nova Scotia to join the East Coast patrol fleet. However, none of the vessels were actually completed in time to take part in the 1917 shipping season

  The American war effort, which had started to pick up its pace, began to recruit Canadian workers, this caused work shortages at the Canadian yards, delaying construction. The majority of the initial trawler order arriving at Quebec City were laid up for the winter there, most requiring further work (Ice on the Saint Lawrence River would prevent them clearing the river until May 1918). In December 1917, the British government sought to expand the shipbuilding contracts in Canada. The Admiralty ordered a second batch of trawlers from Canadian shipyards, designated “Lot B”, they were intended to be delivered by autumn of 1918, but a shortage of labour, equipment and material led to delays. The steel required to construct boilers and hulls was delivered as late as August 1918……….

Upon arrival, the trawlers were put to use in both mine sweeping and patrol roles. In April 1918, four of the trawlers were used for port defence of Halifax and others were used to escort slow convoys through Canadian waters. In order to fill the manpower need for the trawlers, ratings from the Newfoundland division of the Royal Navy Reserve were sent to Canada. By mid-summer 35 of the 36 trawlers were active with the last, TR 20, awaiting her crew at Kingston, Ontario. The trawlers remained in service until war’s end when they were decommissioned and laid up

TR 57 missed service in World War I, delays to construction and shortages of men and materials meaning she wasn’t completed until 1919. Along with several of her sister ships TR 57 was seemingly loaned to the US, the records show TR 37, TR 39, TR 51, TR 55, TR 56, TR 58, TR 59 and TR 60 were all loaned to the United States Navy from November 1918 to August 1919. It seems odd that HMT57 is not included in this listing, either side of her both Trawlers 56 & 58 were sent.  As HMT57 was named “Colonel Roosevelt” from 1919 to 1926, this may have been the reason for the omission, HMT57 was definitely in US waters into 1920 as her owners are named during this time as:

Gulf Export & Transportation Co Inc 1920-1925 (Colonel Roosevelt)

Galveston-Texas City Pilots 1925-1940 (Texas)

  It seems logical to assume (although not conclusive) that HMT57 was indeed transferred to US Navy ownership during this period and, latterly, ended up under the management of the two organisations noted. As it is also known that following the first world war, many of the TR series were sold for commercial use to make up for losses during the war, it is likely that this was the case with HMT57, becoming the Colonel Roosevelt and then the Texas in the process!

The TR series of mine-sweeping naval trawler were Canadian copies of the Royal Navy’s Castle class. There were some changes in the Canadian version, including the gun being mounted further forward and a different lighting system. They were built between 1917 and 1919 and there were 53 in total. For those of you who like the technical detail: The TR series had a displacement of 275 long tons (279 t) with a length overall of 133 feet 10 inches (40.8 m) and a length between perpendiculars of 125 feet 0 inches (38.1 m), a beam of 23 feet 5 inches (7.1 m) and a draught of 13 feet 5 inches (4.1 m). The vessels were powered by a steam triple expansion engine driving one shaft, creating 480 indicated horsepower (358 kW). They had a maximum speed of 10 knots (19 km/h) and were armed with one “Quick-Fire” (QF) 12-pounder 12 cwt naval gun mounted forward. A design flaw was later identified where the wireless operator was located in a cabin below the bridge and could not communicate easily with the commander of the vessel. This was rectified with the installation of an inter-phone (Wikipedia).

In World War II, many of these vessels returned to naval service as auxiliary minesweepers in the Royal Navy. TR 57 returned to serve with the Royal Navy, under the name HMT Texas, and found her way, somehow, to Jamaica. I can’t find anything showing how or when exactly Texas ended up in the Caribbean, one can only assume it was under the orders of the Royal Navy and perhaps was escort duty, or to patrol approaches to valued commodity sources(?), however it was just outside another Kingston, (far from her birthplace in Ontario), where Texas met her fate on the 19th of July 1944, going to the bottom by the farewell buoy as a result of a collision, taking with her the lives and souls of Two of her crew, Johan Ingvald Olsen, a volunteer and Lieutenant in the Royal Navy Reserve, and Octavis Russell, her Petty Officer, of the Naval Auxilary Patrol Service

The Little Red Book reads: “Down the shot in water @ 29′ good descent in free-fall position Viz down to 3m @ 31m but good light meant alot to see. “Texas” was a US coast guard cutter – then a mine sweeper sank after a collision in the main ship lane off Port Royal – what remains is the overall shape of the boat but the plating on the decks has rotted – she’s covered in rare Black coral – beautiful- great time round the 2″ gun & bridge loads to see – the funnel area is good – great dive!” In truth I loved the dive and, but for the limited space in my log book, would have gone on to describe the mug sitting on the bridge table, the coral in the funnel, the prominent bow and anchor hawses…… and so much more that I remember vividly. The only thing I don’t recall, and we had 31 mins bottom time on what was a small ship, was any sign of collision? I don’t recall any of our dive-team mentioning damage either, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there, it just isn’t part of any memory I have of the Texas, sat there upright as if she could sail away at any moment…..

Octavis Russell was listed as “Missing Presumed Killed”, and in another of those ironic twists of fate, is memorialized on the sea-front of my home town of Liverpool. Johan Ingvald Olsen, a Norwegian, the son of Nils and Gustava Olsen, husband to Anna Jeanette Olsen of Ula in Norway, is buried in Kingston Jamaica, in UP-Park-Camp Cemetery (Plot C. Grave 32)……… May they Rest in Peace having served and given all for freedom….. At the going down of the Sun….and in the morning

My thanks go to Emilie Lavallee-Funston of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network for the pictures from the Canadian Railway and Marine World publication and to the Stiftelsen Archive for the Picture of Johan Olsen’s Headstone

Twelfth of March 1994, I am back from Cyprus and the Blue water diving is officially over……it’s back to the South Coast and the wreck of the Kyarra off Swanage. I’m diving with Steve, another TIDSAC diver and it is the first dive “Tich” Tichener (another former Royal Navy sailor operating a dive-boat, the “Kyarratoo” out of Weymouth), has taken this season. The Kyarra was a beautiful ship, built by Denny’s of Dumbarton as a luxury liner in 1903, she has sleek lines and sits well in the water…….

I wanted to dive Kyarra since hearing of her, many times, whilst diving around the South coast. Kyarra was one of the easiest wrecks to get to, being close to Swanage, and there were plenty of boats that would take you out to her, Tich was our choice as he was, like us, from a services background, it made things easier as we all spoke the same (tribal) language. On this occasion we had headed down in a bit of a rush and were kitting up on the boat deck, unusual as I prefer to be suited and booted before we sail on short trips…… Kyarra had been commissioned by the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company for service to and round Australia, and was launched into the river Clyde on February 02nd of 1903 being registered in Freemantle, Australia, although her owners and “flag” were London registered. Kyarra would spend 10 unremarkable years sailing between her home port and Sydney until the looming of World War 1 on the global horizon…………

The Australian government met the call to arms of the mother-country, when, in 1914, the UK asked all commonwealth countries to aid in the struggle against the Kaizer and his Austro-Hungarian and German Army! On the 6th November of 1914 Kyarra became the “HMAT A.55 Kyarra” , requisitioned in Brisbane and intended to act as a medical unit transport ship, supporting the Egyptian theater of battle (Wikipedia). The work of hospital ships would turn out to be as dangerous perhaps as that of troop transports, several would fall to U-Boat action, despite the clear and obvious hospital markings!

However Kyarra would survive her brief period as a hospital ship and be transferred to troop carrying duty by March of 1915, barely 5 months later. Kyarra was named after the pelt of the native Australian “Possum”, the word being Aboriginal for a small strip of the creature’s fur, perhaps it was intended to refer to her sleek looks, or perhaps it was just a whim of the owners……… The technical bit, for those who enjoy such things, goes like this: Kyarra was 6953 Tonnes (Gross) and 415 feet 5 inches long with a beam of 52 foot 2 inches and a draught of 31 foot 5 inches. She was powered by Two triple expansion steam turbines and capable of 15.4 Knots (just shy of 18mph). Kyarra could carry 2600 Tonnes of cargo and 286 passengers, 126 of those being “1st Class” (Wikipedia) which, in the day, meant exactly that, Kyarra being intended for luxury travel!

Kyarra almost made it through the war, she came to lie in the channel, off Swanage, following an attack by UB 57 under the command of Johannes Lohs, just off Anvil point, outside Weymouth. Kyarra was sailing from Tilbury to Devonport, travelling light, carrying civilian passengers and expecting to take on cargo on arrival (Wikipedia). UB 57 was commanded by Johannes Lohs who had begun his career as a “Seekadett” in the Kreigsmarine 01st April 1909, just Six years following Kyarra’s launch. Lohs had a long career by the time he crossed paths with Kyarra, by then, on the 26th of May 1918, he had risen to the rank of “Oberleutnant zur See” and was a holder of the Iron Cross, 1st class, as a result of his successes with other U Boats. Like many of his peers, Johannes Lohs did not survive the war, his body washing up on the Dutch coast 21st August 1918 after UB 57’s last contact with controllers, 14th of August ’18, when Lohs was said to be homeward bound, somewhere off the Sandiette bank in the Dover Straits. At that point Johannes Lohs had sunk an estimated 165,000 Tonnes of allied shipping (U-Boat Net)

Our dive on the Kyarra started off with a wicked current running when we arrived, kitting up gave us a bit of time to see the current seemingly drop a little and we entered onto the shot line mid afternoon on the 12/03/1994……This was an uneasy descent, Steve dropped his torch and chased it off the shot-line, forcing me to either follow, or end up separated from Steve which would effectively abort the dive, neither of us would want that, so I followed…….. What follows shows how easy it is to make mistakes, which just compound…….The assumption on my part, when Steve suggested the Kyarra, was that Steve had dived it before, our haste to get kitted before it started to get dark meant the brief was just a buddy-check, and then the separation from the shot line meant, effectively, in the bloody poor viz, (about 1/2m at very best, in torch-light) that we were pretty much blind! Here’s what my log book says….. “Missed the shot line in nil viz-total black-out after 15m. Onto a sandy bottom full of wreckage, when finning against a 2kt current water went “dead” figured we’ed entered the hull inadvertently-no viz even on torches past 1/2m. Very dangerous not knowing if we had wreckage overhead. 16 mins gone by now so we ended the dive….very apprehensively…ascent was clear thank God…...”

What isn’t apparent here is what I was feeling at the time, If we’ed been tied off on the shot line I’d have been happier by far, following a line is my default setting in low viz on a new wreck, too many have died trapped inside wrecks, that is not the way I want to go! I was seething with myself for not asking the right questions before the dive, my dive slate said it all “…….can you enter the wreck….?” Steve shrugged (I got madder) “…..are we inside it.…?” Steve shrugged (I got even madder) ” ……dive over….” Steve, bless him, agreed and we turned 180 degrees and swam with the current for couple of minutes before I deployed the SMB. It was a huge relief when the water became lighter, and I realised the SMB was at the surface, not under a hull-plate……..lesson learned! Talking with Tich after we exited the water, he believed that at 29m or so, we had swam under the stern of the Kyarra which was what shielded us from the relentless current, and what had caused me to stop in my tracks thinking we had entered part of the hull. Showing the dive slate to other members of TIDSAC that evening was a sobering and humbling experience, one I have not forgotten to this day………..