SS THISTLEGORM

World War Two’s Greatest Shipwreck

One of WW II’s Greatest True Stories of

Adventure, Survival and Discovery

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ALSO BY JOHN KEAN

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The Great Buoyancy Scam

Lost Wife, Saw Barracuda

Sharks, Fights & Motorbikes

A Walk on the Deep Side

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 SS Thistlegorm – World War Two’s Greatest Shipwreck

By John Kean

© Copyright John Kean 2014

No part of this publication may be transmitted, quoted (oral or written), reproduced by any means whatsoever, which includes
photocopying, photographing, oral, written or electronic recording, or stored in any form of retrieval apparatus without the written
consent of the author and registered copyright owner, John Kean.

https://www.facebook.com/JohnKeanAuthorPage

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 Preface

It was the 6th of October 1941 and the SS Thistlegorm ship was at anchor
under what was the brightest and fullest moon ever seen by its British crew.
The moon’s glare lit up both sides of the Gulf of Suez illuminating
Thistlegorm and the 20 other ships also at anchor and awaiting their orders
to proceed to the Suez Canal. The time was approaching 1:20 am and only
the night watchman remained awake.

In the distance was heard the faint noise of an engine; the sound of a small
generator perhaps? But the noise grew louder and closer until the two
German enemy aircraft flew directly overhead almost clipping the masts of
the 5,000 ton Merchant Navy vessel.

Two hundred yards away the Royal Navy crew of the HMS Carlisle
cruiser sprang into action and readied themselves to engage the aircraft. The
guns turned on their mountings and the barrels were lowered. The crews
had seen little action in weeks; now it was show time. The Heinkel F111’s
arced back over the Red Sea and came in low again for their second run.

The sitting ducks in their path were an unexpected bonus and something of
a consolation prize for failing to locate their earlier intended target of the
Queen Mary troopship carrier. One ship stuck out as the biggest; the SS
Thistlegorm. The Heinkels fuel was low, flak was high and time was
running out; it would have to do.

The German pilots flew their planes in hard and dropped four bombs on
the ship; two missed and two found their target. Within minutes SS
Thistlegorm was a floating inferno. Some of the crew escaped in time; some
didn’t. Then, in one almighty great explosion, its massive cargo of deadly
munitions ignited and tore the ship in two. The 100-foot high, fire-orange
flames turned night into day. Cargo, twisted metal and red hot burning
debris were blasted up to a mile away damaging some of the nearby allied
ships. Seconds later Thistlegorm disappeared beneath the Red Sea and sank
to the seabed a hundred feet below. Its life on the open seas was now over
but a new one would begin... fifty years later.
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Table of Contents

Preface
Table of Contents
A Hard Day’s Work
The First Interview
Eagles and Lions
Sunrise in Ras Mohammed
Glyn Owen at Sea
Thistle Origins
Watching Thistlegorm
Briefing Time
A Close Encounter
John Whitham at Sea
Something in the Sky
Ray Gibson at Sea
The Strike
Getting a Grip
Glyn Owen - Under Attack
Dive One
Ray Gibson - Under Attack
In for a Pounding
Angus Macleay’s Story
John Whitham – Under Attack
Dive Two - Into the Past
Dennis Gray - Under Attack
Fallen Eagles
Glyn Owen - Going Home
Ray Gibson - Going Home
John Whitham - Going Home
Dennis Gray - Going Home
The Undersea World
The Sharm el Sheikh Story
The Bomb Collector
End of the Line
The Mast
Saving SS Thistlegorm
The Fifth Survivor
A Day to Remember
Contributors
Epilogue
SS Thistlegorm Facts and Figures
About the Author
Hardback Edition
Also by the Author
Contact the Author
Acknowledgements

One

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A Hard Day’s Work

It will be another hour and a half before Miles Rogers will see sunrise, such
are the daylight hours during October. He reaches over and presses the
snooze-button on his tiny, but high-pitched alarm clock beside his bed.
Cursing it, he decides to turn the thing off altogether, knowing that to risk a
lie-in might mean oversleeping and leaving ten, very annoyed diving
guests, standing on the jetty waiting for their overdue guide to appear. Not
worth it. He heaves himself up, wipes his sleepy eyes and heads towards the
kitchen looking back at his little black cat, fast asleep on his bed, curled up
in a ball without a worry in the world. He will sleep for hours, however,
Miles’s day has just begun and it will be a long and demanding one.

Miles is a Sharm el Sheikh divemaster. A few hours from now, he will be

100 feet underwater guiding a group of divers around one of the most
famous shipwrecks in the world.

A look into the bathroom mirror reveals stubble and a mop of hair that
could do with a comb. He shaves to make himself feel more awake or at
least look more awake. Divemasters have a small selection of tricks to beat
the early morning blues, but nothing was better than that first cigarette.

Outside his house, in the Sharm el Sheikh residential suburb of Hadaba,

the dive centre minibus beeps its horn. It’s time to go. Miles carries his hot
mug of coffee into the front passenger seat and turns down the music.
‘Music’, of course, being a loose description of the B-side of some dodgy
cassette-tape that hotel managers like to play in their reception areas. This
tape is old, worn, plays at half speed, and sounds like a cry for help from a
wounded desert dog. Ibrahim complains.

‘It’s bad enough during the daytime, Ibrahim, never mind at four am!’

He scoffs, and drives off through the deserted streets in the direction of
Naama Bay for the first of his two pick-ups. Four guests are staying at the
Hilton and the remaining six up at the old Tivoli on the hill. It will take a
good half hour before reaching the Travco jetty in Sharm where they will
board their boat for the long trip to Shab Ali out in the Straits of Gubal.

‘Good morning, everyone’, shouts Miles, his smile revealing a set of

pearl-white teeth. A few guests stir from their seats and notice the tall
divemaster standing with his clipboard looking suspiciously more awake
than they are. He chuckles inwardly, knowing only too well that his
sprightly demeanour is the result of a badly needed cigarette and a timely
shot of caffeine. ‘Time to rock n’ roll, folks!’ One by one, they rise to their
feet and follow Miles out to the car park where Ibrahim had dared to turn
the up the volume by a fraction of a decibel. He’s quickly on his case so he
gives up and turns it off altogether.

They arrive at the Tivoli where only five guests are present. Perhaps
number six has a hangover, or just changed his mind at the last minute. He’s
already prepaid 120 Euros to dive the wreck. It’ll be an expensive lie-in.
Miles picks up the telephone receiver on the front desk and dials room 157.

‘Good morning, Mr Wreck Diver, your carriage awaits.’

‘Drop dead you… ’

‘Now, now! That’s not in the brochure… you’ve got five minutes and then
we’re gone’.

‘OK, OK, I’ll be right out’.

Finally, number six appears, to a slow-hand clap. The unshaven,

dishevelled guest, plucked unceremoniously from his slumber crawls into
the minibus and grumbles something about ‘Being on holiday’. He needn’t
worry too much for as soon as he has his tank set up he can sleep the whole
way there, until, of course, a very brave crewmember wakes him up for a
breakfast that he probably won’t want.

The Travco jetty is surprisingly busy for four-thirty in the morning, a long
line of sleek white craft stretch the length of the floating marina. Most are
safari boats getting ready for their next seven-day trip at sea. They will take
on board about ten tons of water, a mountain of food for the three meals a
day and a complement of up to 16 guests who, with any luck, will all get on
with each other. Each boat has a compressor to fill the empty tanks after
dives until well into the evening when the silent hush of the generators die
down and the final sleepy guest heads for his cabin. Miles was a safari
guide for two years before opting for the less demanding schedule of daily
guiding. Sometimes, he wasn’t so sure that he’d made the right choice
especially on days like today. At least on safari he could ‘lie in’ until seven-
thirty.

Walking along the jetty he spots, Victoria 2. Thank heavens, the crew are
wide- awake and on time. He remembers a few weeks ago when another
boat was less than quick off the mark and he had to swim out to the
mooring to wake them up – an action of last resort as crews have
occasionally spoken about seeing ‘A very big shark’ swimming around the
jetty - hardly surprising given the amount of food that manages to work its
way over the sides of the moored up dive boats. The food is always tip-top
on Victoria 2 thanks to Ali the chef. It’s not long out of dry dock and the
paintwork is still like new. With only ten guests there will be plenty of room
on board a boat that is licensed to take 22.

The only remaining task for Miles is to obtain the permission paper to
leave port, which is a short, but tedious operation usually involving waking
the sleepy official long enough for him to stamp and sign a few documents.

The window of the small, white concrete office is closed and so is the
door. Miles tries the handles and it opens. Inside is almost bare with just a
table, chair and a medium high bookshelf containing reams of folders and
old jetty receipts. On the floor, sticking out from behind the shelf, Miles
spots a pair of legs lying in a position that would suggest their owner may
have departed some time prior to that great office in the sky. Upon closer
inspection, the sleepy gentleman eventually responds to the statement, ‘I’m
medically trained; I can take care of you’.

‘Where you go?’

‘I go Shab Ali.’
 ‘How many people?’

‘About nine and a half.’

‘Name of the boat?’

‘Victoria 2.’

‘Thank you, have a nice time… Zzzzzz’

Miles leaves the gentleman in the recovery position in case an unexpected

change of state results in a serious detrimental effect to his health – like
waking up.

He arrives back at Victoria 2 clutching a mountain of paperwork. ‘Yallah

beena’, Miles says to Morgan, the skipper.

Number six taps Miles on the shoulder and sheepishly announces that his
box containing all his dive equipment is not on board.

‘What did you do with it?’

‘I left it in my hotel room, by mistake’.

It’s going to be a long day.

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Royal Navy Gunner, Glynn Owen

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 Two

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The First Interview

January 1995

Freelance television producer, Caroline Hawkins, was full of nervous

anticipation. There was no telling how Glyn would react to revelations
about an incident that happened in his life some 54 years previously. Old
wounds would be opened. Bad memories long buried deep in the depths of
the sub-conscious mind would now slowly surface. However, it wasn’t all
bad, as after all, this was a chance to recount the good stories too. Some
were so spectacular that they were to be transcripted and recorded on film
for time immemorial.

Life at sea for a Merchant Navy seaman had its moments of excitement
and adventure. The sailors were young, impressionable and a long way
from home. Some would end their careers having had over six ships sunk
beneath them. It wasn’t uncommon to be rescued from a torpedoed vessel
only to be sunk again on the way home by more enemy action. There was
going to be a great deal of talking today.

The men of the Merchant Navy were the unsung heroes of the Second
World War. 135,000 men saw nearly 35,000 of their comrades killed by
enemy action, representing a casualty rate of more than one in four – higher
than that of any of the fighting forces. Winston Churchill paid tribute to
their resolve in the House of Commons:

‘Nothing daunts the ardour of the Merchant Navy. Their toils and tireless
courage are our salvation. The sea traffic, upon which we, as a nation,
depend for our very existence, proceeds without interruption’. The House
went on to endorse Winston Churchill’s support through a communication
from the Lord Chancellor in 1945: ‘That the thanks of this House be
accorded to the Officers and Men of the Merchant Navy for the
steadfastness with which they maintained our stocks of food and materials;
for their services in transporting men and munitions to all the battles over
all the seas; and for the gallantry with which, through a civilian service,
they met and fought the constant attacks of the enemy.

‘That this House does acknowledge with humble gratitude the sacrifice of
all those who, on land or sea or in the air, have given their lives that others
today may live as free men and its heartfelt sympathy with their relatives in
their proud sorrow.’

For Caroline and her associate producer, Sally Lindsay, the interview with
Glyn was the result of many months work. If they weren’t diving to the
wreck four times a day, then they’d be trawling the archives of the public
records office or maritime museums. On an average day they’d made at
least 50 phone calls and sent or received over 20 mailings. A huge pile of
paperwork containing ships plans, old photographs, newspaper cuttings,
maritime maps and documents and a plethora of correspondence between
naval and government agencies, occupied a whole room of Caroline’s
house.

Today was crucial, for time was running out and the race was one.
Although the years had been good to the survivors, they were in their late
70s and this was possibly the last and only chance to find out what really
happened so many years ago on the fateful night of 6th October 1941.

None of the survivors had been easy to find but after months of
investigation which included communication with ex-forces organisations
and the placement of carefully worded advertisements in national
newspapers, one by one a small handful of crewmen came forward. Soon
they would form one of the world’s most exclusive organisations... the SS
Thistlegorm’s survivors club.

Glyn Owen sat anxiously in the chair contemplating his first appearance
on national television. It wasn’t live, but nonetheless, it all looked very
serious what with a cameraman, assistant, sound recordist and Caroline and
Sally. They’d taken over Glyn’s small living room adding a plethora of
cables, lighting stands and reflectors. They even had to black out his
windows and move ornaments and furniture around.
 Unlike the others, Glyn was Royal Navy Gunner, serving on a Merchant
ship. DEMS Gunners were Royal Navy men sent to serve on Civilian
Convoy Ships. All of the survivors were strengthened by the chance to
finally tell their story in their own words without fear of recrimination from
the War Office or obligation of the Official Secrets Act. Quite simply,
they’d served their time, done their duty and paid the price. Now it was
time to put the record straight and let the world know the true facts.

Sally was well prepared. She sat opposite Glyn with her papers ready and
waited for the cue from Caroline. Finally, their questions would be
answered.

‘In your own time Glyn’, encouraged Caroline, as the camera began to
roll. Despite the tension of a recorded interview, Glyn now felt very
relaxed. He was medium in height and had a full figure. It was time to tell
the story.

‘This is Tuesday 31st January 1995 – an interview with Glyn Owen. Glyn,
can you remember when you joined the ship?’

‘I joined SS Thistlegorm a little after my 21st birthday, that was July 1941
at Glasgow and I had a friend who I had been fortunate enough to have
trained with and we had two ships together – Fred Bevan. We joined
Thistlegorm at the same time and went down to the Clyde where we waited
for convoy. I would think it would be about the third week in July’.

‘And can you tell me what your role on the ship would have been?’

‘Yes, I was signed as an Able Seaman, the DEMS Gunner, which is an

abbreviation of Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships. Our main job was to
man the armaments, which were very sparse on most ships but whatever
there was we had a variety of weapons and we handled the weapons to
defend the ship. Everything had to point to the stern. Nothing was allowed
to point forward; defensively equipped. The ship was partly loaded but the
latter part of the cargo we saw being loaded was mostly ammunition and,
well, it was quite a laugh amongst the lads at the time that if anything
happened to us, if we were bombed or torpedoed then we said we’d need
parachutes not life jackets’.

‘And briefly, can you describe to me the route that the Thistlegorm would
have taken starting from when you left Scotland?’

‘We sailed in convoy and we were bound originally for Alexandria and
that was to supply the desert army at that time. That was 19th July 1941. The
route through the Mediterranean was closed so we had to go the long way
around the Cape. We ourselves were not attacked on Thistlegorm but part of
the convoy after they left us went east towards Gibraltar. I should imagine
they were attacked and then later on, a few days later, another part of the
convoy went westwards towards the Caribbean and they were attacked.
Fortunately we sailed on without any mishap whatsoever and we just had a
boring old trip into Cape Town. We should have gone to Freetown but there
was evidently a lot of U-boat activity in that area so we carried on to Cape
Town and it took us 37 days, which was five weeks two days at sea to our
first port of call. That’s when I celebrated my 21st birthday, five weeks late!’

‘I expect you celebrated as well because you were able to get some
cigarettes there?’

‘Yeah, we’d been out of cigarettes for two weeks and we were getting to
the stage where we had to scrounge little bits of tobacco off the officers roll
up cigarettes and share it between two or three guys – two or three men, I
don’t think we used the expression “guys” in those days did we? Anyway,
we landed at Cape Town and after so long at sea we were reeling around
like drunken men without a drink because we didn’t have our land legs as
opposed to having sea legs. And yes we had a good old drink and a good
smoke. We all had a tin of 50 cigarettes apiece. I remember we were just
smoking ourselves silly and we drunk ourselves a bit silly too.

‘We stayed ashore in the seamen’s hostel and overnight we got into a fight
with the South African Navy and counted our bruises in the morning. We
had five days in Cape Town and we had invites out by the local people to
their homes for dinner. One particular lady who was serving at one of the
force’s canteens invited a couple of the fellows out and they said, ‘Well,
there’s eight of us, we stick together.’ So she invited all eight of us out to
her place for dinner. Then we were due to sail but three of the lads were
missing at sailing time and just before the ship cast off ropes, we saw them
coming up the quay. One was in a wheelbarrow and the other two were
bringing him back to the ship. I wish they’d never made it because later on
they were killed – the three of them – I wished they’d missed the ship.

‘And then we sailed out of Cape Town and we all had a crate of oranges
apiece. We had been asked to go and get a few oranges by the dock
workers, thinking we’d be given a few oranges each but they said, ‘No, just
help yourselves, take a box each.’ We spent our evenings at sea off duty,
playing cards eating oranges and queuing up for the toilets – we all had the
runs!’

Sally glanced down at her sheet and read out the next question.

‘Glyn, would you like to tell me a bit more about the cargo?’
‘The good cargo we had in number three and four hatches. We had
aeroplane fuselages in crates, which were crated up in the well deck. We
had locomotives for the Egyptian State Railways, one either side of the
ship, port and starboard, plus the rolling stock. These were welded to the
deck with cable and we had to step over various cables coming down at an
angle to the deck to get forward. In Cape Town, we unloaded the crates of
number three and four hatches which gave us a little bit more room to walk
around.’

‘Glyn, can you explain to me a little about how the convoys system
worked. What was a convoy?’

‘A convoy; well we left Clyde and I can’t remember exactly how many
ships. Some convoys consisted of 20; some of 40 depending on the size,
speed of convoy and the amount of protection the Royal Navy were able to
give. At that time in 1941 a convoy had very little protection because of
course there weren’t the number of ships to spare. But usually the speed
would be around about seven knots, which is about eight or nine miles per
hour and it takes a long time to go anywhere because you didn’t actually go
straight; you zigzagged, you went miles this way and that way; so an earlier
convoy we sailed in had taken us 21 days, 3 weeks, to get to Gibraltar so
that gives you an idea of the type of things the Merchant Navy lads had to
face up to as well. But a convoy was reckoned to be a system to give as
great a protection to as many ships as possible, instead of being picked off
while travelling or sailing alone and also that any armament we carried was
greater protected in the event of an attack.

‘Our biggest nightmare in a sense, apart from the U-boats, was the Focke-
Wulf Condor, which were the big four-engine planes the Germans sent out
usually from bases on the Bay of Biscay. They just circled the convoy all
day long just out of range round and round and round. There’s the old joke
about one of the ships supposedly having signalled to the Germans asking,
‘Please go round the other way we’re getting giddy’. However, they usually
came in after they’d done their spot of surveillance and they were signalling
U-boats and giving our position on the convoys.

‘They usually came in and did a bombing run and I remember one
particular incident where the plane came in and he wasn’t actually flying up
our line, he was going across and we were firing back. I was firing a Lewis
Gun and I remember firing at this plane and there was such a bang beside
me and I looked around and there was a big hole and I thought, ‘He’s firing
back’. I was so disgusted to think that he was firing back; I thought he
would only drop bombs. I never thought about him firing machine guns at
us. Most of the time it was pretty boring but we lived on our nerves.’

‘Now Glyn, can you tell me how many gunners there would have been on
Thistlegorm?’

‘Yes, I was one of nine gunners and the only one I knew was Fred. An
older man was Acting Petty Officer. He didn’t quite mix in with us as
naturally he had to keep a little bit aloof, but the eight of us all got on fine;
we got on really well and when you live with somebody aboard a ship 24
hours a day; eat, sleep, work and whatever with them, you have to really get
on.’

‘Can you tell me about the guns that you had to use on the Thistlegorm?’
 ‘I can’t remember the exact armament to be honest; I mean it was one of
six ships, but we had a 4 inch or 4.7 I think, which was on the stern. We had
other machine guns too and one particular gun, which I remember was on
the port side around about the waist of the ship. I had to climb up onto a
little platform and this gun had a shield around it and when we were in what
we called ‘safe waters’ such as South Atlantic or Indian Ocean it was so
difficult to use binoculars because the lights catching the top of the waves
would pretty well blind you through the lenses. So, we used to take a
paperback up and turn the gun shield so it faced the bridge and put one arm
out in front of you so that they could see you were awake, make a
movement and enjoy yourself with your paperback! It’s an awful long time
to be stuck up there for four hours without anything to do.’

Caroline had seen the guns 22 yards beneath the Red Sea off the coast of
Sinai. They sat eerily on the stern deck, their final resting place where coral
had grown around them.

‘Do you think the guns were up to much; were they any good?’

‘The idea for having those guns aboard the ship was for defensive
purposes. There were never enough gunners on watch at any one time to
man all the guns so we had to train some of the Merchant Seamen to help us
in various ways, such as passing ammunition. We often had to run gun drills
and make it up as we went along really.

‘The armament was mostly against aircraft because you didn’t really stand
any chance against the submarine. You had a four-inch gun but the U-boat
crews would be far better trained as gunners than we would have been and
so the Hodgkiss machine guns and all the Lewis guns were mostly used
against aircraft; low flying aircraft. There were a variety of other weapons,
which were very ‘Heath Robinson’ (Rube Goldberg!)

‘The rockets, we had one machine, I think it was called a Holme Projector
if I remember rightly and it was shaped like a cylinder, which contained
either steam or compressed air and then it had a tube coming out of it and
the principle was that you dropped a hand-grenade down it. First, you took
the pin out of the grenade, dropped it down the tube and then pressed the
lever and it was supposed to fire into the air at low flying aircraft. But we
didn’t like it because it had a habit of just lobbing out if there wasn’t
enough pressure.

‘Several times we had just dummy ammunition, which was round about
the same weight as a Mills bomb. I saw several of those just go plop and we
were glad they were only dummies! All sorts of ‘Heath Robinson’
contraptions they had for us. But in the main, machine guns were the main
armament; usually one gun mounted on the stern, which fired mostly astern.
You weren’t supposed to fire forward because we weren’t attacking, we
were defensively equipped. That is the name they keep emphasising –
defensively equipped’.

‘Tell me a bit more about your weapons training’.

‘Our training courses? After doing basic training when I first joined the
Navy on HMS Collingwood, which is at Fareham, we did an intensive
gunnery training course on HMS Excellent on Ware Island, Portsmouth. We
had a real crash-course in a variety of weapons, the largest a six-inch gun. I
remember right down to pocket armament, rifles, and pistols; not so much
pistols, but machine guns, stripping and reassembling machine guns and
then some of the ‘Heath Robinson’ contraptions I spoke about. In the main
it was machine guns, Lewis, Hodgkiss and gun drills for 4-inch and 6-inch
guns but we never knew what type of armament we would be assigned
when we went to a ship because the armament was already there and you
just had to fit in with it.

‘I remember the first ship I was drafted to, it was a small coaster, which in
peacetime just travelled from Newcastle to London; however, it was now
out in the Atlantic convoys to Gibraltar. It used to take three weeks there
and three weeks back. That ship was fitted out with what we called a 12-
pounder with fixed ammunition; the whole thing was a shell and the
propellant was inside. I always remember reading a nameplate on that so-
called ‘anti aircraft’ weapon; the date was 1897 and we were using it as an
anti-aircraft gun, a gun before aeroplanes had even been invented! They just
scraped up guns from all over the place, this I’m talking about the early
days of 1941. Things did get a lot better later. We had to just make do with
all sorts of armament, so we were trained on a variety of weapons because
we never knew what we were going to get!’

‘Glyn, would you like to tell me a little bit about life on board… the sort of
things you used to do to pass the time?’

‘Mmm, do you want me to relate this business about the… I mean we did a
lot of swimming but not until we were finally anchored?’

‘Well, I remember you telling me about how you used to fire at seagulls.’

‘Oh dear, but what about those wildlife people? The conservationists will
be knocking on my door! I’m going to be lined up here; they’re going to be
putting bombs under my car!’

‘Don’t worry about that now,’ said Caroline.

‘Well, life on the sea could be awfully boring at times; we kept occupied
we did our duty, we slept, we kept the guns in good order, but mainly it was
just watch-keeping, just looking out and occasionally we had gun drill just
to keep ourselves up to scratch a little and to also help train the Merchant
Seamen to get an idea of what we had. Some of them didn’t like the idea at
all.

‘I remember one guy, he got so mad because he was so slow and we kept
telling him he was slow so he just flung his live shell down on the steel
deck but luckily it didn’t go off! We used all sorts of things, we would fire
bursts up into the air from one of the four-inch guns with an anti aircraft
shell and would fire at it with a machine gun just to use tracer. We fired if
we saw any seagulls sitting on the waves. We fired at them, but never hit
them, they were too sharp for us, but we never fired at any mammals like
dolphins or anything like that.

‘In the main we had a few various gun drills. We sometimes weren’t
allowed to throw anything overboard because of course that would give
away position to any U-boat so we didn’t fire at anything that was thrown
over the side’.
 ‘What was a typical day like?’

‘There were no incidents after we left the Clyde, very little incidents of
any sort, it was mainly keeping a 24-hour watch; four on, eight off, so you
did your full four hours either on a machine gun post or on the four-inch
and keeping a look out. But when you sail in convoy there are sharper eyes
and better equipped stuff so it’s mainly looking at other ships and as we
weren’t involved in the actual sailing of the ship or we didn’t have to worry
about keeping the ship in station so we just did our four hours on and then
we came off and we ate and we slept, washed our clothes wrote letters for
posting whenever we got to any port… played cards, did crosswords...
generally boring!’

‘Did you listen to music?’

‘No, of course in those days there were no such things as transistors or

personal tape recorders or the likes of what people use nowadays. Radio
would give your position away to the enemy. The only news we got came
from the radio operator if he felt inclined to pass any news that he’d picked
up – there was no transmitting so he couldn’t get a message home for you
or anything like that. We had a wind-up gramophone with steel needles –
we usually ran out of needles – but in the main it was paperbacks, cards,
dominos, just things like that’.

‘Did you mix with the Merchant Seamen?’

‘The Merchant Navy crew on Thistlegorm were quite a good crowd, there
were nine of us gunners, I recollect, and I think there were about 35 or 39
crew and we mixed pretty well together, mostly with the seamen, not so
much with the officers because they lived amidships, but our quarters were
in between decks, which is between the main deck and the other deck. We
had a section in there for nine, right in with the seamen who were in the
after part of the ship. Yes, we shared stuff with them; they lent us books and
we passed books around, we played cards with them and whatever, but
there was not a lot of visiting each other’s quarters particularly. Of course
some of them had to keep watch with you so you got to know them
reasonably well; you have to when you’re living with them 24 hours a day.’

‘Can you describe the layout and the heads and the washbasin; how many
men to a cabin and that kind of thing?’

‘Our quarters were on the starboard side and ran parallel with number four
hatch, which would be towards the stern of the ship; we had a railway
engine on the deck over us. As I remember, we went from the deck down a
companionway and turned left into the quarters and there were six pairs of
bunks parallel with the hatch, two making an L-shape and the Petty Officer
had a bunk to himself; still in the same quarters but he had a bunk up
against the side of the ship. We had a washbasin and a shower; saltwater
showers at the far end in the middle we had our mess tables and stools. No
carpets!’
‘Did you ever have anything to do with the Captain of the ship?’

‘On a ship of that size, we were small enough and big enough to keep out
of each other’s way. The skipper was quite a nice fellow, but apart from
issuing orders we weren’t really close to him. One or two of the officers
became close to us because sometimes they had to give you or make a
request; it was difficult for them because they were Merchant Seaman
officers and we were Royal Navy ratings so they couldn’t as such give us an
order relating to our duties as gunners, but at the same time it was their ship
and we were there to safeguard the ship so it was a difficult position for
them; they could often suggest something and we went along with it or
otherwise; whether it was for the good of the ship or the armament or not.
As for the position of the ammunition, we had a magazine at the stern but a
lot of it had to be kept in ready-use lockers and it was for us to decide
where best it was kept, not the officers.’

‘OK, let’s take a break for lunch’.

Glyn sighed and felt the tension drop from his shoulders. He wanted to
carry on, but a break wouldn’t do any harm. The camera crew scurried
around a little and played with the lighting. Shortly, a large tray of tea and
biscuits appeared which were supplemented by Glyn’s delicious home-
grown tomatoes.

‘This would have been a luxury on Thistlegorm’ he said.

OceanofPDF.com
Official War records of shipping casualties in 1941 show the losses of the SS Thistlegorm and
Rosalie Moller just two days apart on the 6th and 8th of October.

OceanofPDF.com
 Three

OceanofPDF.com
Eagles and Lions

Ltn. Heinrich Menge, of the 26th Kampfgeschwader second squadron, leant

back into his chair, a wooden structure with cream coloured canvass,
something of a cross between a film director’s chair and a seaside
deckchair. He placed his feet upon a small wooden block and looking out
across the airfield at his Heinkel 111 he pulled out his trusty pipe from the
pocket of his black, leather bomber jacket. Today was something of a rest
day, but that could change at any minute, such was the life of a Luftwaffe
pilot during the Second World War.

He took a few seconds to light up as the breeze fanned the flame of his
flip-top brass lighter, a present from a visiting Nazi officer in recognition of
several successes in the air. Menge’s Heinkel was his toy and a prize
possession; an extension of his personality, even. He could happily have
smoked his pipe in the officer’s mess beside the Crete airfield where he was
stationed, but it was too far away from his plane. He preferred a closer
view.

Heinkels were the new weapon against the allies, a long-range bomber
capable of flying even further with heavier payloads. Quite simply they
could now chase the big stuff and still make it home. Menge’s payload were
two, seven-hundred pound bombs; one high explosive device and the
second an-oil bomb designed to spread fire and wreak maximum havoc
aboard the luckless targets. He would sit high in the glass cockpit
surrounded by small window panes, specially designed to enhance visibility
and reduce outside engine noise, but he still wore a headset.

A gunner would be positioned below and in front of him with a drum-fed

machine gun in quick response to any Allied flak from the air or sea.
Heinkels were not unlike the later British Lancasters in appearance, but
were a little smaller and had two engines, not four. The He 111’s were
bombers while other Heinkels like the 59 sea-plane were dropping mines by
parachute into the Suez Canal. Another gunner was positioned in a small
glass turret, located halfway along the fuselage over the main wings. A
German cross was painted below and on top of each wing with a larger
version towards the rear of each side of the fuselage next to the serial
number in big black figures. The plane was painted in two shades of
camouflage.

Tucked high on the tip of the upper tail-wing was the Swastika emblem. It
stood out from the other markings, which were more military in appearance.
The Swastika represented something else, something more sinister and far
removed from the annals of modern military history. In years to come,
Menge would regret its blatant display upon his aircraft.

Towards the front of the fuselage, was the emblem of 26th

Kampfgeschwader, a lion. Menge liked the lion. He remembered Squadron
leader, Freiherr Wolfram von Richthofen’s story about how he chose it
during a visit to inspect a new airport in Germany when he stepped into a
small, dome-shaped building and saw the statue of a lion. The inscription,
‘Path of the Lion’, related to the medieval story about the prosperous
merchant town of Bardowick in 1189 when Henry the Lion was refused
entry at the gates. His answer was to burn the town to the ground.

It was early evening when Menge awoke from his snoozing. His pipe had
long burnt out and now rested on his lap having fallen from his mouth. Ash
had spoiled his smart uniform but there were no burn marks, just grey dust.
It was that time of day when the sun had set and the moon was just
appearing low on the horizon. It would take several hours before reaching
height but already it was full, in fact fuller and brighter than he’d ever seen
it. Later it would surely light up the whole sky which was good news for
finding targets, but they can also find you.

He would happily stay where he was for the time being. But that was all
about to change... along with life, as he knew it.

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 General Auchinleck

OceanofPDF.com
 General Rommel

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 Field Marshal Earl Montgomery

It was General Sir Claude Auchinleck who needed Thistlegorm’s supplies when he made a surprise
attack through Libya in November 1941 and the newly formed 8th Army advanced about 50 miles
along a 130 mile long front. Montgomery was appointed commander of the 8th Army in August 1942
and started to push Rommel back after his attack on Alamein in September 1942.

OceanofPDF.com
 Four

OceanofPDF.com
Sunrise in Ras Mohammed

Miles insists that the guests assemble their tanks and check that everything
is working OK before the dive boat is too far away from the jetty (i.e.
within raiding distance of other boats should he need to borrow any more
kit!) Besides, the sea might kick up further out past Ras Mohammed and it’s
not much fun kitting up in the swell. Best get it done and out of the way and
then let them have a sleep.

There are no individual cabins on most of the daily boats out of Sharm but
there are plenty of sun lounges up top and a few nice cushioned seats in the
main cabin area. It is first come first served, but everybody could find
something even if they slept on the floor. Miles is one of those guides who
preferred to sleep on the way back from Thistlegorm. Much better to be
alert and plan things on the outward journey as there are still a few hours
work to do what with analysing the Nitrox tanks, checking the oxygen and
first aid kits, discussing the breakfast and lunch schedules with the crew and
preparing his dive briefing.

Number six has finally scraped together enough dive equipment from the
spares box and a couple of over-equipped guests, but thanks to an ill-fitting
wetsuit he will be rather cold today. The water is 23c, but after 20 minutes
he’ll begin to feel the pinch. Still, the excitement will take his mind of it for
a while but hanging on the rope doing a safety stop may bring on the
shivers at the end of the dive.

Once out of the Travco jetty all buildings cease to exist. The long line of
hotels, bars, restaurants and dive centres stretching a few miles along the
coast of Sharm el Sheikh, come to an abrupt halt at the Ras Mohammed
Park office, after which many miles of unspoilt desert and mountains extend
far back into the Sinai Peninsula. The Park is one of seven inside Egypt, a
little like the National Trust organisation in the UK. Only natural things
may occur in the Park. The scenery is spectacular, especially this morning
with the huge orange sun now making an appearance east, over the island of
Tiran. The sea is flat calm, but that may change, however, the glass-like
surface appears like a giant silver mirror against the golden morning sky.
Time for another coffee and a cigarette.

Miles peers into the main cabin where most of the guests are asleep. Two
are chatting to each other and one man busily works on his Nikonos
underwater camera. He has an instruction manual and tool kit and with the
strange looking device in bits and spread over half the dining table, Miles
wonders if he’ll have it all back in one piece and working in time for the
first dive. He looks far too awake for Miles’ liking and he leaves before it
becomes contagious. He’ll happily let his internal clock take its time and
enjoy the waking process a little longer.

The crew are up on the bridge with the skipper enjoying glasses of
Bedouin tea and telling jokes. Channel 14 has yet to crackle into life and
other than the occasional interruption from early-bird safari boats the radio
remains silent on standby.

‘Anyone got a light?’

Morgan reaches into his pocket and retrieves a small plastic lighter, the
type where you can see the lighter fuel through the transparent casing. He
flicks the button and out of the miniature-sized flamethrower flies a jet of
orange big enough to resemble the burn-off from an oilrig.

‘Morgan, I just want to light the thing not cook it medium-rare’, says
Miles, patting his own head to make sure that his hair has not caught fire.
The crew are all about the floor, laughing. Morgan apologizes between
laughs and adjusts the flamethrower’s output to something more fitting the
description of a cheap, plastic lighter.

‘Many boats out today’, says Ali, who’s been up a little longer than
anyone else. He’s seen a few dailies leave Travco earlier and it is a Friday,
which means the safari boats are on the last leg of their week and
Thistlegorm is usually the popular choice. A normal day on Thistlegorm
would see seven or eight boats moored up, sometimes as much as 15 in the
summer. Occasionally, when for no other reason than everybody deciding
that today is a good idea, it would attract anything up to 30 boats. The
record is 33 on a single day, but that is the extreme exception rather than the
norm.

Quite simply, Thistlegorm is one of the best wreck dives in the world and
nobody will have it to themselves. It would be like visiting the Pyramids or
the Leaning Tower of Pisa and finding that nobody was that interested
anymore. Still, a divemaster can dream and sometimes it comes true when
just a couple of boats are moored over the wreck, in a flat-calm sea with no
current, 35 meter visibility and ten very good divers.

OceanofPDF.com
A NASA satellite photograph of the Northern Red Sea. Thistlegorm is located approaching the Gulf
of Suez – about three hours boat ride from the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula.

OceanofPDF.com
 Five

OceanofPDF.com
Glyn Owen at Sea

Glyn finished his second cup of tea, straightened his tie and relaxed back
into the chair under the glare of the television lights. He seemed a little
more comfortable this time, knowing of course that the ordeal was not
really that much of an ordeal at all but a long-awaited chance to tell his
story. It was almost like a therapy, for not many had the opportunity to
recount their life to the masses and feel that after years of censorship they
could finally be heard and understood; truly liberating and at times painful,
but liberating nonetheless.

‘Although we were a Royal Navy complement we signed on the Ship’s

Articles as deckhands and for that we were paid the princely sum of six
pence old money, about 2 ½ pence today; that covered us for if we had to
go to a neutral port. We went to Spain, which was neutral at the time and
Southern Ireland and one or two other places like Spanish Morocco and that
enabled us to be a member of the crew as a deckhand and not a naval rating
for which we could have been interned if we had gone ashore. So we were
able to go ashore in our patched up civilian suits, covered by the ‘Articles
as Deckhands’. Six pence a day in addition to our naval pay of course,
which was about 30 shillings a week. That’s enough!’

‘That’s very good. Now, Glyn could we go on a little bit and talk about
being at anchorage in the Red Sea. Perhaps you could lead us into what
happened to the Thistlegorm after it left Cape Town. What was it like and
what do you remember about it?’
 Young Royal Navy Gunners Fred Bevan and Glyn Owen

‘Yeah, I remember we stayed at Aden for a short period of time, we didn’t

get ashore or anything. I can’t remember much about the voyage to the
anchorage. If my memory serves me then we stayed at anchor off Aden and
it was very hot when we left Aden. It would be sometime in September, late
September and we proceeded as we thought to the Suez Canal but short of
the Suez there was a group of islands, small islands, which were being used
as an anchorage – supposedly a safe anchorage. There were several other
ships there and we were being guarded by a Royal Navy cruiser; HMS
Carlisle was the one I remember particularly and we dropped anchor there
to await our turn to go up the Suez Canal because at the time the port of
Suez, Port Tewfik was being attacked by German bombers from Crete; in
fact when I eventually landed there, I saw a big passenger liner burnt out,
RMS Steamship, a Cunard liner which had been bombed, so it was thought
well to keep the ships at the anchorage until they had a clear passage
through the Canal. Then they just went straight through instead of waiting
at the Port of Tewfik’.

‘How long were you at anchorage and what sort of things did you do when
you were there?’
 ‘We stayed at this anchorage, well, in fact we never left; we were there
about ten days and it was a very boring time; we used all sorts of escapades
to pass away the time. I remember one instant where we were taking
photographs of each other and we rigged up a hose and even though the sun
was boiling down we rigged up this hose, decked ourselves out in oilskins
and played the hose onto a gun shield so that the spray came across on the
guy that was standing behind the emergency wheel and it looked as if we
were weathering a terrific storm. But unfortunately I never saw those
photographs developed. Another silly thing we did was to fry an egg on the
deck; it was so hot!

‘We also dropped a rope ladder over the side of the ship and then we made
it a rule that only one person at a time would go into the sea. And we either
jumped or dived in and then turned around and swam like hell for the ladder
in case there were any sharks but we didn’t know for sure as all the other
lads were shouting, ‘Shark, shark’ and you didn’t know whether it were true
or they were just pulling your leg, but you couldn’t take a chance. It was a
very, very silly thing to do but we were bored out of our skulls! However,
we didn’t have too long doing that because the signal was sent to our ship,
presumably from the Carlisle and we had one of our officers come down
who told us we had to pull the ladder up. It was his ladder so we had no
choice; and that was the end of the swimming lessons!’

‘Let’s move on. Can you tell me where the HMS Carlisle was anchored in
relation to the Thistlegorm?’

‘I’m not too sure about this but I’ve got a feeling that the Carlisle and
another ship used to change. Am I right there?’

‘Yes, we know that already.’

‘There was another ship involved but at the time of the actual bombing the
Carlisle was there, but I can’t remember the name of the other ship. I got a
feeling they changed over and sort of did a week in Tewfik and a week
down at anchorage, but anyway Carlisle was an anti-aircraft cruiser which
was acting as a guard ship and we had orders not to man our gun – not to
fire our gun- and that the Carlisle was the guard ship. This had happened to
us before in various ports we had to cover up the guns and so on because
the shore defences took over and we weren’t to interfere with them – so we
accepted this from the Carlisle – we didn’t like it but we accepted it and
presumably other ships at anchorage had to do the same. We reasoned that
there was nothing to look for anyway like U-boats or planes so we thought,
so the guns were not manned. So that was the orders given to us. We felt
they should have been manned but it was taken out of our hands. So at the
time of the actual attack our guns weren’t being manned, not from our lack
of duty on our part but because it was orders from the Carlisle which was
the senior ship.’

OceanofPDF.com
Founding Fathers. From left, Sir Christopher Furness, William Allan and Sir James Joicey.

OceanofPDF.com
 Six

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Thistle Origins

Kenneth Wilkinson Black stood proudly by his wife, Mary, watching the
latest vessel roll off the slipway of his Albyn Line yard in Sunderland.
Shipbuilders, J.L. Thompson & Sons Ltd, had done a fine job. It was the 9th
April 1940 and today’s high-profile launch, complete with press and
photographers, provided a welcome distraction from life’s struggles during
the Second World War.

Kenneth had been a director of the Albyn Line for seven years having
picked up the reins from his father, William, on 17th Dec 1934. William was
an old man now, but he remembers well the origins of the Albyn Line
where, on a spring morning, deep inside the House of Commons in the
Smoke Room sat three distinguished gentlemen, Sir Christopher Furness,
William Allan and Sir James Joicey. “Kitty” Furness, as he was known, had
long anticipated the boom in the late 1880s and was well down the line with
the speculative building of ships.

Such was his confidence that he attracted some notoriety for building ships
without so much as a purchase order. He had nothing to fear, each was sold
and it was two such vessels offered to his fellow M.P.’s on the 29th May
1901 that formed the basis of the Albyn Line story.

And so, on the 21st June 1901 began Thistle Ship Co Ltd. It was short
lived. In fact it never officially began, much to the disappointment of
founding director William Allan, a proud Scot, who sat at his desk with a
letter from the Registrar of Companies. The new name was already in
existence and he would have to choose another. Allan’s residence was
‘Scotland House’, a large dwelling surrounded by railings topped with a
thistle emblem. His place of business was known as the Scotia Engine
Works and the new fleet adopted the prefix THISTLE for the ship’s names.
Each would be suffixed by a Gaelic word describing, mostly, a type of
thistle, like ‘white thistle’ or ‘blue thistle’, resulting in a large fleet of ships
with such names as:
Thistleard, Thistleban, Thistleben, Thistlebrae, Thistledale, Thistledu,
Thistledu 2, Thistledowne, Thistleford, Thistlegarth, Thistleglen,
Thistlegorm, Thistlemor, Thistlemuir, Thistleros, Thistleroy, Thistleroy 2 and
Thistletor.

William sighed and penned out a reply to the Registrar, informing them of
his second choice of company name – Albyn Line Ltd, derived from ‘Alba’,
the Gaelic for ‘Scotland’. This time it went through. At least he had some
bit of his beloved homeland in the new title.

Kenneth and Mary Black clapped their hands along with co-directors,
prominent shareholders, local dignitaries, and a handful of dockworkers
who had gathered to watch the launch. The magnum of champagne cracked
ceremoniously against the steel plates, each adjoined by a neat line of
rivets. Slowly the 4998 tonnes of SS Thistlegorm (blue thistle) began to
ease forward, first at a snail’s pace and then building up momentum to a
healthy rate of miles per hour, soon to be knots as she departed her time on
land to a new lease of life on the high seas.

OceanofPDF.com
SS Thistlegorm’s official registration document.
OceanofPDF.com
 There was still some work to complete, like the fitting of masts and davits
together with much internal finishing. Shipyards were busy places these
days and whatever could be finished was done at sea once a craft was
seaworthy. Then the dock was quickly cleared for the next vessel to be
built. However, Thistlegorm would not be rushed or built in a hurry. Quality
was the order of the day. The shareholders demanded it and the crews liked
it. Thistle ships were well made and nothing was going to change.

The Albyn Line had learnt its hard lesson a long time ago when back in
December 1909 the short-lived SS Thistlemor met an untimely end in the
Bristol Channel. It was a cold night when proceeding from Cardiff on 2
December, the Thistlemor continued along the Channel carrying a full load
of coal for a destination in Cape Town. Already a strong gale was blowing
up. Just before midnight a heavy sea crashed over into the fore well deck
and sheared off a 16” ventilator flush with the deck. The subsequent Court
of Inquiry found these ventilators just fulfilled the minimum strength
requirements of Lloyds Registrar of Shipping and was critical of its
weakness.

With the well constantly flooded attempts to plug the hole failed and a
continuous stream of water entered the hold. Thistlemor turned up the
Channel to shelter in the lee of Lundy Island, settling by the head as she did
so. The pumps were unable to cope with the increasing inflow of seawater.
Further strong sea unshipped the portside lifeboat and broke an engine room
ventilator, allowing water to enter both engine room and stokehold. At 1:30
am (a significant time of day for Thistle ships caught in distress) the fore
hatches blew off and she became unmanageable. Finally, distress signals
were fired and sighted by the steamer, Arndale, which arrived to assist.

Some of Thistlemor’s crew put to a lifeboat but it capsized. Arndale

rescued nine from the water in now hurricane conditions, but by the time
she’d regained sight of the floundering vessel it was upside-down and there
was no trace of further survivors. 21 crewmen perished in freezing waters.

The Albyn Line, like many, had suffered during the long recession and
while government support of the shipbuilding industry was strong,
however, much was aborted by the outbreak of war in 1939. The
government did honour the intent to pay a grant to owners ordering new
vessels in anticipation of the British Shipping Assistance Bill becoming
law. One such vessel to attract a nice grant for its owners was Thistlegorm.

Kenneth Black watched his £115,000 ship take to the water. Many more
would follow, until 1966 when the company would be wound up and its
assets sold to pay off the remaining shareholders. Nobody would want
tramp ships anymore. They were dated and flogged to death. Soon the
super-container ships, capable of carrying cargoes weighing tens of
thousands of tons would send the five-hold steam ships to the third world
where those with enough energy would be renamed and put to work until
they sank.

The Albyn Line was very much a family affair, with a long line of Allans,
Joiceys and Blacks occupying boardroom positions during the company’s
61 year history. Most had groomed their male off-springs to succeed them
in their retirement years and at the time of the company’s liquidation; all
three families were represented on the board. There was also a very distant
family connection for today’s launch in the shape of Harry Bansall, a great-
nephew of Walter Allan Sr. Harry, who had asked to go to sea and was
offered a berth on the new ship where he worked on the ‘reheater’ main
engine before joining as fifth engineer ... aged just 18.

He didn’t have to wait long for his travels to begin as first port of call for
Thistlegorm was to the USA to pick up some steel rails and aircraft. Next
was Argentina to return with a cargo of grain. Skipper, George Whitfield,
decided to run a gunnery practice on this trip to see what Thistlegorm’s
dated armaments were capable of. The traversing mechanism of the 4.7”
was badly worn and had been replaced by a manual mechanism, pushing
the barrel round by hand. However, the breech jammed with a live round in
place, and nobody was keen to get too close.

After a brainstorming session, the gunners decided to tie a long lanyard to

the firing pin and then hid with the other end behind an after-mast house for
protection. When they pulled the string, a huge flash engulfed the end of the
ship and the shell popped out and fell into the sea - a mere 50 yards away
from the ship. Gunnery practice was well and truly over for that day!
 A third voyage took Thistlegorm over to the West Indies returning with a
cargo of sugar and rum. Back in the Clyde, trouble occurred in the ship’s
boilers and it would be another two months before Harry would learn of his
fourth destination ... wherever that may be?

The launch of SS Thistlegorm in Sunderland on 9th April 1940

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One of the official escort ships to SS Thistlegorm was the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Carlisle.

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 Seven

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Watching Thistlegorm

January 1995

Dennis Gray first laid eyes on the survivors early in the morning of 6th
October 1941 when they boarded his ship, HMS Carlisle. They were
soaking wet and had faces blackened by the discharged oil floating on the
surface around their sinking vessel. 54 years had now passed, how might
they respond to him today? After all, he was on the rescue ship, perhaps
they’d be grateful, but then were they to be resentful that Carlisle had not
forewarned them of an incoming air attack? Much would be revealed this
week.

‘This is an interview with Dennis Gray. Dennis, perhaps you could start by
telling me a little bit about your rank and role and about the ship you joined,
HMS Carlisle.’

Dennis adjusted his position in the chair slightly and looked into the
camera. Like many ex-servicemen he had a disciplined demeanour about
him and he wore a shirt and tie even around the house. Of all the
servicemen that Caroline and Sally interviewed it was Dennis who had the
greatest knowledge of the history surrounding his involvement in WW2.

‘I was a Royal Marine and joined HMS Carlisle in December 1939 having
just completed my naval training in Devonport’.

‘Would you like to tell us about the Carlisle, about what type of ship she
was?’

‘The HMS Carlisle was a new anti-aircraft cruiser, although it was built in
1918 for the First World War, just in time to lead the fleet, the German fleet
into Scapa Flow. In 1937 it was made into an anti aircraft ship with what
was then a new form of range and direction finder; the forerunner of radar.
It was very primitive and we had scientists on board for the first six weeks
to conduct trials to coordinate the range and direction finders with the
gunmen. We returned to England from the Med where we were doing our
training and the first place they sent us to was Norway where the anti
aircraft finders were useless because of the mountains.

‘After the Norwegian campaign, we were sent out into the Med, just as the
Italians declared war. By this time, the range and direction finder crews
were beginning to get more and more experienced and we were able to give
warning to other ships on their course that enemy aircraft were in the
vicinity. From the Med we moved down the Suez Canal where the Germans
had started in 1941 after the battle of Greece and Crete. They had moved
down to the Suez Canal area because they were dropping acoustic and
magnetic mines right in the Canal.

‘The British forces and the Navy did not know how to combat what were
then real mines. We were then going down from the Suez Canal, down the
Red Sea to pick up convoys which were coming from New Zealand and
Australia to bring troops and supplies to the Western Desert – where the
British forces were gathering for the big push, before Alamein.

‘As an anti aircraft ship we carried 24 guns, the two after-guns were
manned by Royal Marines, I was on number three gun, which was on the
superstructure and my particular role was to load the guns with
ammunition. We went in rotation to keep the gun firing as quickly as
possible. We occasionally changed around to another person’s role in the
gun crew. The light cruiser class had a very low freeboard and were very
close to the water and when on the superstructure we were often exposed to
the weather without any coverings. It was our role to then close the gun as
quickly as possible’.

‘I’m going to ask you Dennis, about being part of an escort, can you
explain to me what a typical convoy might have consisted of.’

‘At anchorage in Aden, we would pick up the convoys that had been either
sent there to bring coal; we still had a lot of coal burning ships in those
days. We refuelled and then set off with a convoy of probably 10 or 14
ships for a northern trip to the Suez Canal where the ships would then be
gathered at anchorage in the mouth of the Suez, until the Canal had been
cleared of mines. The ships in anchorage could have been there several days
and on this particular night in question there were about 20 ships in the
area, very close to the entrance to the Gulf of Suez. We could see the
mountains of Sinai on our starboard side and the Egyptian shore on our port
side, but this night was memorable because of the brilliant moon. We were
on the port side of the anchorage and all the ships were in rows to our
starboard side’.

‘Dennis, I’m going to stop you there because I just want to go back to the
point about being part of the convoy. Could you explain to me really what
the role of HMS Carlisle was and would have been in that situation?’

‘The role of these sea-class cruisers, the anti aircraft ones, was to patrol
around the perimeter of the convoy and with its range and direction finder,
keeping watch for aircraft in particular. Eventually, as the crew got more
experienced they would be able to pick up things other than aircraft, but
that was the main role, to keep the convoy aware of any patrolling or hostile
aircraft, in which case the light cruisers like HMS Carlisle would then
inform all the ships either by signal in Morse, flags or whatever but never
by wireless because wireless was not used, but flags and visual lights were
used to warn the rest of them in which case the convoy would then probably
break up and zigzag and we would go full speed and indicate where the
hostile aircraft were coming from.

‘Then our job was to engage the enemy aircraft. The Italians were still
attacking convoys in the Red Sea with high-flying aircraft. Usually, on
those convoys from Australia and New Zealand, they would also have some
smaller ships like frigates, which were also very good anti-aircraft ships and
they would get in among the convoy so to defend it from the centre. As
light cruisers we would always stick to the outside’.

‘And why were the convoys so important?’

‘At that time, in late 1941, the battle of Crete had taken place and the New
Zealand and Australian troops had fallen back to Alexandria. They too were
being trained for the big push against Rommel’s troops, which were very
strong in the Western Desert at that time. The importance of these convoys
was to keep the troops supplied with ammunition, light tanks and
particularly mobile things like motorbikes, mines, Bren gun carriers, things
of that nature. Oh yes, there wasn’t any food to spare in England at that
time, but occasionally food was sent from Australia and New Zealand, but
it was mainly armaments and weapons of war that were needed in the
Western Desert then’.

‘I’m going to ask you that question one more time; perhaps we’ll make
this one really short. Can you just say HMS Carlisle had a very important
role in this case because we were one of the few cruisers to have radar …
RDF, range and direction finders, without having the explanation detailing
what that was all about and say that that’s why it’s very important and then
sort of leave it at that; in your own time’.

‘The role of HMS Carlisle and the sea class cruisers were particularly
important at this time because they were the very few ships which had been
fitted with range and direction finders and they were able to give
indications and warnings of hostile aircraft’.

‘Fine, Dennis. Now let’s set the scene a little, we know that you’ve joined
this convoy of ships and that you, well we’ll actually say that you’re
picking up a convoy of merchant ships that have very important cargo and
explain that you were however many days in this particular...’

‘Actually, Caroline, bear in mind of course that we didn’t know what their
cargoes were, except that we could tell a tanker from a dry goods with holds
and so on. Carlisle picked up a convoy which contained the ship SS
Thistlegorm and we eventually arrived at the anchorage in the Gulf of Suez
where we anchored and waited for the signal for ships to proceed up to their
offloading point which was probably Tewfik, south of the Suez Canal’.

‘Now let’s try and explain more about that particular night, bit by bit, so
can you explain the preceding few days generally, perhaps the scenery
which you’ve already done but we’ll have it again, try and describe what it
was like, the heat, the fact that you were having to stay put for a while, just
briefly set the scene for us’.

‘On board ships like HMS Carlisle where the engine room and the galley
were so hot, troops would inevitably and invariably sleep on the upper
deck; they spent more time on the upper deck in a pair of shorts and sandals
where it was cooler, bearing in mind that in those days gun crews did four
hours on watch and four hours off until you reach your destination. Carlisle
was anchored on the left hand side of the Gulf of Suez, now that area of the
Red Sea, it is possible to see as we were facing north, to see Mount Sinai
and all the hills on that side where it gradually gets narrower and narrower
as you approach the Gulf of Suez. On the left hand side, or port side, then
you would have the Egyptian coast, all very barren really, sand everywhere,
very little green until you actually got within sight of the banks of the Nile
on the way up to the Suez Canal’.
‘I’m going to ask you just briefly to say you’re in one place, you’re
awaiting instructions to move, it’s very hot and you’re standing on deck and
what did you see as you looked out on deck?’

‘At that time of the year in October it’s still very hot and we would be on
the upper deck the whole time and only went below when it was absolutely
necessary. I our particular position in number three gun, which is on the
super structure, we could see for miles in every direction and of course we
were impressed by Mount Sinai which appeared on the starboard side with
Egypt on portside. The desolation really of those places, absolutely nothing,
blue sky, sand and mountains everywhere you looked. No towns, no
nothing until we reached the area approaching the Gulf of Suez where the
convoys would then drop anchor and wait’.

‘It sounds pretty tedious, Dennis’.

‘Uh, convoys are boring unless there’s things happening and down the Red
Sea there wasn’t a lot happening, but we managed to amuse ourselves on
the ship, particularly on the upper deck in the dog watches, but as we got
further north of course we would then be getting within range of German
aircraft and although the Italian bombers which flew very high were very
persistent we saw more of the German planes as we got closer to the Suez
Canal’.

‘Can I ask another question about being at that particular anchorage? In

the day time would you have ever rowed over and had a natter with any of
the other crews?’

‘Oh no, no. The one thing we did occasionally, very occasionally,
particularly if we were short of water would be permission on a Wednesday
afternoon to swim. We would be over the side like a flash having a swim
around with someone keeping a look out for sharks and although we never
saw one it was always at the back of your mind so you didn’t stray very far
from the ship. It was very difficult on a small ship to keep the crew both
amused and disciplined. I told my children I never saw a woman for a
whole 18 months!’

The camera whirred and then stopped. It was the end of the tape. Caroline
checked her notes. Everything seemed to be tying in so far. The witness
reports, except for the occasional discrepancy on detail, seemed to match
her extensive research. At the eastern end of the Mediterranean came the
incessant bombing raids by German Junkers 88’s based in Crete. The sorties
were aimed at shipping in the Suez Canal and the anchorage of Port Said,
Ismaila and Port Tewfik. The Canal was closed for a period of 82 days
during 1941; the longest consecutive shutdown was 20 days during
February and March, after the waterway had been mined from the air.

It was time for a short break.

OceanofPDF.com
 Eight

OceanofPDF.com
Briefing Time

The sea has turned past Ras Mohammed, nothing dramatic, but a definite
increase in wave height. Tiran is always a little windy in the morning, but
that soon dies off by lunchtime. Ras Mohammed sometimes has a light,
rolling swell when the wind picks up, but today is choppier with smaller
waves and some white water. Boats will only turn back if it really kicks up
to a two-metre swell. There’s no real yardstick other than the discretion of
the guide and skipper or the wishes of the guests. It’s not the diving that’s
the problem as once below the surface the surge would disappear and bar
the current it will be quite still.

Some die-hards would argue that diving in a four-yard swell is easy but
they hadn’t spent four hours getting there by which time everyone would be
feeling the worse for wear. Miles Rogers will keep an eye on things and
discuss the weather with the skipper, although most skippers won’t bat an
eyelid in a big swell. When you live on the seas all your life you become a
little more thick-skinned!

Miles has only been forced to turn back twice in the three years he’s spent
in Sharm as a dive guide; once on the way to another wreck, SS Dunraven,
and a year ago on Thistlegorm itself, when conditions were so bad they
were almost knee-deep in vomit by the time they touched Shab Ali.
Generally, a slight chop, a bit of wind and anything up to a one-metre swell
is the manageable norm for Thistlegorm. Besides, it is the guide who has to
do all the work anyway as once the boat arrives at the wreck he’ll have to
dive down and tie in a couple of ropes to keep the boat secure for the day.
Sharm dive guide, Marc Smith, briefs his divers for a day on the Thistlegorm. (By John Kean)

OceanofPDF.com
 The guests are beginning to stir as breakfast has been announced. One by
one they take a plate and begin helping themselves to a buffet of omelettes,
cheese, ham and freshly made pancakes with a light coating of honey.
Victoria 2 continues gracefully on making light work of the increasing
chop. Miles decides to brief as soon as they’ve eaten just in case it gets
rougher. It will be harder if the boat is rolling around and he needs
everybody’s undivided attention.

The local story of Thistlegorm is well known, but sketchy in places owing
to the various rumours flying around town. A guide learns his material from
a collection of local guidebooks and whatever hand-me-down knowledge is
gleaned from colleagues. Some will even make it up by telling such blatant
tales as ‘It’s packed full of gold’, or ‘The aliens put it there’. A local know-
it-all instructor gives a weekly seminar and shows a video of the wreck at
one of the dive centres in town, but Miles hasn’t been along yet so he sticks
to a few details that he’s picked up over the years.

He’s heard that a sister ship is still lying at one of the nearby islands,
Tawilia, and it might have been carrying gold! Maybe it’s obligatory in
dive-tourism that all wrecks should be reported to have gold on board even
if they didn’t contain any when they sank!

The ten guests sit around the dining table in front of Miles who is perched
a little higher on a small wooden ledge where he holds out a laminated
painting of Thistlegorm.

‘Good morning everyone, are we all nicely wide awake?’

‘Groan, yawn, grumble, etc’ they reply.

‘OK, we should be arriving at the wreck in about an hour so we’ll brief

now, then we’ll have plenty of time to tie in and get ready. We’ll be doing
two dives today the first of which will involve us swimming over and
around the wreck and then later on we’ll do the second dive by actually
going inside it.
 ‘The story about Thistlegorm began in the Second World War when it was
moored up here for a few days. We’re not really sure why, but the Canal
was blocked. Anyway, it was carrying a big cargo of bombs, trucks,
motorbikes, Wellington boots, rifles, shells, aircraft wings and a couple
locomotives. Apparently, a couple of German bomber planes, maybe even
four, came in and hit the wreck in the middle of the night when everyone
was asleep. Of course, all hell broke loose and they all had to swim for it to
the nearest ship. There were 41 crewmen on board and nine died in the
explosion. Later in the 1950s, Jacques Cousteau came along and found the
wreck again. All we know is he never told anyone where it was and there’s
a great deal of local speculation about what he found and what he took off
the ship. I wouldn’t like to say myself, but some suggest he found loads of
gold inside and that’s how he became so rich!

‘First of all we’re going to descend down the stern line after I have tied
onto the wreck. When I have finished, we’ll have another mini-briefing
where I’ll tell you what the current is doing and what the visibility is like
and where the rope is attached. You’ll need to know that specifically as we
must come up on the same line. I’ll put a coloured tag on our rope so you
all know which one it is.

‘Our maximum depth should be 90 feet. There isn’t much to gain by going
any deeper as the seabed is 100 feet and everything you need to see,
including the giant propeller is at 90 feet or shallower. For those on 36%
Nitrox you’ll hopefully have worked out that your maximum operating
depth should not exceed 90 feet at a partial pressure of 1.4 bar. Please stick
to this limit as the current may kick up around the stern and you don’t want
to be overexerted at depth. With any luck we’ll be moored around the bow
section where it’s shallowest, in fact there are two parts of the wreck that
top out at just 45 feet; the remains of the bridge and the tallest part of the
stern where wreckage protrudes to that height.

‘You’ll notice that from the bow right back to number four hold the ship
remains totally upright, whilst the stern section, which came out worse in
the explosion leans at an angle of about 45degrees to the port side. In the
middle is the bombed out part where we’ll see an assortment of munitions
discarded around the seafloor. Look out for three Bren gun carriers, which
appear like small tankettes. All the guidebooks say there’s only two but I’ll
show you a third which has its top sticking out from beneath a pile of
wreckage’.

By now the guests are wide-awake, for it isn’t everyday that they get to
visit a bomb-site, a war-grave, an underwater museum and above all, one of
the most famous dive sites in the world – all at once. Respect is always high
on Thistlegorm, as men died here. The ship falls outside the jurisdiction of
UK waters but the guidelines apply nonetheless. It is only through the
enforcement of sensible diving practices by the local guides that prevents
damage and looting of the wreck. Miles tells his guests not to touch or
remove anything.

‘Who owns the wreck?’ asks one curious guest.

‘Many of the laws governing sunken ships were passed over 100 years ago
before diving was even around. Nowadays, you have to make a claim and
register the wreck with the official Receiver of Wrecks in the UK, but out
here it’s probably different. Warships are the property of the Ministry of
Defence, you could buy one for a quid and register it, but then you may
become liable for anyone injuring them self on your property. Thistlegorm
will never be salvaged because its value is as a dive-site and not in scrap
metal. Why sacrifice a ship that attracts over seven million dollars a year in
visitor revenue for a few thousand quid in scrap and souvenirs?’

‘Has anything been taken from the wreck over the years?’

‘Unfortunately, yes, but mostly small stuff like tool kits, bullets and
shaving kits from the crews bathroom, motorbike handles and dashboard
materials from some but not all of the cars and trucks. Of course the
obligatory looting of the portholes was long ago. People should remember
what’s down there. It’s all perfectly safe as long as you don’t mess with it.

‘OK, after we leave the wreckage of hold number four, we’ll ease forward
to the first part of the stern where you’ll see a section of the prop-shaft.
Notice that it has been sheared off and you’ll see the other part back near
hold number three. The missing bit in the middle is probably miles away as
the force, when it broke off, would have been tremendous. It was the fixing
bolts that were the weakest link as the adjoining plates are still there. Notice
below the stern prop-shaft a very big shell. It’s been lying there for 60 years
and never done any harm, so show some respect folks.

‘A little further along you’ll see a metal case containing four smaller shells
of about 4” calibre. Take a look at the one on the top right corner where
some brave diver has scraped away the dirt to reveal all the markings.
You’ll see a date reading ‘1929’, which proves that there was a weapons
shortage and they really were sending out the old stuff. There’s many more
shell cases lying around and also a small transporter for carrying goods
around the ship – check out the small rubber tyres.

‘After the shells you’ll come to the first of the two anti-aircraft guns.
Notice the small hut, which was used to store live ammunition. A little bit
further on you’ll see the Swiss made 4.7 inch anti-aircraft cannon, now
leaning portside where it swung across under its own weight. If you want to
take a picture then get below it and look up for a nice silhouette effect.
Watch your profile here too, as you’ll be at around 90 feet and the prop is at
the same depth. If you want to take a closer look at the firing mechanism
then rise to 75 feet, but don’t drop too deep again afterwards’.

‘Are there many fish on the wreck?’ asks number six, who finally appears
to have woken up!

‘Lots and they’re very big too. With the current and the shelter of the ship
it’s a perfect habitat for marine life. You’ll see some of the biggest fish in
the Red Sea in and around Thistlegorm. Last week we spotted a five-foot
long giant grouper hanging off the bow. There’s snapper, barracuda, giant
bat-fish, four-foot tuna and huge napoleon wrasse. Take a look underneath
the stern just before we reach the prop, you’ll often see a few big grouper
hovering in the current. All they do is sit there and eat, it’s no wonder they
grow so big.

‘The railings on the stern are quite well preserved on account of dive
guides not tying on to them. The bow railings have come out a lot worse as
a result of improper moorings. Basically we should only tie to things that
can withstand a forty-ton dive boat in a high swell, like the winch and other
heavy fixed objects. I believe plans are being made for a permanent
mooring system.

‘If you look closely at the top blade on the prop you’ll see the brass work
still shining where divers have given it a scrape. On a single tank, don’t
hang about here for too long as you’ll be pushing deco. Ascend to around
75 feet and then we’ll head back over the bombed out part and rejoin the
main part of the wreck.’

‘Was it true that a protective cover had been placed over the hold in
defence against an air strike?’

‘Yes, but what you see on the map here is not it. This corrugated-type
layer of metal has been mistaken for the cover in the past but it is, in fact,
the ceiling of hold four, which has been blown inside out. Whenever you
have an underwater explosion the force travels upward and outward causing
this effect. Look for yourself and you’ll see how it’s been blown completely
backwards. It matches the ceiling that you’ll see when you go inside on the
second dive.

‘OK, once we’re clear of the stern we’ll arrive on this ceiling and work our
way down the companionway to the middle. There are a few bits of metal
sticking out so mind your way. Well swim past the crew’s bathroom and
then come out on the main deck and stop for an air-check. There wasn’t
much room on this deck as they’d loaded two railway tenders either side
along with a paravane to clear floating mines. They look like big torpedoes
with wings. Beware of the open tender on the port side, which has dropped
with the deck. It’s not moved lately but we always go around it out of
respect. Sometimes, an inexperienced guide will tie on to it just because it’s
shallow and near the bow, but in the swell it might weaken its position’.

‘What were the railway engines and tenders doing there? Bit much for the
desert?’

‘As far as we know, they were being given to the Egyptians. The
cylindrical shaped tenders were carrying water, but empty on this voyage,
which is why they’re all squashed in under the water pressure. The other
two open-top tenders are for carrying coal. There was lots of coal on
Thistlegorm, mostly to fuel the engines.

‘I need to know when the first person is on 100 bar of air and then again
when they’ve reached about 70 bar, by which time you’ll need to be on or
very close to the ascent line. Remember, we should be near the surface with
close to 50 bar and you’ll need the difference to get to 15 feet, carry out a
safety stop and slowly ascend to the top. The currents generally run length
ways from stern to bow and then vice versa. I’ll let you know what they’re
doing when I’ve tied in but if they’re strong then hold the line until you’re
on the wreck and then we’ll swim alongside where we can shield ourselves
from the worst of it.

‘Just make sure you’re not the wrong side of the line and into the current
with low air. If we have to turn back before we reach the bow then don’t
worry, as there’s plenty of time to see it on the second dive when we swim
out of hold number one. It’s well worth a look, especially if you swim
forward and capture the classic v-shaped bow image’.

Miles halted the briefing momentarily while Ali whispered in his ear.

‘Ok folks, take a break. I’ll finish the rest when I’ve tied in as we’re
approaching the wreck now. Just make sure your wetsuits are tied on as the
wind is kicking up quite strongly’.

Miles looked out to sea; he’d been too engrossed in the briefing to notice
that the wind had kicked up very strongly and that the waves were over four
feet high and breaking. Ali’s little whisper was to mention that 12 boats
were already moored up on the wreck and another six were following close
behind. He’d have to kit up now and be ready on the bow to jump with the
first rope, in order to get a good spot before the place gets dangerous.
Dangerous for the guide that is, as all the guests have to do is follow the
line down once it is in place. Miles takes one more look out of the skipper’s
window at the small cluster of white dive boats all bobbing around in the
swell. Behind is another mini-armada all heading in the same direction.
Soon there will be 20 boats jockeying for position over the wreck.
Propellers will spin and the noise will be deafening. Somehow he will have
to swim underneath them all.

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WW2 U-boats at sea

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Enemy U-boats were a constant menace to Allied merchant ships during WW2.

OceanofPDF.com
 Nine

OceanofPDF.com
A Close Encounter

The skipper of the unknown U-boat slowed his craft to a crawl. There
would be less water movement around the base of the periscope on the
surface and he certainly didn’t want to be seen. German U-boat submariners
had enjoyed the upper hand over the Allies, but now the tide was turning,
losses were heavy.

The life expectancy of a German U-boat skipper was now down to 50

days. By the end of the War 718 of the 820 U-boats were destroyed in
action with a death toll of some 32,000 of total sea-going personnel of
39,000. Statistically, he had a 20% chance of survival, probably the most
appalling odds of the War, not that he had any choice in the matter. The
Commandant pulled down the two handles and rotated the long column
until the light of day came into focus; at first, just sea and sky. He glanced
to the left and the right making sure he’d completed a total sweep of the
area before any notion of surfacing.

Something caught his eye, a big black object on the horizon. It was a ship,
a very big ship. He gave the order to surface, it was safe; they were out of
range, but then they weren’t in the business of being out of range, he
wanted to blow the ship clean out of the water and claim a kill.

Up on the bridge, the gallons of seawater slowly fell away as the mighty
sub breached the surface and came to rest. A small hatch opened on the
upper deck and two men appeared. One was the skipper and the other the
first officer who handed him a pair of binoculars.

‘Unbelievable!’

‘What do you see, Commandant?’

‘Quite astonishing that they would take such a risk. Do you have any idea
what that ship is over there?’
 ‘May I see?’

The Commandant hands the glasses to his First Officer and shakes his
head, so near and yet so far. The biggest prize of the Second World War was
two miles out of range and increasing in speed. The torpedoes were not fast
enough and they would never reach anyway.

‘My God, it’s the Queen Mary!’

‘Possibly, but it’s not supposed to be here; might be the Mauritania.

Whatever she is, she must be carrying thousands of Allied troops. Get me
the Lorient headquarters on the radio, immediately.’

The Commandant sighed as he took one more look through the binoculars
at the elusive liner. The Queen Mary was one of six of the world’s largest
ships, which along with the likes of the Queen Elizabeth had been
converted to carry vast amounts of troops over great distances. The record
went to the Queen Mary who on 23rd July 1943 embarked at New York
harbour with 15,740 troops having crossed the Atlantic at a speed of 30
knots. In 1940 she’d join the ‘Suez Shuttle’ with a compliment of 10,000
Australian troops to offload in Port Tewfik.

Thus, on 5th October 1941, the most significant shipping casualty since SS
Titanic was averted by a few short miles. The Commandant disappeared
down the small hatch and gave the order to dive. The mystery liner sailed
on unaware of its close brush with the enemy.

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 Ten

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John Whitham at Sea

January 1995

John Whitham was in his late 70s and like the other crewmembers that
would feature in Caroline and Sally’s BBC documentary he still retained the
discipline and demeanour of a WW2 serviceman. John had talked steadily
for two hours, answering Caroline’s questions about how he joined
Thistlegorm as a 21 year old lad.

He recalls how the welders boarded Thistlegorm to secure the eyebolts that
held the railway tenders to the deck and how he saw several thousand tons
of high explosives being loaded in Glasgow. John remembered his time on
Thistlegorm well; sometimes with fondness, sometimes with sadness and
occasionally with muted bitterness but above all he remained highly
respectful of his fellow seamen.

‘As an able seaman I had all kinds of jobs to do, splicing ropes and wires,
taking watch and a spell at the wheel for about two hours. I think there were
about four men on each watch. You got accustomed to the routine and you
got in your leisure time to read and put little ships in bottles or even sow
suits if you wanted to. I sailed with one bosun and he used to sow his own
garments. He looked atrocious, but he wore them. Food at the time was
mediocre depending upon what theatre of war you were in and how well
you were able to get supplies, but generally it was edible, a lot depending
on whether the cook was able to prepare it.

‘After leaving Cape Town, we went up the East Coast of Africa, to the
entrance to the Red Sea. It was quite hot and we did have occasions when it
was more comfortable to sleep out on the hatches. Some were keen to sling
their hammocks out, others just put a blanket on the hatch board and kipped
down and it was comfortable.’

‘What did it look like to have two locomotive engines strapped to the
deck?’
 ‘Well it didn’t look unusual to have the locos on deck because on ships we
carried all kinds of things; lengths of timber, all kinds of things carried as
deck cargo. Of course, you understand that if all the weight was at the
bottom then it was a pendulum in the water and very unstable to sail on.
Apart from that, people who organise the loading of the ship know what
they’re doing and load up accordingly.’

‘So John was this typical of the kind of cargo that a merchant ship would
have to carry from A to B?’

‘No, generally the ships were sent across the Atlantic to bring materials
back from America which were in short supply… and from Canada. I’ll
give you an idea, even crates of vegetables, apples, or dozens of different
things that you really wouldn’t think of that we brought back from America.
But this was a one-off, something different. They didn’t normally load high
explosives. Thistlegorm was flying the ‘B’ flag which meant that the escort
ship was not allowed within three miles of it, because of the cargo it was
carrying.’

‘Before we go into the specifics of the actual night I just want to ask you a
question.’

‘OK.’

‘Whilst you were on board Thistlegorm, on the main route, did any of the
crewmembers talk to each other about the cargo? Would anybody have
remarked about the cargo that you were carrying?’

‘No, no they didn’t. You were on the boat, what the cargo was didn’t
matter; there was no getting off. But if you worried about it, you wouldn’t
have gone to sea. You were just there, there was a war on, you weren’t in
the navy, you weren’t in the army, you weren’t in the air force… you were
in the merchant service. I was in the happy
 Young SS Thistlegorm survivor, John Whitham.

position of being in the merchant service long before the war started. I was
in Japan when war broke out and so we were classified as sea-going
civilians… that was our status.’

‘So John, Thistlegorm’s crew must have been made up of all sorts of
different nationalities and all different types of men. What were the group
on board like?’

‘You had a variety of people on board ship and basically they were United
Kingdom residents, but having said that some UK residents were also
coloured. You all had to be friends because if you were to spend all three
years with them, you couldn’t afford enemies. Generally, I think we realised
that circumstances might occur where you depended on their help and
therefore you needed friends in these circumstances. The funny thing about
it is you could trust them. That was the big thing about your friends that you
could trust them.’

‘What about the age of the crew, John?’

‘The age of the crew was an amusing factor, because I think we had young
fellows on board, about 16 or 17 and you had older shell backs on board,
not many, but good seamen, and one gentleman mustn’t have been very far
off 60.’

‘I know; records show that there was an Alfred Kean on board aged 57
when he went down with his ship, although his surviving daughter Joyce
has confirmed this incorrect. He was fact 68 and probably the oldest
crewmember on Thistlegorm.’

‘Yes, it was quite a mixed crew and we had also on board, I think three
DEMS gunners who were enlisted from the navy to man whatever
armaments we had, which in some cases was quite amusing, from pea
shooters to potato guns. The laughable equipment was absolutely stupid in
my estimation and that was the form of mortars on each side of the ship,
designed to be fired by jets of steam or compressed air. You had canisters
with Mills bombs in and the objective being was to drop these canisters
down this long tube, and this would hit the spring at the bottom and release
a jet of air or steam and fire this canister, allegedly a hundred yards in the
air where it would explode sending a lot of fragments out to frighten the
pilot. Once it came back down onto the deck and not many people were
amused about it!’

‘John, is it fair to ask would you have ever been bored?’

‘Only idle people were bored. People who can’t find something to do are
the ones who get bored but there’s always something to do even if it’s only
praying. You never need to be bored in life, no matter where you are or
whatever you’re doing. I was never bored and I can’t say that I was really
worried. There was a war on and you were unfortunate enough, or fortunate
enough to be where you were. You’d no choice. That was it. Make the best
of a situation and make sure you got friends around you that you can trust.’

‘Was it hard work?’

‘That’s the question I can truthfully answer, no, because I loved what I was
doing and hard work only comes to people who hate what they’re doing and
you find that on shore as well. But a person who’s happy at work isn’t
working hard. I suppose you could let it be monotonous, but there was
always something to do. The funniest being to look out for submarine
periscopes, ha, which was like looking for a spider in the park. They’d say
keep a sharp eye open for periscopes and when you’ve got waves three foot
high all around you and a submarine is going to be at least a mile away and
you’re looking for a stick going through the water then you haven’t a cat in
hell’s chance of spotting it; you just went through the motions. If you saw
one then one poor duffer would be sent up in orbit into what they call the
‘crow’s nest’, which was a container latched onto the foremast, roughly the
shape of a dustbin, which you climbed up a ladder in all weathers looking
around for whatever there was.’

‘Now John, I heard you got up to all sorts of wicked things and there was
one man in particular that you enjoyed teasing, can you tell me about him?’

‘Well we didn’t just tease him in particular but he was an unusual

character. His nationality was Armenian. He was a donkey man greaser on
board ship, whose job was to go round with the oilcan lubricating things.
His name was Sakando and he used to wear a pair of big boots that he never
laced up and the laces were always loose and I thought it was always
dangerous to have these things on, even going down the companionways
and down the ladders to the engine room. But he had a habit of leaving his
boots beside his bunk and lift his feet out of his boots, swing over and when
he came to get up again, he’d get out and swing his feet into his boots. One
day, we had wooden decks in the cabins, somebody nailed these boots to the
floor and the poor devil got out and nearly broke his ankles!’

‘What about the Cayman Islander, Mack?’

 ‘That was unfortunate, we’d left Cape Town and Mack was due to go on
watch and he wouldn’t come out of his room and it was reported to the
officer on watch. We were designated to go down and find him and he was
stomping about his room shouting for his mother and he was kicking the
side of his steel bunk and his toes were covered in blood. He was shouting
that his mother wanted him to go to pick mangoes. Well, nobody was brave
enough to go in. Like all seamen he carried a knife and it was razor sharp.
We decided he had a peculiar turn and that we just had to wait until he
calmed down. It was nearly two days before he finally became exhausted
and we were able to go in and attend to him.’

‘Before we go on, can you remember anything about the captain and what
his role on the ship would have been and his interaction with the crew?’

‘No, no I didn’t come into contact with him much and he didn’t come into
contact with the crew. He was the gentleman who was in charge. He has a
mate and a second mate and a third mate and they took their respective
watches, and the third mate took the skippers watch, which was usually
eight o’clock till midnight and eight in the morning till noon.’

‘John, could you explain to me the whole aspect of a merchant ship being
part of a convoy and how HMS Carlisle was involved with Thistlegorm?’

‘Well, convoys were done so that you travelled out with a naval escort like
destroyers maybe scouting around on the inside maybe Corvettes or
whatever and then you had the Sunderland flying boats which used to come
out and see how things were going. I don’t think we bothered about
submarines at all. If you worried about these things and circumstances,
you’d have gone to pieces. You wouldn’t have gone to sea. You couldn’t
really afford to worry about things and do your job properly even if it was
only steering. You had to concentrate on the job in hand and disregard
everything else until the alarm bells went, which was a signal from the
naval escort and then you’d think to yourself ‘What the hell can I do about
it anyway?’ You can’t fight a submarine on your own can you? Aircraft
were a different thing altogether because even going on the channel we had
aircraft coming over like Stuka dive bombers and that sort of thing.’
 ‘So HMS Carlisle was your escort ship?’

‘She picked us up at the entrance of the Red Sea, which was way down
from the Suez and she’d have been notified of what we were carrying, why,
how, wherefore. She picked us up there. Thistlegorm’s Captain Ellis would
get his instruction on what to do, where to go, how to go and why to go, and
that’s what we did, we travelled in the day time and anchored at night time
in these little convoys, always with the escort. As I said before, she was
anchored about 3 miles away, which was as near as she was allowed to go
because we were ferrying high explosives.’

‘John, if you could perhaps set the scene for where you were and what you
saw when you were there, what the conditions were like, the landscape the
heat? Could you just describe the scene for us?’

‘Well the Middle East is basically a hot part of the world and in an area
where there’s a lot of sand and with very little wind, so you get hot air and a
hot atmosphere, which becomes very, very uncomfortable so that sleeping
indoors isn’t a happy proposition and, as a result, a lot of the boys were
sleeping out on the hatches. I was given to understand that the anchorage,
where we finally ended up, was anchorage ‘F’, whatever that might be?

‘It was a peaceful night and a reasonable moon, the vision was pretty
good, the sea very calm, very calm indeed and, you know, a beautiful
night.’

OceanofPDF.com
Divers exhaled air bubbles flow to the surface via an outlet above the rope room. HEPCA engineers
have since drilled holes around the wreck to ease the damage caused by corrosive trapped air
pockets. (By Farid Atiya)

OceanofPDF.com
 Eleven

OceanofPDF.com
Something in the Sky

The young Bedouin boy leapt from his father’s feluka and landed on the
soft sand of the Sinai desert. He waved his trophy in the air and several
other Bedouin children ran over to take a look. The large, scratched tin was
full of coffee, but the front read ‘Ovaltine’ and had a picture of a lady
dressed in white and red holding a big wheat sheaf. Bedouins didn’t drink
that type of coffee, but it was another item to add to the growing collection
of trophies received from the big ships in exchange for a nice catch of fish.

The secret was to make hay while the sun shines, for there was no telling
when they’d get their orders to proceed up the Canal. The Bedouins had
been fortunate, as the safe anchorages had been created many weeks before
allowing Allied ships to moor up out of range of the German bombers.
HMS Tynefield had collided in the mouth of the Suez Canal causing another
delay in its long awaited reopening. The ships would have to wait a little
while longer - more fish for supper.

Young Saleh Biyouk was an infant, but well versed in the ways of the sea
having followed his father on every trip since he was old enough to climb
aboard his boat. He would yell out to the crews of the mighty vessels for
they were many feet up in the air towering above his tiny fishing boat.
Down would come a basket attached to a rope into which he would place
his fish and then, sure enough, a strange piece of the Western world would
follow in exchange. Money was no good out here. He didn’t take Sterling
and the crew had no Egyptian pounds to speak of. Barter was the order of
the day. Saleh never refused anything, but at times he’d wonder exactly
what he’d do with such things as boot polish and golden syrup. It’s not as if
he could read the labels on the tins but he reckoned somebody back at the
tented village would figure it all out for him.

The ‘Ovaltine’ trip was the last of the day. The sun had long set and the
night was drawing in. They’d be cooking on Thistlegorm now and wouldn’t
need any more from him until tomorrow, he hoped. Saleh’s father had a fair
bit of repair work to do on the feluka so he waited with him for a few hours
before they headed home. Strangely, although it was night it didn’t seem
dark. Saleh looked back over the sea from which he’d come earlier and
glanced at the fleet, resting at anchor on a flat calm sea under one of the
most illuminating moons he’d ever seen. He could see every one of the
ships. Night had turned into day. Just before leaving the water’s edge, he
thought he heard a humming noise, although it sounded more like a droning
sound. Noise carried fast over the water and it was difficult to determine its
direction. Maybe it was just the engine of a generator aboard one of the 20
ships.

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Ray Gibson in Merchant Navy uniform.

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 Twelve

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Ray Gibson at Sea

January 1995

‘This is an interview with Ray Gibson about the SS Thistlegorm and Ray, as
we discussed earlier on, perhaps you would like to start by just telling the
story of, your story about the Thistlegorm in your own words and in your
own time.’

Ray was alert and ready, and despite the passing of time, looked every
inch the serviceman. He wore a neatly pressed white shirt, a red
serviceman’s tie and a navy blazer bearing the emblem of the Merchant
Navy. The events of 54 years ago were as fresh in his mind now as they
were on the night of 6th October 1941. Ray was a realist; he told things how
they were.

‘In September 1941 I was Third Radio Officer on SS Thistlegorm and we

sailed from the Clyde bound for Egypt, Suez. I was 18 years old. We sailed
from the Clyde in convoy on the Irish Sea, round the North of Ireland for
three days, we got out of aircraft range and then we broke convoy and
proceeded independently, down the North Atlantic, across the Equator,
down the South Atlantic, round the Cape of Good Hope, up to the
Mozambique Channel, the Indian Ocean, into the Gulf of Aden, then the
Red Sea and eventually we anchored at the top of the Red Sea at the Gulf of
Suez. We stayed there for 12 days. There were about 20 other ships around
us.

‘Is there anything you remember at all about the cargo when you joined
the ship?’

‘Well, when I joined it at Birkenhead I had been home on leave and during
my absence the ship had been loaded and I had no idea what was in the
hatches down below. The only thing I saw when I came back was two
railway engines that had been welded down to the deck to stop them rolling
around.’

‘Were you pleased to be going back on the Thistlegorm?’

‘Yes, it was a good ship, she was a happy ship. I found her happy because
I was getting to know the ropes as the old saying goes, getting to know the
way around.’

‘Was she different from any other merchant ship?’

‘No, no, she was no different, we were carrying cargo and that was it. I
think she was a new ship, it was in better shape than a lot of the old ones
that were sailing around, but a modern ship and clean and she was happy.’

‘Tell me a little bit about the crew, there must have been a real mixture of
ages and types of people and nationalities? Can you give us an idea of what
the typical mixture of crew would have been like?’

‘Well, the crew was mainly from the north east, from Sunderland I think. I
was a bit of a foreigner on that ship because I was from Lancashire and they
were quite fascinated with my accent because they usually ask me to just
talk to them so they can hear my accent and they had a good laugh over it
but it was all in good fun. As regard to ages well they ranged from 70 down
to me at 18, all in between all shapes, sizes and descriptions of human
beings but they all worked as a team and it kept the ship going and it kept
the ship happy.’

‘Did you wonder, or did you question what becomes of the materials that
you were carrying from A to B or did it never cross your mind?’

‘Never crossed my mind at all and let’s say I didn’t know what was in the
hatches. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone on the ship if I did, but I didn’t know
so it’s just the old saying that ignorance is bliss if you didn’t know you
didn’t worry about it the only thing I saw on the ship was the railway
trains.’
 ‘Ray, what can you tell me about the captain?’

‘Er, very little, he didn’t like me at first.’

‘What can you remember about him?’

‘Captain Ellis was a god to me like the rest of us on board the ship there is
only one master and that was Captain Ellis on the Thistlegorm. Due to my
inexperience and youth I kept getting in the way at first but then I learnt
how to keep out of the way. He shouted at me once or twice but after that he
begun to tolerate me and I started learning a few of the ropes. I kept out of
his way but he was a good man and at least you knew where you were with
him.’

‘I’ll ask another question, going back a bit this time. Perhaps you could
tell us a little bit about what your job was as the Radio Operator, what that
involved and perhaps then a little bit about how you got on with the crew,
you know, what the crew were like and what it was like being part of a crew
on board a merchant ship?’
Ray, sits up straight again.

‘Well my job on the ship was to keep a radio watch for eight hours a day,
four hours on and eight hours off and we had to listen for convoy routing
instructions, instructions of what was going on in the area we were sailing
into. Information say, for half a day, was no good to us, we wanted to know
what was going to happen a week ahead, or more than that if possible. That
was a Radio Man’s job. If we were in convoy then the radio room was
closed down, on account of you can’t make too much noise, you can’t have
too many ships in one area, you can’t make too much noise in case you’re
picked up by direction finders on U-boats, so we had to go on the bridge
with the visual signals, which meant using the international flags or Morse
lamp.

‘That took up most of our time but the off watch periods you just had a
chat with one of your mates or they’d come round and chat to you, have a
read or write a letter, one thing you were never allowed to do was keep a
diary, under any circumstances, in case it fell into enemy hands, saying
they’ve been somewhere, they’ve been there, bits of information like that
could lead to a lot, so really there was very little to do only keep yourself
moving, keep fit, exercise or chat to the lads. We all got on together because
there’s a favourite old saying, ‘We’re all in the same boat’ and when out at
sea, with water all around you, you realise that you really are in the same
boat, no messing about!’

‘Now Ray, let’s go to the situation when you were in the Red Sea and you
had been there for a few days, can you just sort of describe the setting for
us, like the heat, what you were wearing, where you slept and perhaps a
little bit about what the scenery was like in that particular place?’

‘We had got to our anchorage position, ‘F’ for Freddy, and we were told
we were staying there until we got the radio call sign to go into the Suez but
whilst we were there the ship was not moving through the water. It was very
hot and we could see land on both sides of particularly the starboard side,
which was the desert. Yes, it was very, very hot but we got acclimatised to
the weather by going from one temperature to another at an easy pace. It
was just a matter of a pair of shorts, sandals and something on your head to
stop getting sunstroke. Life there more or less came to a complete standstill
because we weren’t going anywhere in a hurry. We just had to wait until we
were sent for so we just had to grin and bear it.

‘The only unusual thing that did happen was we had a West Indian able
seaman on board and he went down, of all people, with sunstroke, so it
befell my duty to call the doctor. The only medical facility we had was what
the skipper could use out of the medical room and this man needed
specialised attention, so I came into being and from the bridge I called up
the cruiser and they sent their doctor over who was a very good man, a
good chap. Every day if he didn’t come across personally he would call us
up and ask how he was.

‘Life was very quiet, there was no movement you just weren’t going
anywhere at all you just sat there and you waited; there were no courses to
steer or engine rooms to bother about you just sat there and you waited.’

‘That must have been very frustrating.’

 ‘No you just regarded it as part of life and you got used to it. We were all
happy because we were alive and healthy, we were alright.’

‘Where did you sleep during the nights when it was so hot, Ray?’

‘I always slept in my own bunk in my own cabin. The porthole was wide
open and the light bulbs taken out of the sockets so if anyone came in
switched the light on nothing would happen. They just shout for you and
say ‘Alright? It’s your turn to come on watch.’

‘What do you remember about the Carlisle as the escort ship when you
were in anchorage?’

‘I remember the Carlisle being there when we dropped anchor and every
other day we saw her maybe two or three days until she would go away and
another one would come and take her place. I think they came down for a
bit of a break out of the Mediterranean for a bit of peace and quiet for a
couple of days but the Carlisle happened to be our guide ship and when we
got hit and they took us on board we discovered that they couldn’t do
enough for us. We were just one set of seamen in distress and the other set
of seamen on their own ship looked after us.’

‘Did it feel a very secure place to be anchored?’

‘Well, we thought it was a secure place that’s why there were so many
ships there about 20 of us lying at anchor and we never gave it a thought
about any enemy action; I think we were all very surprised when these
planes came over us.’

OceanofPDF.com
 Above: A German Heinkel F111 bombs a luckless Merchant ship in WW2.
Below: Pilot Heinrich Menge’s Flight number and crew list.

HE 111 H6 4293

Ltn.Heinrich Menge
Fw.Alois Jaster
Uffz.Erwin Schmidt
Uffz.Johannes Haubold
Uffz.Johann Spath

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 Thirteen

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The Strike

The trouble with sitting around all day doing nothing is that inertia sets in
and, through one thing or another; you almost forget there’s a war on until
the peace and tranquillity is rudely disrupted by the irrefutable sound of a
siren calling all personnel to the airfield. Some crewman would curse the
fact that despite having aircraft capable of travelling at over 200mph they
would still have to run the 200 yards flat out to get inside them. Heinrich
Menge may not have been an Olympic athlete but he worked off adrenaline
and was as quick on his feet as anyone else. Indeed, he was up and into his
cabin before any of his crew had entered the Heinkel.

Only two planes were called for, that was the order. Nobody but a select
few knew of their destination – to find and destroy the troopship carrier
reported by the U-boat. Heinrich checked his own flight details.

Heinrich and his Heinkels were quickly airborne. The time was 22:50 on
the 5th October 1941. They looped back over the Crete airfield in a wide
arcing movement and began their long flight into danger, low-level all the
way down the Gulf of Suez. The moon was so bright it was like flying
during the day and being so close to the surface they could easily be heard,
but they were on a mission and speed was of the essence. The Heinkels
flanked either side of the Red Sea with one heading down the Egyptian
coastline and another heading along the Sinai.

Hours passed away without so much as a trace of the troopship. The

Heinkel’s engines roared and the glass-cockpit shuddered as he pressed the
F111 hard into the night. Soon they would have to accept the inevitable and
begin the long trip back to a distant airfield in Crete. No hero’s welcome
this time. Menge had done his calculations. Very shortly the two, seven-
hundred pounders would have to be ditched. The plane would become
lighter and fuel consumption would drop significantly enough to complete
the return journey with the remaining supply on board; still it would be
tight, but Menge didn’t want to return empty handed.

With Tawila Island on his left side and the Sinai coast on his right, Menge
arced out into the Strait of Gubal and noticed the distant silhouette of an
enemy ship and then another followed by several more. They were sitting
ducks. Gaining greater speed he took the Heinkel full circle and dived down
straight towards the biggest ship of all. To Menge, it was a nameless enemy
craft sitting imposingly in his path – Path of the Lion. Now he was within
300 feet and closing fast. He circled once more for a closer look. The
expected flak did not come, were they all asleep? He flew so low that he
nearly hit the mast.

On the second run, Menge pressed a small button inside the cabin, the
hatches were already open and gone was his deadly payload. Thistlegorm
lay stricken as the escort ship looked on. Menge glanced over his shoulder
and admired his work. The unknown ship was on fire, a big fire. The sky
turned orange, it was time to go.

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On rare occasions the surface over the Thistlegorm can be calm with visibility reaching over 100 feet.
(By John Kean)
OceanofPDF.com
 Fourteen

OceanofPDF.com
Getting a Grip

Miles sits on the bow of Victoria 2 clinging on to the railings to keep steady.
No need for GPS today, Thistlegorm had been found much earlier on. The
swell is very high and the wind, skimming the wave crests, makes the water
look wild and violent. Best position has long gone and whatever side Miles
chooses to tie on to will involve a bit of swimming.

First job is to anchor away from the wreck – in fact a good 300 feet or
more is sufficient to avoid anyone else’s line or moorings. The anchor will
keep Victoria 2 from colliding with other boats, but it still needs its own
bow and stern line tied to the wreck to keep it in position all day. There are
only a few places strong enough to hold a boat on Thistlegorm without
damaging the wreck itself. With the anchor down off the starboard side
Morgan eases Victoria 2 as near to the wreck as he dares. Now he has to
hover in position like a rodeo rider until the bowline is safely in. Miles steps
over the railing and holds as much of his equipment in place as he can
before taking a giant leap into the angry sea.

He glances at the temporary village of white, wooden dive boats each

having their own private battle with the weather conditions. Some of the
bigger boats have tied as many as four lines to combat the swell. Most of
the others have the obligatory two, with an additional anchor line away
from the wreck. Occasionally a group of divers appear and climb back onto
their rocking boats. Despite the challenging exit they are mostly smiling,
such is the magic that this famous shipwreck brings even on days like
today.

A large rolling swell raises the bow of Victoria 2 several feet into the air
and Miles picks his moment to jump. It seems like an eternity before he hits
the water, like a sack of potatoes being thrown onto a pick-up truck, but he
emerges safely amid the white foaming sea with everything intact. Not
wishing to hang about he takes the rope that the crew have thrown him and
flips upside down for a quick descent. Once beneath the waves the surge
lessens to a relative calm. Rarely will it penetrate to more than a few feet
below.

The familiar bow of Thistlegorm soon comes into view, but Miles is in
danger of passing it in the current. He’ll have a long swim back with an
ever-lengthening rope to drag if he isn’t careful. Quickly reaching the
wreck, Miles manages to grab a protruding loading arm where he’s able to
catch his breath. There is still some space left to tie on to the winch but it is
many feet away. Miles looks up to the surface and sees the rope gradually
begin to tighten – the crew are pulling it in and he hasn’t tied on yet!

He wraps his legs around the arm and begins pulling the thick orange rope
back towards him. If the line goes tight then the rope will fly, he is no
match for a forty ton dive boat. A few stark tugs and the crew get the
message letting out some more, but not without more huffing and puffing
down below and a short expletive muttered through a regulator. Miles pulls
in a good 20 feet’s worth before making a dash for the strength of the ship’s
anchor winch. It was designed to pull a super-heavy chain, so it will be
good enough for Victoria 2 today. Already the rope is beginning to shorten
again. Miles quickly wraps it around a heavily cogged wheel and it holds
fast and then, swiftly making his knot, the rope is now secure.

He checks his gauge – 160 bar of air; should be plenty for rope number
two. Slowly ascending, Miles becomes conscious of the spinning brass-
work above. The other six dive boats trailing Victoria 2 on the outward
journey will have arrived by now and each would be jockeying for position.
He passes two other dive guides on his way up, both swimming furiously to
the wreck pulling their long lines. They had to be careful and look up to see
where the ropes will be when their crews pull them tight, otherwise lines
will cross and ropes might fray with the friction.

Miles does a 360 degree turn looking and listening for boats. At 15 feet
deep, Thistlegorm is a busy place. Slowly surfacing he meets the surge once
again and breaks to see Victoria 2 a short distance away. The crew are on
the case pretty sharply and sling Miles the second rope, which unravels
itself in mid-air landing nicely in front of Miles’ mask. The surface current
and underwater current are travelling in opposite directions to each other
today, so Miles allows himself to be carried towards the stern before
dropping down to the wreck where he lands nicely in mid-ships. There are
only a small number of places to tie on here so he has to be careful to avoid
anything sharp or fragile that might cause damage to the wreck’s structure.

Today, Miles is forced a little further back to the prop-shaft, which

protrudes from the wreckage of hold number four where most of the bomb
damage occurred. It was deeper than he liked at 75 feet, but on a day like
today it would do the job comfortably without putting too much stress on
the wreck.

Another slow ascent brought Miles back to 15 feet, where he passed yet
another guide on his way down to tie in. Miles hangs on a nearby line and
makes a safety stop. Considering the surface conditions and current strength
visibility was actually quite good today at a respectable 60 feet. At over 415
feet in length, Thistlegorm makes an impressive sight in any condition. It
rests on a seabed of just 100 feet below the surface and its tallest point is a
mere 45 feet.

As a dive guide engrossed in the distractions and responsibilities of the

day it is all too easy to forget what a visit to Thistlegorm is about. In the few
brief moments of rest, and like many before him, Miles allows his
imagination to drift and entertain such thoughts about what it must have
been like to be on board as a Merchant Naval seaman in the Second World
War and have your ship blown away from beneath you.

Ships are meant to be on the surface and not underwater like some giant
anomaly. Divers visiting wrecks for the first time, especially Thistlegorm,
frequently speak of feelings that they sometimes do not fully understand.
The euphoria of such a spectacular dive site is often neutralised by the
realisation that they have in fact witnessed the consequences of great loss
and destruction. They shouldn’t feel guilty as they are not gawping but
simply witnessing the events endured by their ancestors to help shape their
future. Thistlegorm too, has a future to be respected and preserved for there
is no place here for looters and trophy hunters. Miles looks at a section of
broken railing where a guide had carelessly tied on - no match for big dive
boats in the swell; they will eventually pull the wreck to bits.
 Several trails of bubbles appear from the ghostly, brown wreck and slowly
wind their way to the surface, twisting and turning in the current. They are a
good indication of current direction. Occasionally it’s strong and divers
complete their stops by holding onto the line almost horizontally although
today is more typical with a medium strength current running from the
stern. The guests will now have a safer descent and ascent for they can
simply use this line and stay close to the wreck to avoid the worst of it.

Miles has been here a hundred times, but always looks out for something
new – a strange piece of metal, or an unusual formation of coral away from
the ship possibly indicating an encrusted object. Eyewitnesses say wreckage
was blown out over a mile from the ship when it was bombed. Very likely
given that it was carrying so much explosive munitions. Several guides
speak about seeing a Messerschmitt fighter plane some 300 feet away from
the wreck. This occurred when they were first on site and needed to swim
down to find Thistlegorm. The ‘Messerschmitt’ turned out to be a bent
section of mangled plating, which appeared zigzag shaped and not
dissimilar to that type of aircraft.

Littering the seabed around the wreck are various items of the ship’s
fixtures and fittings and several pieces of cargo, all lying strewn across the
sand. Davits, small masts, strips of cordite, remnants of the stern’s
ammunition magazine, tyres, boots and even the two railway engines, once
secured firmly to the bow decks, now rest on the floor of the sea as if
someone by hand has placed them symmetrically and upright either side of
the ship.

Miles checks his watch and leaves the rope he was holding for the new
stern line of Victoria 2, now pulled tight and holding firm. He continues
looking and listening for boats especially zodiacs whizzing around the
‘village’. A short break for new tanks and a well earned cup of tea is in
order.
‘Nitrox and two sugars, please!’

OceanofPDF.com
Telling the story. John Whitham (above) and Glyn Owen (below) take a break between interviews in
January 1995.

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OceanofPDF.com
Caroline Hawkins (above) smiles as researcher, Sally Lindsay’s interview draws to a happy close.

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Some of the 33 surviving crew of SS Thistlegorm. This picture was taken shortly after the bombing
and was sent to the Daily Mirror newspaper in London to highlight the plight of Merchant Seamen
left stranded abroad in WW2. Many are pictured still wearing the spare clothing donated by the
crews of the rescue ships.

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Caroline Hawkins shows Glyn Owen the same photograph taken 54 years previously and
he immediately spots himself sitting on the right end of the bottom row.

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OceanofPDF.com
Close-up views of the anchor winch. Only one of the anchors was down when Thistlegorm
was struck. (By Farid Atiya)

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A small ladder leads to the bow deck where the anchor winches are located. Underneath the
winches is the rope room. (By Farid Atiya)

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Inside the rope room located on the bow of Thistlegorm. (By Gareth Millson
www.scorpionfish.co.uk)

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 An unorthodox tech diving skill over Thistlegorm’s bow for an article featured in Diver
Magazine UK. (By Yann Vautrin)
www.divernet.com/Training/training_general/160096/the_bailout_of_last_resort.html

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An eerie appearance of the upper deck forward of the bridge area. (By Yann Vautrin)

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Many of the car and motorbike tyres on the wreck still have air inside them – trapped since
1941 (By Dennis Golosiy)

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Paravanes were used for mine detection. This 1990s photograph shows the starboard side railings,
paravane and its winch still in relatively good condition. (By Caroline Hawkins)

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The Captain’s cabin was surrounded by concrete slabs to protect it from air-strike damage.
(By Yann Vautrin)

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Before and after. One of only a small selection of surface photographs known to exist of Thistlegorm;
this one showing 3rd Radio Officer, Ray Gibson leaning against the starboard side of the ship during
a previous voyage. One of the ship’s lifeboats is suspended above Ray’s head.

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The same part of the SS Thistlegorm, 60 years later, on the bottom of the Red Sea. (By Farid Atiya)

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Pals, Glyn Owen and Fred Bevan pose for the camera during gunnery training.

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 Fifteen

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Glyn Owen - Under Attack

‘Glyn, I’d like to talk to you about the night of the attack. Can you set the
scene for me and describe where you were, what the conditions were like –
where you were sleeping and a little bit about what the situation was that
night?’

‘It was so hot and particularly hot in our quarters at night because we were
in between the decks surrounded by steel. There were small portholes so we
had very little air especially with the ship being at anchor – no movement –
so several of us gunners had brought our hammocks up from our quarters
and we had slung them on deck just forward of the after deckhouse. I
remember mine particularly which was slung over a winch, a steam winch,
which acted for the derricks on number four hatch and we slept there for a
few nights.

‘On the last evening we had seen many, many sharks but we were having
our evening meal around six-thirty which was normal time and we were
down in our quarters when one of the crew members called down and asked
us to come on deck and when we queried him he said there was a huge
shark swimming around and we said we’ve seen more than enough sharks,
you know! But he insisted and said no, this was a very huge one so we went
up the companionway and round to the stern of the ship and there was an
enormous shark swimming around. I don’t know how many feet it was but
it was very, very long and it was just swimming lazily backwards and
forwards round the stern. We went back to our meal but a few short hours
afterwards when we were swimming, escaping the burning ship, we thought
an awful lot about that big shark!

‘We slept on deck but if I remember we had been told that we were
moving off early in the morning and we finally got our sailing orders and
we were moving, going off to the Canal so I decided I would sleep on deck
in my hammock that night. One or two of the other gunners decided they’d
go back down into their quarters because they didn’t want to be in the way
with the winches and the ship’s movement of the merchant seamen.
 ‘Some of the merchant seamen had been sleeping under a tarpaulin on the
hatch; on number four hatch and when our lads, our gunners, decided to
take their hammocks down the merchant seamen asked if they could use
them for that one night, so, there was a whole transfer of bodies that
evening – some of the gunners went down into the quarters to sleep – back
down on their bunks – some of the merchant seamen transferred from the
hatch where they had been sleeping by number four hatch into the
hammocks and some of us just stayed as we were.

‘We had our usual sort of ‘get together’ on the stern in the evening as we
usually did when it had got a bit cooler having a cigarette or two and
generally chatting about things – talking about the movement the next
morning and we turned in eventually and I knew nothing more until it must
have been – well I know it was – around about two o’clock in the morning,
it was a bright, bright moonlight and I was sleeping in my hammock
wearing just a wristwatch, my shorts were resting on top of my blanket and
the plane...a plane flew around and startled me and I immediately was on
my guard but I thought well it can’t be an enemy plane because the Carlisle
should have taken over and warned us or fired. So anyway, I put my shorts
on ,my swimming trunks on, and didn’t go to a gun station because I
believed the Carlisle was the guard ship and they hadn’t done anything so I
just lay back again in my hammock to go back to sleep.’

Glyn swallowed and took a slow, deep breath. He paused and sighed and
let a few moments go by before he continued.

‘I heard a plane making what appeared to be a second run or at least

sounded like a diving run and my training I suppose came out and I just
flung myself out of my hammock on the deck beneath and crouched behind
a winch and then there was just two explosions and a mass of flame and my
hammock above my head caught fire.’
He sighed again but carried on despite the discomfort of recounting the
terrible events of the 6th October 1941.

‘They weren’t very loud explosions just dull thuds, actually very dull
thuds and there was a young deck boy who had taken over the hammock
next to me and he was down on the deck also. Whether he had been blown
down I don’t know but the whole ship was ablaze to our…the whole ship
was ablaze and knowing the cargo we carried of ammunition we just
expected one big bang and that would be that. However I encouraged him
to come with me to the rail on the port side. I remember thinking in the few
steps it took me to get to the rail on the port side that my folks will never
know how I died and then we went into the water – that’s a drop of about 30
feet I suppose.

‘We looked up and the whole ship was ablaze behind us or appeared to be
the whole ship and this young deck boy started swimming away and I called
him back because there were bits of wreckage and there again, part of our
training they said never swim away from the ship there’s always more
wreckage to cling to near the ship. Most people can swim but you can’t
swim an ocean.’

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 Sixteen

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Dive One

Miles steps off Victoria 2 into the lively sea and quickly grabs the line. His
ten divers are already making their way down towards the prop shaft where
the rope is tied. Much better to follow on the descent as divers were
generally more comfortable under the water than bobbing around in the
chop and he is there to help them if necessary. Miles pulls himself handover
hand and hits 30 feet before overtaking the group to make the lead. All are
OK and respond to the clanking sound of his diver’s knife being rapped
against his tank to gain attention. It is time to go. Time is air, and
Thistlegorm likes air!

Leaving the rope, Miles took the group over the remnants of hold four
where several cases of shells lay strewn around the littered floor. In
amongst the debris were three Bren-gun carriers shaped like small tanks,
each weighing around a ton. Hard against the broken stern rests a monster
of a shell, wedged timeless against the bent metal where the ship broke in
two.

The other end of the prop shaft sticks out a couple of feet to the left and
already it has accumulated three lines from overhead dive boats. The guides
have tagged their ropes with little markers and coloured labels to help their
guests know which the right one is. Moving slowly on, Miles hovers over a
crate of four-inch shells observing one crate with its end exposed.

Next is the locomotive before continuing along the stern. It is an old

Stanier ‘8F’ type built for war service. Another, lies on the starboard side of
the wreck, but is rarely visited. They are a little vulnerable to the current
and the locomotive sits in fairly deep water, so Miles returns to the safety of
the stern where there is more shelter and more detail, for the years have
been kind to this section of the wreck mainly because it’s the deepest and
hardest to tamper with.

The railings seem more intact here and it’s easy to visualise the days when
crew would gather around having a chat and a late night cigarette before
lights out. Rounding the stern, where nearly 5,000 tons of steel converge
into a small curved plate once baring the name of one of the Albyn Line’s
finest vessels, sits the large, brass propeller part-buried in the sand. Looking
towards the surface at this point gives a perspective of the enormity of this
stricken ship now lying at rest on the bottom of the Red Sea.

Counting his divers for the third time in the space of just seven minutes,
Miles notices a couple of stragglers at the rear. Such was the allure of
Thistlegorm that there is not always the time to take in everything on one
dive and he motions them to keep up with the group – there is still a long
way to go and they are down at 100 feet deep. Moving forwards they
eventually rejoin the mid-section, totally exposed from top to bottom as a
result of being snapped in two by the blast.

Huge pieces of metal measuring over 60 feet in length hang from the side
of the ship having been bent back by the force of an explosion that sent
debris flying distances of over one mile across the surface. They’ll go inside
on the second dive, but for now, the companionway along the starboard side
is the route towards the bow deck.

Bomb damage is extensive and they travel several feet before the ship
returns to a normal shape. The bridge has taken a bashing, both during and
after the explosion. It may even have been accidentally struck by a passing
ship or possibly hit deliberately by someone wishing to further conceal
Thistlegorm’s location for reasons known only to them. Speculation is
never-ending but some evidence exists in the shape of a large davit lying
bent over but in the direction towards the explosion instead of away from it.
A big dent towards the top of the davit indicates that some sort of blow by a
large crude object with tremendous force caused the structure to bend at its
base into a horizontal position. After all, Thistlegorm now exists as a
shipping hazard on ordnance charts, before that, someone may have been
unlucky?

Sitting eerily still are the four railway tenders that never reached their
destination. In stark contrast to how they might have appeared on a deep
blue sea against the colours of the South Sinai, or even as black and white
photos during the 40s, everything around is now the same browny green,
murky colour; a sign that Thistlegorm’s new owner, the bottom of the sea,
has claimed it and covered it like everything else in layers of hard and soft
coral, absorbing the true colours in fathoms of light-diminishing water.

Between the tenders bolted heavily with thick steel fixings is hold number
one. Miles takes his group over the top and peers down where stacks of
rifles sit in bundles of six. The port side water tender has dipped with the
partial collapse of the upper deck. It has not moved in 60 years, however,
who knows how many inconsiderate dive guides have tied their ropes to it
in the swell for fear of swimming deeper for more suitable moorings? Out
of respect and with just a small sense of paranoia, they give it a wide berth.
The rope room can wait. It sits just below the anchor winch on the bow
deck to be visited on the second dive when they will reach it with a greater
air supply.

One member signals 80 bar. Miles never got the 100 bar signal so he sends
him and his buddy back towards the line. The others can swim around the
bow section and work their way slowly back to the bridge. With its mid-
ships torn completely in two, the bow of Thistlegorm makes a mighty
picture standing tall and proud in contrast to the devastation laying aft.

The crew needed just one of the two anchors to secure Thistlegorm in
place, in Safe Anchorage ‘F’. Gliding over the bow and peering
downwards, the great anchor chain stretches out across the bottom of the
sea where it disappears into the haze many feet away. Coral has long
encrusted the steel hull, somewhere bearing the name SS Thistlegorm. At
night, under the glare of a diver’s torch, the side of the wreck comes alive
again in a mass of colour with pretty reds, yellows and bright purples.

The bow deck is at a depth of only 50 feet. Miles signals his group and
heads back along the port side, passing once again ‘the leaning tender of
Thistlegorm’, behind it are the remnants of a paravane, now broken in two.
The starboard side paravane is more intact. Rising a few feet they approach
the captain’s cabin, now an ‘open-air’ compartment as a result of the
overhead damage to the bridge. The door is narrow, but easily negotiated
with a single tank scuba rig. A slight flick of a hose against the side is the
only indication of tightness but once inside a couple of dangling cables are
all that the group has to contend with. The bathroom door is missing,
leaving an exposed toilet and bathtub for passers-by to view. A thin beam of
sunlight shines through the small porthole over an old radiator, once
attached to the wall, which has now fallen into the silty tub.

There is more to see, much more, but time and air has brought the first
dive to an end. One by one the remaining divers work their way steadily up
the line to begin their safety stop. The exit is choppy; however, the careful
divers negotiate the ladders with ease and climb aboard for a change of
tanks and a hot brew.

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OceanofPDF.com
The bow of SS Thistlegorm in recent times. (By Yann Vautrin)

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 Seventeen

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Ray Gibson - Under Attack

‘There were only two of us working during the night, one was the Radio
Officer on watch and the other was the Donkeyman in the engine room,
keeping the ancillary machinery on for lights and heating. On the night of
6th October I went on Radio Watch at midnight until what should have been
4am and the only job I had to do was listening for our radio call sign to
eventually go through the Suez Canal before discharging cargo. But we
couldn’t go to Suez straight away because of previous enemy activity in the
harbour and it was felt safe to keep the merchant ships with their war
cargoes in safe anchorages.

‘Whilst I was on watch, to 12 midnight on 6th October, I was having a

read, there was nothing else to do, no transmitting and at 2am or
thereabouts all was very quiet and I just heard that swishing noise going
over the top of the bridge, I was on watch behind the bridge, and next thing
there was a big bang and I realised we had been either bombed or
torpedoed, one of the two, but we’d been hit by enemy action, so I got out
of the wireless room, opened the connecting door between the radio room
and our Chief’s berth and of course when you open the door, the light goes
out, one of these automatic door lights and when I looked into his porthole
which faced out, I saw the ship was on fire, big fire.

‘I’d no idea exactly what had happened, but I knew it was time to go and
when I woke my Chief, he said ‘Right, out, no need to transmit, no need for
a distress message’ so we just got out, went out on deck. Whilst I was on
deck I saw Harry Bansall, Fifth Engineer, he was in a bit of a daze and he
said ‘Sparky, is this a fire drill?’ I said, ‘Is it hell a fire drill, no, it’s the real
thing’. He was stood there in his pyjama trousers only, so I said ‘We’re
having to leave the ship, you can’t go on board one of His Majesty’s ships
dressed only in pyjama trousers, you’d better come into my cabin and I’ll
fix you up with a suit of clothes’ because I was dressed, well I had been on
watch.
 ‘So I took him into my cabin and fixed him up with a suit of clothes and I
saw that there was one lifeboat left, that had not been damaged and was
being prepared to be lowered over the side, so we all went in and joined in
helping to lower the boat and eventually we got into it and rowed away.

‘Some of the crew who lived aft, they could not get to the boat on account
of the deck being red hot with the fire, so they had to jump over the side,
over the stern and we saw them in the water with their little red lights on the
life jackets and we rowed round, picking them up and when we had
gathered them all together, we rowed across to the cruiser HMS Carlisle,
where we duly went on board and were looked after.’

‘Ray, what do you know of the bombs that dropped that night?’

‘The bombs? Nothing I was sealed up in a radio room with concrete

blocks protecting us all around the radio room, around the wheelhouse and
around the bridge? I didn’t know what was going on, all I heard was this
swishing noise going over the top and then bang. I did hear afterwards that
there was possibly two bombs that hit us and that one was a high explosive
bomb and one was an oil bomb, which is a long cylinder in a very, very thin
case and it’s just filled up with old sump oil diesel oil or anything that will
burst easily, spread and catch fire, whether or not that is true I don‘t know
we were too busy on the self-preservation side.’

‘Were you aware at the time that the bomb, where it had fallen, must have
meant that quite a few of your colleagues had died?’

‘Well, it was mentioned later when we were all in the lifeboat that some of
the gunners had been sleeping on number five hatch…it was too hot in their
accommodation and they slept on deck and as far as we could make out
they just vanished over the side and that was it with the bomb blast, they
just went, they weren’t accounted for after, we didn’t pick them out of the
water, they’d just gone and that was it, couldn’t do a thing for them.’

‘Can you describe what you saw and then did you see the ship when you
were in the lifeboat and what it was like?’
 ‘Yes, there was one outstanding thing about being in the boat and seeing
the ship. What took our attention was a big red line down the side of the
ship where the plates were joined together and that reaching the top deck
and down to the water line and it just fascinated us. Whilst all this was
going on the ammunition was exploding all around us, it was just like
wasps going through the air, there were a lot of tracer bullets, you could see
them all flying through the air, they were like bees all over the place. Then
came the big bang so that was it, we were all down and when we looked up
she was gone, vanished. So we carried on picking the lads up.’

‘Ray, can you describe to me the story you told me before about the one
lad who got caught in the water?’

‘Whilst we were in the boat picking the boys up from the water we heard
out of the darkness… we just heard a scream and everybody just froze and
somebody just said ‘Shark’ and we thought poor sod, he’s been taken down
by a shark because there’s quite a few around. Some way, some reason or
another I don’t know why, he also jumped over the stern with the others but
instead of being amongst his mates he started to swim to the cruiser on his
own, it wasn’t far away but if he’d took it in good time he’d have made it
but unfortunately a shark can swim faster that what a human being can so
that’s what we think had happened to him, it upset us.’

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 Eighteen

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In for a Pounding

Lunch was always taken on the way back from Thistlegorm, which means
something of a short famine between dives. Not a good idea to dive with a
full stomach in these conditions, but today breakfast seems such a long time
ago and all that is available now is a packet of biscuits, disappearing by the
minute.

Miles looks across the village and notices significantly fewer boats than
this morning’s dive for several of the early birds had now upped and left. A
few of the other boats are also beginning their second dive, which will help
ease things for Victoria 2. Miles checks the surface interval on his dive
watch and reckons on 1pm for the next descent. A small gull hovers over
the boat and, buffeted by the wind, moves onto find shelter on a larger
vessel.

A quick tour around the boat finds the ropes to be holding well. They are
thick and strong. Placing his foot hard against the bow line, Miles makes a
final assessment – nothing was coming loose today. Just as he raises his
foot a shadow casts itself across his deck. Miles looks up to see the stern of
the neighbouring boat bearing down hard on Victoria 2’s bow, it will hit in
less than five seconds. He shouts, their crew rushes out and the skipper
slams the engine on. Their bow line has broken and they are drifting back
fast.

The Victoria 2 crew hears the commotion and run out on deck just to see
its own bow line severed by the retreating dive boat. Morgan runs his
engine to keep his boat from doing the same. Miles begins to kit up, for
there is only one option and that was to tie another rope for the second dive.
Two minutes later, a large clunking sound coming from underneath the boat
stops Miles in his tracks. He’s heard that noise before. His faced drops; the
broken rope has wrapped itself around the prop. With no bow line or an
engine to keep the boat in place, Miles has only one option in diving
underneath to cut the mangled line off.
 The guests and helpless crew watch as Victoria 2 swings around in the
current until facing the other direction now held only by the stern line tied
off at 80 feet. The back deck is now taking the full lashing of the swell and
the kit area soon becomes awash with seawater.

Ali brings out two carving knives which Miles shoves under his weight
belt – not a perfect location but it will do for now. He also wears a hood
with a pair of soft gloves shoved underneath for extra cushioning effect
when the hull will inevitably strike his head.

‘Keep her steady’, says Miles. Not that Morgan or Ali had any control
over that. He doesn’t need to hide the key either as there is no question
about anyone attempting to start the propeller while Miles is underneath.
Besides, a decent skipper can hot-wire his own boat in at least three
different places anyway.
Cutting ropes from props was about as welcomed as the bends in Sharm.
The trouble for a dive guide is that the crew can’t do it because they don’t
dive. The guests certainly can’t do it because they just can’t and there are no
willing volunteers from neighbouring boats who all have their share of
work to do anyway. So it’s down with the knife and hope for the best.

Miles jumps and immediately wishes he hadn’t, for the stern deck is now
rolling up and down and somehow he has to swim underneath, grab hold of
the shaft and start cutting away at the mangled blue rope now firmly welded
to the propeller. With the heat of the rescinding engine, the rope has melted
around the brass-work making his job all the more intricate. It will take at
least half an hour.

Victoria 2 rocks around while Miles hovers at ten feet assessing the job in
hand. Slowly he ascends and reaches out for the section of shaft that will
keep him in place. He presses his legs against the keel and wedges his head
against the woodwork and with only one free hand remaining, retrieves the
first knife and begins cutting away with the serrated edge.

Having spent years briefing guests against the dangers of swimming

underneath dive boats and surfacing away from the reef for fear of being
run over, clutching the shaft of Victoria 2 is something of a contradiction. It
was bad enough avoiding propellers when tying in but actually grabbing
hold of one is humbling. The noise of a passing zodiac doesn’t help as it
bears a striking resemblance to the sound of Victoria 2’s own engine, which
was the last sound that Miles wants to hear right now.

Twenty minutes later, Miles is down to 80 bar in his tank. A full one is 200
bar. He pauses to avoid over-exertion and looks at the mangled plastic, blue
threads of rope hanging from the prop. There is still an inch left and it is
stuck fast. In a lapsed moment of concentration Miles lets his head separate
from the hull only to be reminded of its presence by a healthy whack on the
skull. Luckily the gloves tucked under the hood helps but it was a little too
close to home.

Finally the last piece of offending rope slides away and drifts to the depths
of Shab Ali. Miles drops to 15 feet and returns to the back ladder only to be
greeted by the ever-changing height of the stern deck. Ali holds out the new
mooring rope but with almost no air left in his tank, Miles has to clamber
back on board and get a new cylinder. Ten minutes later, Miles resurfaces to
the relief of an extremely worried crew who could only watch as their
livelihoods came within a few feet of disaster.
Another surface interval is in order.

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 Nineteen

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Angus Macleay’s Story

Nine men died that night, four merchant seamen and five Naval DEMS
gunners. There would have been one more if it weren’t for the bravery of an
able seaman from the Isle of Lewis. Angus Macleay recounted his actions
in the Stornaway Gazette in July, 1942.

“I don’t know how I got through that fire: it was one of the Lord’s
miracles,” said Angus, giving his own account of the incident. He claims no
personal credit: he was the man ordained to save the gunner’s life and he
saved him, although at the time he believed they were both to perish, as the
ship was burning fiercely and was liable to blow up at any moment.

“The night before there were sharks playing around the ship like flies, and
we were saying it was a fine spot to be in if anything should happen to the
ship,” he said. “It was very warm, and when I turned in, I stripped to the
skin. It was the first time I had taken off my clothes since we left Britain.

“I was still in my bunk when the bombs struck us. I have no recollection of
hearing the explosion, but I felt the ship throwing me off the bunk and I
heard the bosun shouting from the deck. The wardrobes and everything
were smashed, and anyway there was no light to look for clothes. I went on
deck and I was with a lifejacket tied loosely over my shoulder.

“By this time the ship was burning amidships. I was aft and there was no
chance of getting a boat. There was blazing oil running down the deck, and
it passed the alley door just as I got there.

“I made for the side to jump overboard and the rail was almost red-hot
under my hand. I don’t know why, but, just as I was going to jump, I looked
back and saw the gunner crawling along the deck on the other side. The
deck was covered with broken glass and I had to take the bits out of my feet
before I could carry the gunner through the flames, which came up to my
chest in places.
“I got him under my arm and began to make my way through the flames to
the boat deck. I had gone as far as the captain’s cabin when I heard a shout,
and saw the mate and some other men in a dinghy. They came alongside
and the mate came up the ladder to help me with the gunner. A few minutes
after we got clear, the ship blew up.”

Angus was 15 days in hospital but is now fully recovered from his burns. He
is 31 years of age and before the war had been for a time with the British
Aluminium Company, Kinlochleven, and in Messrs Stephens’s shipbuilding
yard in Linthouse. He was also weaving for a time. He joined the Merchant
Service three years ago. His father was four times torpedoed in the last war
and was drowned in Malta in 1918.

“Praise the skipper and the other officers, they did all they could for the
crew,” was the only comment Angus volunteered. The story of his own part
in the incident was elicited only after many questions.
Angus as a young man.

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Angus in later life living in Stornaway.

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Angus Macleay’s war medals. From left: George Medal, 1939-1945 Star, Atlantic Star,
Africa Star, War Medal 1939-1945 and Lloyds War Medal.

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 Twenty

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John Whitham – Under Attack

‘I was on watch at twelve o’clock and at about one o’clock we heard the
sound of aircraft. We looked across to the Carlisle and there was nothing
indicating from her. The sound of the aircraft got nearer and the first thing
that we realised was that he was planting a few bombs on us, which,
unfortunately, dropped in number four hold, possibly number five, but
number four I do know, because there were some flames shooting out from
there and we…we’d quite a good fire going for a while.’

‘I’m going to take you back to the moment when you realised it was
definitely enemy aircraft, you were wise to the fact that the Carlisle hadn’t
signalled?’

‘Notified us, mmm…’

‘Can you remember what your first reaction would have been when you
realised that you’d been hit? What would you have thought and said in that
moment?’

‘That everyone was up and about on board ship, primary object. They
wouldn’t need an alarm to let them know because the vibration of these
bombs hitting the ship and they wouldn’t need waking up, they were fully
awake wherever they were. And if they saw the fire and they knew what
was underneath, they’d… the primary object would be to get as far away
from the ship.

‘There’d be no chance of putting the fire out and I don’t really know, I
think we got a lifeboat away and a number of people were in it. And I do
recall I… I was in the water for a period and, whilst in the water there were
a lot of small arms, or whatever they were, fired out of the hold, up into the
air and coming down in hot fragments onto the water, and spitting and
hissing around us. And, er… at one period, later on, after the explosion, a
piece of metal, which I assumed to be a plate off the ship, was skimming
along the water, the same principle as skimming slate on water. It just went
whistling along, fortunately, not in our direction. But we were aware of it
and…the time elapsed in between, these activities I wouldn’t hazard a guess
at. I didn’t look at my watch at the time and therefore I wouldn’t like to
guess at what took place altogether. But there were people about and we
made a hasty exit, to be honest.’

‘And again, what was your reaction about not receiving a signal from
Carlisle?’

‘Yes, well, afterwards it came up in conversation and we realised also that

we should have had a warning if the Carlisle had been aware, and this
warning was referred to as a purple warning. Where this expression came
from, or whatever, I’m not quite sure, but I know that we didn’t get the
warning. And if we had, it wouldn’t have made much difference because
this aircraft was flying in the wrong direction.

‘He was flying up the Gulf of Suez, not back down it and therefore it was
peculiar. But we didn’t get a warning from the Carlisle and we couldn’t
have done anything about it if we had. It’s er… it’s one of those things. I
know that they lowered a boat. They did not fire any guns, which also
surprised us, but upon reflection the height of the aircraft and if the Carlisle
had fired guns at her, I think they could have damaged us as well.’

‘It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to be in that situation, that I

would guess there’d be lots of men shouting and running and lots of panic?’

‘No. No, there was no panic. I don’t think you get panic amongst
professional people. We had a lot of professional people on board who
knew what they were doing, knew what to expect. I wouldn’t like to guess
at the attitude but to my knowledge there was nobody running helter-skelter
like passengers on a passenger boat. We knew what was happening, what
had to happen and what you had to do, so that you had a purpose in mind. I
don’t think you need instructing what to do.’
 ‘John, do you remember anything about what happened to the
locomotives?’

‘Only from someone who told me later on the Carlisle, we didn’t see, we
were in the water. We didn’t see an explosion, but someone gave me to
understand that both of the locomotives were blown off the ship, and they
were securely anchored to deck plates, which were about an inch thick of
steel, so for that to be ripped off and blown away is a considerable
explosion.’

‘Shall we move on to the HMS Carlisle, if you can try and remember? I
know it’s hard to remember the details but you’d been in the water, you got
picked up by the boat, what was the reception like on board Carlisle?’

‘Efficient! Only one word to describe it. They looked after us. I’m not
saying they were conscious of slipping up it wasn’t that, they took us on
board. They were great boys and nothing was too much trouble for them to
treat us. But there was nothing they could really do and whatever they gave
us came out of their own pockets. They even provided most of us with little
bits of clothing to make us respectable. We didn’t have a great amount of
clothing with us and what we had was ruined. These boys gave us shirts,
shorts, plimsolls and well, we looked quite a motley crew when we were all
dressed up.

‘I think in due course the Carlisle would have to give an account to

somebody, I don’t know, but to us they treated us well, to the best of their
ability. They were great lads and they were no different than us. They were
just unfortunate people being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and
that’s exactly what it boiled down to. We could have been hit crossing the
road just as easy; it’s just one of those things.’

OceanofPDF.com
 Yann Vautrin’s pioneering photograph of the entire wreck of the SS
Thistlegorm. Following many visits to the wreck the successful image was
finally achieved on the 14th November 2008.

OceanofPDF.com
 Twenty-One

OceanofPDF.com
Dive Two - Into the Past

It’s two o’clock as the final diver steps off the deck of Victoria 2 for their
second dive of the day. It will be Miles’s sixth, so he’ll need to watch his
profiles. Aggressive diving can sometimes tip a diver into the danger zone
never mind what their diving computer says. All the same, he carries a 15
litre tank of 36% Nitrox, which gives him an extra safety margin. He’ll
need it, for after the last diver is up the ladder, Miles will need to drop down
again to untie the two lines - now much further apart and the wrong side of
the current. The stern line has to go first, ensuring that Victoria 2 keeps its
position and avoids a repetition of the earlier incident. Then against the
current, Miles will have a dash of over 250 feet to the bow line. It will be a
close call.

The ten divers gather around the entrance to hold number three, made
more accessible by the Luftwaffe, where the explosion has opened up the
roof to reveal a small door leading to a passageway into the loading area.
Miles will always count at this point after which they will follow in single
file.

The fish, well acclimatised to the visiting divers, never seem bothered by
the intrusion as they enter the belly of the wreck. The light zone is a mere
ten feet away and turning to the right they drop down into a darker section
where again they only have a few feet to reference themselves to the outside
world. It is here at the bottom of the ship that time stands still. Amid rows
of rifles and discarded Wellington boots a diver can step back into a time
where the theatre of war imposed a way of life far different from today.

For some, Thistlegorm is one big old army surplus store where you can
float around looking at pieces of military memorabilia. Where else on earth
would anyone find such a collection of bikes, vehicles, armaments and an
assortment of supplies dating beyond 70 years prior in one location? It is a
time trap, like an old building where the owners have decided for an
experiment to seal the doors and windows and let everything gather dust
without interruption from a generation of in and outgoing tenants.

The cargo never reached its destination. It remains on the bottom of the
sea where Miles’s divers are witnessing the contents for the first time in
their lives. It makes little difference that previous divers have visited the
wreck, there is still more than enough to remind them why a journey
through Thistlegorm was a special privilege; this is their exploratory dive,
who minds that others have done the same?

Clearance is a good six feet between roof and floor where much of the
cargo sits in various means of storage. The Wellington boots, however, are
strewn all over the place having been picked up and discarded by numerous
divers taking a closer look at the war-time relics. Still, there are hundreds of
pairs to be seen in relatively good condition. Gliding over the large wooden
and metal-framed crates requires good buoyancy especially if a diver
wishes to stop and look at something. Two of them knock their first stage
screws against the ceiling before referencing themselves to the mid-
position.

The wooden 303, bolt-action rifles look heavy, even without years of coral
growth upon them. They rest in the open section of hold number two
amongst a pile of aircraft wings, generators and vehicle tyres. Two cross-
members stretch across the hold where occasionally a diver will perch to
take a picture. The starboard side of the lower part of hold two is darker, but
not without light, however, a decent torch will give a better view of more
motorbikes and trucks. Swimming into the far corner, nearly 130 feet from
the surface, a light trickle of rust gently rains from the ceiling. Perhaps it is
time to move on.

Miles guides the group into the open area and slowly climbs to the upper
level of hold number two where on either side stands further rows of
motorbikes. The starboard side is also home to a couple of old Morris cars
behind which stand two WW1 armoured cars. The divers swim around the
square ending up over the bikes on the port side where clearance is slightly
lower at around five feet. The tyres on the bikes were black, rubbery and
new-like as if fitted only the day before. A gentle squeeze would show that
air was still trapped inside. Miles ponders the thought of where else in the
world would anyone be able to obtain an air sample from 1941?

The route from hold two to hold one is a narrow, but passable passage
where the divers emerge over more Bedford utility trucks with large
radiator grills and curved bonnets. The last truck signals the end of the route
where Miles swims around a support beam and out into the loading area.
One by one the ten divers follow until all are accounted for. Slightly above,
at a depth of 60 feet, the rope room beckons for a visit. This is the nose of
the ship, a small dimly lit room where coils of ropes and fire-fighting
equipment is stored. On the silty floor amongst ropes and wooden boxes are
a couple of stirrup pumps used to extinguish small fires by placing a hose in
a bucket and hand pumping the water through the manually operated
device.

A beam of light shining through the small hatch captures each diver
swimming through it. Nobody stops in the rope room. Not just because
there were always more divers behind them but few ever feel the need to
linger inside this eerie little room. Today, the rope room is just still and
calm with a slight trace of sediment in the water from the procession of
divers swimming through it.

Outside, a small ascent to 50 feet brings Miles level with the anchor winch
on the bow deck. The current has dropped and the shadows cast by the
overhead boats are gone. Only Victoria 2 remains now. Two large iron
wheels hold the anchor chains in place. A few feet further is the bow, sitting
proud as if keeping watch over the Red Sea. Thousands of photographs
have been taken here. Perhaps because Thistlegorm sits upright unlike many
a stricken vessel laying helplessly on their sides that it gives the impression
of still being ‘alive’. Miles takes his divers over the edge and heads out into
the blue where 30 feet away from the ship he turns to view the bow head-
on. The ten divers hang motionlessly in the water pausing as if paying their
respects to this 71 year old legend.

It is time to return to the line and Miles leads them at 30 feet deep almost
the entire length of the ship to the stern line of Victoria 2. Several big bat-
fish approach for a curious look at the ascending divers climbing hand over
hand up the orange rope. Miles stops at 25 feet and watches the last of the
remaining guests leave the water, before starting back down to untie at 75
feet. He still has 80 bar of air, which ought to be enough to cover the
distance to the bow line and make it back comfortably-ish!

The minutes tick away rapidly on the no-deco indicator leaving just two
remaining before Mile’s reaches his air limit. Even though he had Nitrox,
Miles still prefers a comfortable margin especially after a hammering like
today. The loosened rope falls away with ease after just a few seconds
work. One down!

A quick dash will use up air and cause over-exertion, so it’s a slow careful
plod to the bow line. Miles suddenly realises that not another soul is down
there. A little daunting to begin with, but slowly the realisation of having
this marvel to himself take’s over - no boats, no divers and no current, just
the calm serenity of SS Thistlegorm sitting gracefully on the bottom of the
sea. Like a security guard left alone in a gallery after closing time and free
of all the responsibilities of the day, Miles takes his time and glides towards
the second line, which he removes in less than a minute.

The orange, diver’s inflatable marker-buoy slowly winds its way to the
surface where it springs into an upright position visible from at least half a
mile away. Miles hangs onto the reel at 15 feet and began a long safety-
stop; he’ll need one after today and what better way to finish with the
mighty Thistlegorm keeping him company just a few feet below.

OceanofPDF.com
The ship’s propeller blades half buried in the sand. The top blade is at a depth of 90 feet.
(By Yann Vautrin)

OceanofPDF.com
 Time flies by when you’re a diver on a train! An extra tank allows a little longer at 100 feet
to stay around the Stanier 8F engine. These were for the Egyptian railway network. (By Yann
Vautrin)

OceanofPDF.com
 A very dated armoured car which appears to have contained sophisticated signalling or
communication equipment. There are two of these in hold number two. (By Yann Vautrin)

OceanofPDF.com
Bedford, Ford, Tilling and Morris vehicles may be found throughout the wreck. (By
Caroline Hawkins)

OceanofPDF.com
BSA, Norton and Matchless motorbikes were packed in rows. Many were loaded onto the trucks and
lorries. (By Gareth Millson www.scorpionfish.co.uk)

OceanofPDF.com
 (By Yann Vautrin)

OceanofPDF.com
An original 1941 BSA model. There are many wartime examples of BSA’s throughout
Egypt. (By Farid Atiya)

OceanofPDF.com
Small portable generators were towed behind the trucks. (By Farid Atiya)

OceanofPDF.com
Lysolats antiseptic tablets. (By Caroline Hawkins)

OceanofPDF.com
Medical supplies. (By Caroline Hawkins)

OceanofPDF.com
Camphor sterilised solution in olive oil. (By Caroline Hawkins)

OceanofPDF.com
A box of medical supplies (By Caroline Hawkins)

OceanofPDF.com
A diver during the 1990s inspects a rack of Lee & Enfield 303, bolt-action rifles found in
holds one, two and three. (By Caroline Hawkins)

OceanofPDF.com
A crate of 303 live rounds. (By Caroline Hawkins)

OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com
The ammunition hold located towards the stern of the ship. Untouched examples of shell crates are
still found here. (By Yann Vautrin)

OceanofPDF.com
The smaller gun is located at the end of the stern area (By Dennis Golosiy)

OceanofPDF.com
 Both anti-aircraft guns are mounted on the stern deck at about 70 feet deep. The protective shield
around the above gun was sheared off in 2011 by a careless ‘divemaster’ tying inappropriately to the
wreck. (By Dennis Golosiy)

OceanofPDF.com
A close inspection of one of the three known MKII Vicker Armstrong Bren gun carriers loaded
aboard Thistlegorm. (By Farid Atiya)

OceanofPDF.com
An afternoon shot of the stern in clear visibility down at 90 feet. (By Yann Vautrin)

OceanofPDF.com
HMS Carlisle’s Dennis Gray telling his story in 1995.

OceanofPDF.com
 Twenty-Two

OceanofPDF.com
Dennis Gray - Under Attack

‘Where in that particular anchorage were you in relation to Thistlegorm,

Dennis? You don’t need to go into too much detail.’

‘The role of HMS Carlisle being what it was, anti-aircraft, we would be at

the northern end and the port side, which would then put us between any
enemy aircraft approaching and the convoy so we would probably be the
first no doubt to pick up any signals in relation to hostile aircraft and this is
what happened on that particular night…because when the attack took
place, we were already at our guns and loading… ready to load ammunition
and then we heard the aircraft ...’

‘I’m going to stop you there because I want to lead up to that. Can you just
very briefly describe how far away this would have been from you? Just
run it past.’

Dennis pauses and thinks about his answer, visualising, once again, the
moments of Thistlegorm’s last hour in the Straits of Gubal.

‘The Thistlegorm would be…it’s very difficult to estimate distance over

water particularly at night but I would think certainly less than half a mile…
probably 600 yards or something like that. It was certainly possible to see
the crane on the ships but we couldn’t make out at the time what was
chained on the upper deck. We could see nearly all the other ships in the
anchorage and their escorts and both sides of the Red Sea at that point
because of this huge moon which was the most striking thing that I’ve ever
seen and probably this is why it etched itself on my memory.’

‘Right, again, so we’ll stop you there because now I’d like us just to talk in
more detail about the actual night the attack happened. We won’t talk just
yet about when the bombs hit but we’ll set the scene… perhaps you could
start by saying I remember that particular night, it was a brilliant moonlight,
I remember very clearly how bright the moonlight was and whether or not
you were on duty that night?’
 ‘No we were asleep.’

‘Describe what you’re telling me.’

‘There was somebody on watch because…but it was being at anchor…I

won’t go into detail about Naval stations and so on, there would be a
cruising launch and there we would be running the headphones on the…’

‘So you got a signal basically?’

‘An alarm.’

‘Can you describe as graphically as you can the moments of the night in
question?’
‘On the night in question I was asleep on and around the gun and then
sometime during the middle watch we were awakened by the alarm rattlers
sounding throughout the ship and that’s the signal for everybody to close up
to his action stations so we didn’t have far to go. The ready-use lockers
which are around the ship very quickly opened so that you can grab hold of
the shell and within seconds you can be loading and firing whilst the
ammunition parties below are getting their doors open and pushing
ammunition up from below in the magazines.

‘We received this alarm signal, closed up and the first shells were put on
the fuse of the machine and then we started to fire and my recollection is
that we had to train the guns around nearly aft, which meant that the
forward two guns would be too low to fire. As it came closer we could
gradually hear the engines of the plane building up and we were then told to
cease firing because the gun barrels were so low we were in danger of
hitting the masts of the ships to the stern and by this time in the centre of
the convoy was the SS Thistlegorm.

‘With this huge moon we were able to see this plane and it was very low
and coming as you imagine, very fast and it dipped over the Thistlegorm at
about mast-head height. If the wheels had been down I would think it would
have hit the masts of the Thistlegorm and of course we…we couldn’t fire,
couldn’t do anything about it, but just stand and watch and the illumination
of this huge moon made it so that all of this was quite clear and…we had
to…just stand there and watch what went on and watch the plane disappear
in the distance, North I recall, and then as we were told to stand down, we
just stood the ammunition down between our feet and waited for the next
order.

‘Then a few…it seemed like two or three minutes I would think, this huge
explosion took place and of course we were looking in the direction of the
Thistlegorm at the time and shortly after the explosion there was a huge
sheet of flame which lit up both sides of the Red Sea at that point, we could
see it light up Mount Sinai on one side and Egypt on the other side and all
the ships and everything around and then all of a sudden there seemed to be
a second explosion and still looking in that direction we were amazed to see
what turned out to be a railway engine and it was red hot with sparks flying
from it and it was coming in our direction.

‘There was no time really in split seconds that this was happening and
there’s nowhere you can hide on a superstructure of ships like the sea-class
cruisers so we hid in these ready-use lockers and I remember this
particularly because I thought this is a bloody daft place to hide because if
that thing goes we’re among all the ammunition. However, after what
seemed like quite a long time we heard a hissing sound or that sort of thing
and just peeped over the side just in time to see all the steam and the
bubbles and the huge disturbance in the water as this railway engine sank.
There was steam rising and little bits of metal still red hot flying through
the air and further out further away towards the Thistlegorm all sorts of
things we couldn’t identify up in the air and falling into the water. Then,
within seconds of that, we heard shouting and at one point someone was
screaming and…uh…we heard the order to lower the boat and send away
boat crews to pick up any survivors.

‘By this time the plane had gone, the plane had gone because I only ever
saw one and we only ever said there was one at that time, it wasn’t until
years later that we heard that there were more, however, then, because we
were, well, disengaged we were able to put the shells back in their lockers
and then stand around as we could see these boats and we watched them
and we sent away two whalers, I think, and they were picking up survivors.
We were able to see the boats picking people up and as they came alongside
the ship we were just leaning on this little shield watching them come
aboard and then a Jacob’s ladder was lowered and they were climbing up
the side of the ship and as I probably mentioned before, it’s so low to the
water they only had to climb about six feet and…’

‘Dennis, I’m going to stop you there because I want to go back over that
and do more detail in a minute. Can I just ask and have a sort of separate
answer why didn’t the Carlisle shoot down the Heinkel, can you explain as
briefly as you can that it wasn’t possible and why not?’

‘We had to cease firing because it was not possible to depress the guns any
further and there would have been danger to the other ships and indeed
probably to our own stern, but in any case you could only depress these
four-inch guns so far and so we were unable to fire at one point as the
aircraft came closer and all we could do was just stand and watch it … and
as it got closer and closer it came lower and lower until it was mast head
high and then we heard the engine … accelerate for want of a better
description and it flew up … we were then just standing there doing
absolutely nothing, there was nothing we could do and then all of a sudden
there was this huge explosion and as a result of the explosion a huge ball of
flame shot up from the Thistlegorm so brilliantly that it lit up both sides of
the Red Sea at this point.’

‘We’ll stop there because again I’m going to bring this back in just a
second. Can I just ask…was it just one of those unfortunate things that that
particular night you weren’t able to hit the Heinkel?’

‘Uh, yes I would think so, had we received … I mean this is all hindsight
and you can go on and on … had we received the signal earlier and the
range earlier we could probably have engaged it but there again you can
only engage it, a plane so far away once it has to come within range and
obviously I would think that this plane had seen the convoy and probably
even circled it once and knew exactly what he was going to do, although
again I would have thought our RDF by that time would have given us an
accurate range. It was just that he was diving all the time and the danger
was from the barrage where the shells would have been exploding among
our own ships and of course you then have to weigh the job and say we’ll
cease firing otherwise you’re going to do more damage to the convoy or
your own ships and it was just unfortunate that we couldn’t depress the
guns any further.’

‘Did you see the Thistlegorm actually going down?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was that like?’

‘By the time we had stood up and had seen what was going on there was a
huge circle where the railway engine had gone into the sea and just beyond
it of course was the Thistlegorm. From what we could see from where we
were, it seemed to fold up and the stern went up one way and the bow
another as sinking ships often do … as if the back was broken and then it
went down in a V-shape and … it didn’t take long, it was amazing … one
minute it was there and the next minute it wasn’t, it was as quick as that.
Then, of course, you just… it’s an anti-climax, you don’t know what to
do… there’s nothing you can do.’

OceanofPDF.com
 The official registration document of the coal carrying ship, the Rosalie Moller, bombed and sunk
two days after the strike on the SS Thistlegorm. The Rosalie Moller is now a popular wreck dive for
advanced recreational and technical decompression divers where depths range from 90 feet to over
170 feet.

OceanofPDF.com
Twenty-Three

OceanofPDF.com
Fallen Eagles

The light inflatable bobbed a little on the almost calm sea. The Sinai coast
was a good mile away and they’d have to start paddling quick before the
currents took them further away from land. Maybe at worse they’d end up
on the islands around Shadwan or Tawilia. At least they were further up
than Ras Mohammed where they would face the vast openness of the Red
Sea with no guarantee of rescue. In any event they would fall into enemy
hands, but better than disappearing altogether. Still, the moon was burning
bright and they were in one piece which was more than could be said for the
Heinkel F111 now resting on the bottom of the sea full of holes.

Heinrich didn’t bother with his pipe. It was inside his soaking jacket. The
crew had organised themselves and climbed into the air-filled boat where
they located the makeshift paddles. Tracer flew over their heads far into the
sky and the occasional bang of the big cannons firing from the cruisers
could be heard in the distance. They discarded all paperwork and anything
potentially useful to the Allies, keeping just a few personal possessions and
identity tags.

Eventually, Heinrich and his crew reached land where they were greeted
by the Allied forces before being shipped off to a temporary prisoner of war
camp in the Sinai. Two days later they were re-united with the crew of the
other Heinkel who were also subjected to a long rowing trip. Both crews
were sent to POW camps in Australia where they served out the rest of the
war.

In 1994 an attempt was made to contact Menge, now living in Argentina,

for his personal story about his involvement in the Thistlegorm bombing but
he refused to comment. Little was heard of Menge until recently where in
his book, ‘The Real Odessa’, Uki Goni mentions a Dieter Menge, a
Luftwaffe pilot who was shot down in the Red Sea and sent to a prison
camp in Australia. This Menge also moved to Argentina where he ran a
scrap metal business and became a confidante of prominent Nazi war
criminals such as Adolf Eichmann and the notorious Doctor Mengele.
 Most of the remaining crew returned to Germany where they resumed
civilian life. In 1993, following an extensive visit to the wreck by
photographic journalists, two surviving navigators were interviewed by a
German diving magazine. The early nineties saw the beginning of the great
rush to visit Thistlegorm.

In May of 1992, Hans Dieter Schnass, who was researching archive

material for a TV documentary, made contact with Heinrich Menge while
he was making a rare visit to his homeland in Germany. He caught up with
him at the airport just two hours before departing for Argentina.

‘He gave us an interview describing vivaciously those former events. After

having bombed the Thistlegorm one of his aircraft’s motors was hit. He
drained the rest of the benzene and alighted on water without the danger of
exploding on impact. After a terrible day without water in the lifeboat he
was picked up by an Arabian ship and handed over to the British where he
met the pilots of the second aircraft on the mission. They too had alighted
on water after running out of fuel. Heinrich says that when he returned
home to Germany after the war he was very frustrated by the lack of
German public assistance to war veterans, so he immigrated to South
America where he is living today.’

OceanofPDF.com
Secret Suez Canal Area War Diary October 1941

OceanofPDF.com
Looking down the barrel of the Swiss-made 4.7 inch, stern-mounted anti-aircraft gun. (By Dennis
Golosiy)

OceanofPDF.com
Twenty-Four

OceanofPDF.com
Glyn Owen - Going Home

‘I was fairly certain at the time of the attack because I was wearing a wrist
watch, which stopped when I went in the water and I remember at the time
it was a few minutes fast – an ordinary wind up watch – cheap watch and I
kept it for a number of years but it had stopped when I went in the water
and it was 1:21am. When I was eventually taken in the whaler and landed
aboard the Carlisle we were shown our way to the sick bay and I distinctly
remember as they opened the door of the sick bay there was a clock on the
opposite wall, which was reading 3:30am so it had been somewhere around
two hours from the time of the attack until I was in the sick bay of HMS
Carlisle. I didn’t realise then that I was hurt in any way.

‘I was covered in oil, a terrible mess. The main thing that was crossing my
mind was my particular pal Fred Bevan. All I could think about was I knew
I was safe. We were very close and we had exchanged family visits and the
only thing that was really worrying me then was the fact that Fred was safe
and did I have to go home and tell his people how it had all happened and
he was dead and then the sick bay door opened again and there was Fred
standing there absolutely stark naked and I’m not ashamed to say that we
just simply ran at each other and embraced and I wouldn’t have cared if
anybody else came off that ship apart from Fred and he felt the same way
about me. It’s just the way things are, two particular pals.

‘A few hours later we’d been taken from the sick bay to some quarters on
the Carlisle and met up with other survivors, some had been hurt pretty
badly and were kept in hospital beds in the sick bay but we were given hot
tea. I remember we were distinctly disappointed because they didn’t give us
any rum. We always thought survivors were given a tot of rum, but we were
just given hot tea and cigarettes and we eventually were given some
scrubbing brushes, the old bristle scrubbing brushes with big long bristles
and paired off to go and try and clean each other up with this oil under the
showers.
 ‘That’s when I first realised I was hurt, wounded, whatever, because Fred
took over the job of cleaning me and he started scrubbing my back and I
nearly took off because apparently my back was peppered with small holes
from the bomb and the nearest bomb to me that had dropped was an oil
bomb, which had splashed me with burning oil, flesh taken right out and of
course the bristles didn’t do any good. I then discovered after cleaning
myself up that I was badly cut on my legs and where they had occurred I
had no idea but all in all I got out reasonably lucky, I was a walking
wounded. I was burnt and I was cut but I was alive and so was Fred and he
was cut and had a small bomb splinter in his shin. We transferred to a sloop
frigate, Flamingo, and we eventually landed at Suez.’

‘Glyn, can you remember the gunner with the broken leg, can you
remember how he got saved?’

‘What was his name?’

‘Middleton, Thomas Middleton and Angus McLeay was the guy who…’

‘Can’t place him, but while I was in the sick bay of Carlisle we were
walking around chatting to various members of the crew who’d been badly
hurt. One of our gunners, I think his name was Middleton, had a fractured
leg and he told us he appeared to be the only one or one of the two that got
out of our particular quarters because he said the quarters had been burst
open with the explosion and he had got out and collapsed on deck. He said
one of the merchant seamen had carried him through, towards the boat,
which were amidships.

‘The other lad who got out was named Arthur. He was seen on deck so he
had got out of the quarters, he couldn’t swim, he was one of the non-
swimmers among us, but the other lads, some of the crew had fixed him up
with a life belt and encouraged him to go into the water with this life belt.
However a life belt was later picked up and Arthur was not in it, so whether
he panicked and came out of the life belt or whether a shark had taken him,
we don’t know, we’ll never know.’
 ‘Okay, when you were in Port Tewfik, I remember you telling me about
having dinner and overhearing a conversation from another merchant ship?’

‘That was up in Port Said. There were three of us that were walking
wounded and we were billeted in what had been an Italian school
commandeered by the Navy and it was near the cathedral in Port Said. We
had no duties because we attended for dressings, fresh dressings every day,
our wounds, so we were out and about Port Said and one evening we were
sitting in one of the service canteens and there were some other sailors, four
maybe, sitting at the table quite close to us and we exchanged names and
where we came from – usual thing and one of them happened to say, ‘You
should have seen what we saw the other night’ and he went onto to tell
about this ship being bombed and exploding and we realised he was talking
about us, so when we told him we had been on that ship and that we were
survivors of that ship, he was very, very pleased, he didn’t think, having
seen the explosion, that there had been any survivors.

‘I remember he said ‘It was a good thing that the plane didn’t bomb us
because we were carrying Nitro-glycerine and he if had hit us then it would
have blown up half of Egypt’, so apparently from his description of where
their ship was, they were in the next line to us just a short distance away.
Nitro-glycerine! You sail with a cargo of that all the way from Britain…you
live on your nerves!’

‘Now, Glyn, there was a photograph taken wasn’t there, a lot of you? Can
you tell me about that photograph?’

‘Yeah…we were not treated very well, there seemed to be nobody in

authority to give us any money or any fresh clothing. We were dressed, we
were really dressed in rags, just as the lads off the Carlisle had gone
through their kit-bags and given us any old jumpers, trousers, whatever they
could spare. I remember the pair of trousers I was given I had to cut six
inches off the bottom with a pair of scissors and we were in these kind of
ragged clothes, we were worse dressed than the poverty stricken Arabs we
met.
 ‘We went to the British Consulate, or whatever, and some of the merchant
seniors had been to see them and asked about clothing or money but they
just didn’t want to know about us. So we were gathered together by one of
these fellows and a photograph was taken which he said he would send to
the Daily Mirror. I have never seen that photograph, but it was to show how
badly dressed we were and how the Consulate gave us no help whatsoever.
That’s not a very nice thing to be saying really, is it?’

Caroline reaches down and picks up a stiff brown envelope from the small
table beside her.

‘Take a look at this, Glyn.’

‘My God, that’s a surprise; can you see me on there?’

There was silence as Glyn stared at the 54 year old photograph.

‘There’s Fred at the back there. Hello, Fred. You can see, can’t you, the
sort of gear we had on. Oh my God. I can’t figure that out you know, which
one that is, can’t really place it. Good gracious me. But, I think the
photograph I’m thinking of was taken out in the open air. This is taken on
the Carlisle, I think?’

‘I think it was later. It wasn’t on board, it was later.’

‘When we were filming in the Red Sea, Glyn, I sent you a postcard and
told you we’d found something for you which we’d like to give you now,
and I think it might have belonged to you.’

Caroline hands Glyn the military-issue fork.

‘Ha, I think only the officers ate with forks, we ate with our fingers, where
did you find it?’

‘We’ll cut…’
 Glyn, smiling and chuckling, stares at the old photograph in one hand and
then at the fork in the other. Researcher, Sally Lindsay and Caroline
Hawkins gather around him and pose for a snapshot.

‘Will you send me a copy of that, Caroline ?’

OceanofPDF.com
Further wreckage lies 260 feet south of the stern. Additional railway tenders and sections of deck
have been found by divers going off-piste here. (By Yann Vautrin)

OceanofPDF.com
 Twenty-Five

OceanofPDF.com
Ray Gibson - Going Home

‘Perhaps, Ray, you could tell us a bit more about your reception on board
Carlisle, when you went on board and just carry the story right the way
through, a little further after the Carlisle as well.’

‘When we got on board HMS Carlisle we were sort of drafted down below
in pairs or in threes to go and get washed up, cleaned get showered because
we were a right scruffy lot when we got on board ship. After we got cleaned
up they set us up with a good meal and made us comfortable and I
remember I went into the Gunnery Officer’s cabin, he gave up his cabin and
I slept there for the rest of the night. They couldn’t do enough for us, they
were grand blokes, we were all at sea, the whole lot of us, whether we were
Royal Navy or Merchant Navy, it didn’t matter.

‘The following day we had the freedom of the ship, we had a good walk
around after breakfast, and eventually we set off going to Suez and after an
hour’s sailing from where we left we suddenly turned around and came
back to the anchorage. Nobody told us what was going on, nobody had
bothered, just part of life. Eventually a sloop came alongside of us, HMS
Flamingo and we all transferred to Flamingo and were taken to Suez where
we were put ashore. We went into a hotel while we were there, six or seven
days maybe more, I don’t know, I forget now and we got rigged out with
some fresh clothes, because all our lot had gone, either burnt or some of us
just didn’t have any at all!

‘We had a nice comfortable stay in the hotel and eventually we got orders
to pack up all our little bits and pieces and we joined the Mauritania in
Suez. A very, very big ship to us and eventually we sailed from Suez to
Durban in South Africa and then from there we transferred to the Royal
Mail ship, Stratton, a P&O Liner and round the Cape, across to South
America, up the east coast of the States and then across to Greenland and
eventually we arrived in Glasgow and were sent home.

‘When I got home, finally, I mean the end of December, my father and
mother were there on the station at Preston to meet me and when I got back
into the house, my father showed me a telegram which he received from the
ship’s owners and when I read it the wording on the telegram was, ‘We
regret to inform you that the ship on which your son had been serving has
been destroyed by enemy action and he is not listed among the survivors’
but to counteract that I had sent a telegram, like the rest of us, from Suez to
say that we were safe and well, so he was in possession of two telegrams
and the only way he could sort things out was the dates. The one I wrote
was sent after the owners had sent theirs, so instead of being fish food, I
was alive and kicking. Great rejoicing in my home! Now, how’s that?’

‘So was Thistlegorm special?’

‘She was special to me, she was my first ship. I learnt a new way of life on
her. She was something special and she was also my first taste of action and
knew how near I could be to getting killed.

‘When I came home on leave in 1945, June 1945, my father said to me

you’d better have a read of this lad and when I looked at it, it was a green
card issued by the Ministry of Labour and the wording on it was to the
effect that I’d reached military age for calling up and that I’d failed to do so
and they were going to impose all sorts of punishments on me if I didn’t do
something about it quick so I went round to their office in Preston and
showed him my card and said ‘Why have you sent this to me?’ and he was
very snotty about it and I was very, very annoyed.

‘I produced my certificate of discharge in my book, which we all get in the

Merchant Navy detailing the names of your ships and he said, ‘What’s
this?’ I was so high I said ‘That is a sailor’s discharge book for members
who are serving in the Merchant Navy detailing which ships we’ve been on,
whether you’ve sailed foreign, coastwise or what. So just read it!’ So he
read it. I said ‘Look at the rubber stamp on the two of them “Sunk by
enemy action”. I said ‘I’ve been in the Merchant Navy since 19th March
1941 and I’ve just come back after 3 years in the Far East so I said ‘Does
that answer your question?’ He says, ‘I’m very sorry about it’. ‘Well I
should think you should be and don’t you send me anything else like that in
future, get your records straight and leave me alone’. I wasn’t happy so I
said who signed this card, where’s the manager?’ He said ‘Oh he’s not
available now’ and I said ‘Well this is what I think about your card’ and just
tore it up into four pieces. Took the wind out of his sails mind you, couldn’t
do a damn thing about it.’

‘Ray, what do you feel now about being part of the war as a Merchant
Seaman?’

‘Well I’m just happy that I did my little bit, it was only a little bit but every
little helps. I didn’t realise at first just how much responsibility a young
bloke like me, and many others that were young, was forced on us. You
have a 5,000 ton ship with 42 crew, thousands of pounds worth of raw
materials for eight hours a day and you’re the only one that knows what’s
going on in the outside world and that can be a big responsibility for a lad
of 18 and it can be considered that the ship alone is worth thousands of
pounds, the cargo, priceless, the lives of 42 blokes depending on you, it
frightened me when I was a bit older and thought about it, I don’t know,
I’ve accepted it. That was it, part of life. But I was glad I did a bit of
something.’

OceanofPDF.com
With occasional strong currents and low visibility, going off-piste from the wreck isn’t always easy.
100 feet from the portside railway engine is a boiler - once attached to the rest of the Stanier 8F. (By
Yann Vautrin)

OceanofPDF.com
Directly from the back of the stern, by a distance of about 300 feet, can be found another railway
tender blown from the wreck in the explosion. (By Yann Vautrin)

OceanofPDF.com
 Twenty-Six

OceanofPDF.com
John Whitham - Going Home

‘John, what about the reaction from home? Would they have sent a telegram
saying you were OK?’

‘Well I can’t recall where from, whether it was off the Carlisle, or whether
we were ashore in Port Tewfik but I did send a telegram. We were not
permitted to say where we were, but I think it was the courtesy of the
skipper of the Carlisle we were able to send these aerograms off to let our
parents know we were alright. The wording on mine, reads, “We expect to
be home a little earlier than anticipated, we’re quite well …’

‘Did you know any of the crew that got killed that night?’

‘One lad in particular I remember the name of was Joe Rolfe. I also recall
a New Zealander who sailed with us, was a damn good seaman, and I don’t
know his name, but I wouldn’t like to say that I knew anyone in particular.
There were many young fellows about 17, I think. They couldn’t have been
much older; if they were 18 I would be surprised. But they were courageous
young fellows and dependable fellows, and it’s just unfortunate that on the
occasion of the attack that they decided to sleep outside in the open, which
was common.

‘It was popular to sleep on number four hatch for some reason or other.
Nobody ever slept on the forward hatches. Don’t ask me why I don’t know.
But somehow or other you always felt different on number four or five
hatch. If I’d been sleeping out I’d have slept on number four hatch. I’d have
put a palliasse down and got a blanket over me and that was it. I was led to
believe that Joe lost his life there. It’s very unfortunate he was a great lad.
He was one of the characters you can depend upon, and he’d a sense of
humour.

‘I think when I got home, it’s the only occasion in my life I can recall
shedding tears, and that is when I told my mother and father that Joe had
been killed together with other fellows. I’m not given to tears and the only
time in my life I can recall shedding tears. He was a great boy with a sense
of humour. He was young, he was active and he was dependable. I can’t say
any more about that, and if you needed a friend, he was the one to get.’

‘John, have you ever reflected on why you think the Thistlegorm was
bombed?’
‘Yeah now that you’ve told me about the Queen Mary because there was
no reason for enemy aircraft to be down in that area. I’m given to
understand that they were out on a pre-determined mission, which misfired
and purely by chance, they spotted us on the way back, which will account
for the reason why the Carlisle wasn’t able to give us a signal of any sort
because the Carlisle didn’t know. The powers that be or the authorities that
were able to do this obviously hadn’t informed them of any enemy aircraft
in the vicinity, and so there was no reason to assume it was enemy.

‘Until it dropped bombs on us, we didn’t know for sure, but it sort of
answers the question that it misfired and the silly sods hit us instead. We
didn’t look like the Queen Mary we looked like a Liverpool rust bucket. I
like that expression because I sailed on a number of those. You see, we
were allowed to refuse two ships and the third one we had to take. The third
one was always a cracker that they thought up, but if you’re a seaman you
can take it?’

‘On reflection now, John, what do you feel about being part of the whole
Merchant Navy and a Merchant Seaman?’

‘Well the Merchant Navy came into a class of its own and therefore a lot
of people thought they didn’t get recognition for the service that they did.
But a great many of them were sea-going civilians, which was a
classification as was mine. I think you’ll always find sour grapes in the
army and navy, but I think the Merchant Service did a great service to the
war effort and they didn’t ask for a lot of song and dance in return. I was
quite happy. I got medals in the drawer there. I don’t show them because I
can go down the street and buy a set like them – cheap. My name isn’t on
them, and if it was, I wouldn’t be all that bothered about it. It doesn’t bring
back the friends that I lost. We were some of the lucky ones, and I look at it
that way. An old adage says if you’re number’s on it, you’ll get it. My
number wasn’t on it and I’m quite happy.’

‘On a final word, John, perhaps you’d like to set the scene again for why
the photograph was taken?’

‘I think it was taken at the instigation of the bosun, Mr Graham and he was
a gentleman of the first order and he was very offended at the way we had
been, for want of a better word, dumped, ashore in Tewfik and after contact
with the consul there was no effort made to smooth the water at all…we
were surplus to requirements. The bosun took umbrage at this and decided
we would have visible proof of the condition in which we were landed and
that is how the photograph came about and I thank him for it and that I’m
able to have that record of that particular ship.’

OceanofPDF.com
In better times, John Whitham stands to the right of Bosun Graham, seated in the middle.

OceanofPDF.com
Even the turtles need to surface for air on Thistlegorm. This curious turtle inspects the portside of the
wreck before ascending for a few breaths of fresh air. (By Yann Vautrin)

OceanofPDF.com
Twenty-Seven

OceanofPDF.com
Dennis Gray - Going Home

‘Dennis, it has been rumoured that the mission of the Germans that night
was to bomb the Queen Mary which had been there two hours before.’

‘Ships like the Queen Mary, the big ships, they were so fast they didn’t
have to worry about submarines and on the way back from the Western
Desert they were carrying German and Italian prisoners of war because they
didn’t need an escort, they went down the Red Sea, refuelled at Cape Town,
Free Town or whatever and set off across the Atlantic taking prisoners to
Canada. I saw ships like the Queen Mary because they were so massive.’

‘Finally, Dennis, we’re, in a way, relying on you to say something about

what you think about the Merchant Navy and Merchant seaman. You tend
to find that they are actually very modest in themselves and we feel it
would be nice to have some words on what you think of the role they
played.’

Dennis pauses again and clears his throat.

‘The Merchant Navy, are the most admirable people I ever came across.
They were so modest and the cargoes that they carried which if the ship was
hit they were hopeless, they didn’t stand a chance, the whole ship…I’ve
seen ships, particularly in the Med in the early days when things were going
bad for England and in the Western Desert and so on…one minute they’d
be there, the next minute they’d just disappear. Occasionally you’d get
some that took longer to sink than others and you might get a few survivors
in open boats and that sort of thing. They just survived and they joined the
next flipping ship…and I didn’t know until fairly recently that when a ship
sank, the owners stopped their wages on that day and…to me that was
terrible.’

‘I’m going to ask you one more question, Dennis…we won’t leave on a
really bad note, just tell me how you felt when you actually heard about the
Thistlegorm being rediscovered?’
 ‘Oh, I was over the moon… as I say I also at that time was very interested
in diving myself and in fact I had a police diving station so anything about
diving and Cousteau in those days, the 50s, was very prominent in books
and things on television and so on… and well… I read a book by one of
Cousteau’s divers, a fellow named Phillipe Dio and he mentioned this dive
and the fact that they took the name plate off the boiler which I think was
from a Glaswegian firm and they had sent this to the firm when they got
back to France or England or wherever. He mentioned the fact that
Cousteau had taken the safe to the surface and when they opened it up it
was empty… and then, of course, you lot turned up!’

OceanofPDF.com
A short flight of steps leads from the rope room to the bow deck. (By Gareth Millson
www.scorpionfish.co.uk)

OceanofPDF.com
Twenty-Eight

OceanofPDF.com
The Undersea World

The 45-year-old Frenchman slipped beneath the waves and scoured the
water in all directions in search of the ‘thing’. His co-divers had seen the
‘thing’ on their historic wreck dive a few hours earlier possibly being the
first humans to visit the underwater anomaly since its demise 14 years
earlier. At several feet long, they claimed, the giant napoleon wrasse was a
menacing sight, distracting them for most of the dive.

The Frenchman was a traveller - an underwater traveller - and he had a

special new toy capable of taking high quality underwater pictures, deeper
than most had done before and for the first time in colour. Wide open was
the whole world, the undersea world, waiting to be snapped by this
pioneering aqualung diver with his revolutionary new camera. He would
write later about his travels and discoveries. He would write about finding
Thistlegorm known only to him as a blip on a survey chart with a six-mile
degree of accuracy. But it was there, somewhere lying on a bed of 100 feet.

He found the wreck by making zig-zag patterns with a sonar device and
then as an afterthought, due to such good visibility, sent a man down into
the glass viewing chamber fixed beneath the boat to visually scan for any
tell tale signs of the mystery wreck. A few hours later, a voice came up
from the chamber. He wasn’t sure what was down there but the colour of
the water had changed somewhat. They ran another sweep and the man
below shouted out, ‘I can see her top-mast!’ Immediately a marker float
was thrown out and they anchored alongside.

Co-divers Dumas and Falco are reported to have donned their aqualungs
and dropped in, ‘just for a look’, and if she’s worth it they’d come back
again later when passing through the Gulf of Suez.

Cousteau didn’t see the big green monster, but perhaps a smaller relative
measuring eight-foot long and five feet tall. He relaxed a little and began to
explore the unknown ship. Together with Dumas, now returning for another
look, they wiped away a sign located on the bridge-house:
 Joseph L. Thompson & Sons, Ltd
North Sands Shipbuilding Yard, no. 599
Manor Quay Works,
1940 Sunderland

Now, at least, they knew where she came from and, after a decision was
made to scrape away layers of growth on the ship’s bell, they were able to
determine her name, SS Thistlegorm.

National Geographic magazine reported Cousteau’s discovery in their

February, 1956 edition. Now the world knew about Thistlegorm, but, not
specifically where she was. Co-ordinates of her exact location were not
disclosed. This was a time when diving was engaged in by only a tiny
minority whose activities would remain unchecked until years later when
international travel and dive tourism would resurrect interest in the past.
The trail often led to Thistlegorm. Local guides still speculate about
whether he found gold on the wreck. It is purely speculation. Neither
Cousteau in ‘The Living World’ or National Geographic, each covering his
visit in great detail, ever reported that he found gold. Gold was never
mentioned by any of the surviving crewmen of Thistlegorm. They were
largely unaware of the contents of much of the ship other than what was
highly visible, like vehicles and railway engines.

Cousteau writes about bringing to the surface the captain’s safe on the
understanding that his crew declare it to the naval authorities, ‘Bringing up
treasure was contrary to the spirit of Calypso’ he wrote. He insisted that his
men form a committee and elect a leader for the handover of any treasure
and wait for a court to adjudicate a salvage award. He mentions Dumas as
the instigator of the idea to recover the safe, a small safe, which eventually
appeared above the surface with the help of a few carefully positioned
winches and cables.

With gleeful expectation, the treasure-hungry crew of Calypso gathered

around while someone prised open the door with a lever. Inside was a small
drawer, which was removed to reveal the contents. And what was their big
haul? A soaking wallet containing the captain’s I.D. some port receipts, a
Canadian $2 bill and a £1 English note. The only remaining item was a role
of sonar charts.

Gold was frequently carried on warships, which had the ability to defend
themselves far more effectively than SS Thistlegorm. Keith Jessop’s book
‘Goldfinder’ describes how his salvage divers had to cut through several
inches of thick steel to reach strong rooms containing the gold reserve on
HMS Edinburgh, lost in the North Atlantic returning from Russia. The
cargo list of Thistlegorm remains a secret document along with the official
report made by the most senior surviving officer, Captain Ellis, himself.
Only the British Government can release these. It’s not unusual. Many ships
fell under this rule.

Upon the expiry of the 100 year rule the police files of Jack the Ripper are
now beginning another term of public censor for reasons that are well
speculated. What makes Thistlegorm so secretive, 71 years on? Many a
diver on Thistlegorm would argue that the finder of a decent gold reserve
would have certainly kept his mouth shut. In any great quantity the finder
would be well resourced and, of course, unseen. It is very doubtful that gold
ever existed on Thistlegorm, but what treasure hunter would look for gold
when other items of great value are sitting right under their noses?

Ever since Jacques Cousteau’s well-publicised visit in 1955, journalists,

photographers and researchers have been seeking out stories on Thistlegorm
from a variety of sources. Some have dug deeper than others, going through
old records and interviewing survivors. Some turned to the Germans to get
their story. Sharm too has its secrets and many a dive guide has a tale to tell
especially from the ‘old days’ when diving on the wreck began in earnest.

But these people are visitors, they come and they go and whilst very
valuable, their true-life accounts still represent only an observation from a
brief passing. For example, there are not many people left in Sharm who
were here 30 years ago, never mind 50 or 60 years ago. The Merchant
Naval crewmen spent two weeks in Shab Ali, Cousteau spent a couple of
days, tops. The Israelis occupied the Sinai for 13 years while most
Sharmers are a temporary rotating workforce spending a couple of years at
most in the diving business before moving on.
 A minority of the population have lived in Sharm from as far back as the
80s when only a handful of dive centres operated, but largely each passing
group takes with them their untold story of The Red Sea’s greatest wreck.

It is perhaps surprising that until now the most significant source of

information about Thistlegorm has been largely overlooked - a living
source, with eyes and ears recording every waking moment since the
Heinkels dropped their bombs in 1941. They have sailed the seas and
walked the shores for hundreds of years. Watching the skies and searching
the waters of the Red Sea is their business, for they are the Bedouin people
of the Sinai.

Bedouin skipper, Salah Biyouk – his family were eye-witnesses to Thistlegorm’s short life in
Anchorage ‘F’ back in October 1941. He tells his story to the author and Sharm Skippers, Ali, Yahear
and Morgan of the New Age and Delphinis boats.

OceanofPDF.com
The Thistlegorm Leap! Sharm dive instructor George Wilders jumping from the bow of the Seagull
dive boat to tie the lines. (By Yann Vautrin)

OceanofPDF.com
Suez Canal tonnage plate from Thistlegorm.

OceanofPDF.com
The ship’s radio mast.

OceanofPDF.com
Twenty-Nine

OceanofPDF.com
The Sharm el Sheikh Story

The gunboat skipper glided gently over the bridge of the wreck lying just a
few feet beneath the surface. It would have been easier when the mast was
sticking up but that was rumoured to have fallen down in poor weather in
the 60s. Nine years on it was just a dark green haze beneath whatever
surface conditions the Straits of Gubal could provide. Boats approaching
the wreck too quickly or oblivious to its existence would cause severe
damage to both vessels. Thus, according to the Bedouins, between 1970 and
the mid 80s Thistlegorm was gradually levelled to a height of 45 feet below
the waterline, but not before Sinai’s new occupants paid it a visit or two.

Salah Biyouk didn’t consider himself an Egyptian, or an Israeli or

anything other than what he was, a Bedouin tribesman. Bedouins were
Bedouins and they lived simply off the land or making use of whatever the
sea delivered them, whether fish or floating salvage from who knew where.
They didn’t ask about or attempt to justify the morality of the gifts washed
up on their doorstep. It was just another means of providence - there for the
taking, like a floating biscuit tin or a jar of coffee. These strange offerings
were a daily occurrence especially around the Second World War when
items never seen before would appear from seemingly nowhere. Trips along
the shoreline would stretch for many miles for there was no telling where
the next find would appear. A Bedouin wouldn’t find anything sitting at
home, he would have to beach-comb everyday – they travelled far and
wide.

The bombing of Thistlegorm provided many such objects, but something

more sinister found its way to the shores around this time. Salah recalls
much enemy action with daily visits by long-range bombers seeking out
allied craft like the three war ships anchored in the Quay in Ras
Mohammed. Salah cannot remember the exact date, but certainly within
days of the Heinkel attack on Thistlegorm he speaks of his family and
walking the shores of the Quay.
 ‘We walked for miles as the debris from the wreck would wash up
everywhere and there was no telling where the next piece would be found.
One day we walked all the way to the Quay in Ras Mohammed. When we
got there, we couldn’t believe what we saw. There were about 75 in total;
mostly women and children, all were dead. They just lay there, washed up
by the sea. They were all white European-looking people and fully dressed.
They came off Thistlegorm.’

The interviewer frowned and stepped into to verify some facts.

‘Actually they didn’t. Our records show that nine died on Thistlegorm and
most went down with the ship. There were no women or children.’

‘Well, it was around the same time when they were washed up on the
beach in the Quay. I’ll never forget it. We removed items of value like
jewellery and money. It was just the way things were. We had to feed
ourselves. We buried them afterwards nearby in the desert. Maybe they
came off another ship that sunk nearby, but I only remember Thistlegorm
going down. All sorts of things were washed up at this time, my family
warned me about the floating dynamite.’
‘Did you see the actual bombing?’

‘Some of my friends did, I was a small boy and I’d already gone home; it
was late at night. They say it was very bright. A sea of orange flame, a huge
flash of fire went up and they could see all around.’

‘Was there a mast sticking up after the sinking?’

‘Yes, until the 1970s. I believe it came down in bad weather but you could
still see the wreck just below the surface. We used to visit the ship with the
Israeli army when they occupied the region. They once spent about 20 days
over the wreck diving each day and removing vast quantities of cargo.’

‘What came up?’

‘We didn’t know, it was all unusual to us, we were just bystanders, but one
day they raised a very big container. I have no idea what was inside it.
Unfortunately these visits caused much damage to the top of the wreck.
Boats would often hit the bridge and eventually it fell apart.’

‘Are you sure it was the Thistlegorm and not another wreck in the area.
We heard there was a concrete carrying freighter that sunk within a mile of
the wreck?’

‘I’m sure it was the Thistlegorm. I’ve been going there for years.’

Other local residents mention that there was little activity in the area until
the 1990s when the first dive boats were to discover Thistlegorm way below
the surface. The only significant wreck in the area before Thistlegorm was
SS Dunraven lying off Beacon Rock. It later became the subject of a
television documentary shown on the BBC’s ‘World About Us’ series.

Little diving took place outside the areas of Ras Mohammed through to
Tiran Island during the Israeli occupation. The Gulf of Suez was heavily
patrolled by gunboats and occasional exchanges of fire continued between
the two sides well into the 70s. The few Sharm diving centres at the time
were restricted to the more protected areas around Ras Um Sid and the
Gardens, which could be readily accessed by land. Trips to Tiran were often
made in zodiacs when conditions were good enough and Ras Mohammed
could also be reached by track, however, it wasn’t until the late 70s that
significant improvements were made to the main road linking Sharm to
upper Sinai and the Suez Canal. Who, therefore, were the real witnesses of
the mystery mast of Thistlegorm?

The Bedouins say they saw it until 1960. Cousteau said he had to conduct
an underwater search to find the wreck in 1955, but then he never said there
was no mast sticking up and nor did he publish the ship’s co-ordinates. The
Israelis, according to the Bedouins, paid it frequent visits during the
occupation when only they would have had access to the area. When they
finally moved out in 1982, Thistlegorm was lying well below the waterline
with its shallowest point at approximately 45 feet deep. The next few years
saw a return of diving activities especially from boats as fisherman and new
skippers flocked to Sharm for the beginning of the great dive bonanza.
Thistlegorm, for a while, was forgotten, resting beneath the surface hidden
from discovery by the outgoing Israelis and the incoming Sharmers - the
only link between the two were the Bedouins, who didn’t feel the
inclination to mention the wreck to anyone and of course, nobody knew
about it to ask them anyway.

Ten years were to pass before the first recognised dives were carried out.
In May of 1992 a boat named Lady Somaya III from Hurghada arrived in
the area and carried out a brief search before finding the wreck in anchorage
F in the Straits of Gubal. A film crew accompanied the expedition and later
had their findings reported in various international diving magazines
resulting in the inevitable influx of wreck divers to Thistlegorm.

More recently among the Sharm diving community reports have been
made of earlier visits including one substantiated visit by a long-term
resident who recalls diving the wreck in October of 1989 aboard the boat
Tom now permanently moored alongside the jetty in Naama Bay.

OceanofPDF.com
The author pays his respects to the Merchant Navy crew who died on Thistlegorm with a visit in
2002 to the war memorial in Tower Hill, London. More than 35,000 crewmen are commemorated
here under the name of their ships. (By Derek Kean)

OceanofPDF.com
 The Sharm el Sheikh Story has been a little more difficult to elicit and few
details exist in print about Thistlegorm in the old days. Local history is
largely by word of mouth in a town without a local newspaper, TV or radio
station. There is also no public library where such information might be
readily accessed. Facts and opinions are therefore easily susceptible to
distortions over passing years. However, with the kind generosity of some
of the long-term residents of Sharm, Dahab and Hurghada, it has been
possible to gain a very good picture of Thistlegorm’s prominence here in the
last 30 plus years.

Their willingness to co-operate with the research of this book is both

valuable and much appreciated and in accordance with some of the
interviewee’s wishes for privacy they will remain anonymous where
requested. Wreck diving attitudes of 30 years ago vastly differed from those
of today, where artefact removal, even for display and preservation
purposes is largely frowned upon if not outright illegal.

The trail begins in Sharm el Sheikh’s oldest building, The White House,
situated on the beach of Naama Bay and now a Casino! It was this very
building where President Begin and President Sadat first met to discuss the
peace process. Today’s meeting was a brief encounter with a local resident
who first visited Sharm as a young boy in the mid 80s. It was the first in a
long series of interviews and chance meetings that produced some very
revealing stories:

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The White House in Naama Bay in the early 1980s

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The Private Quest

On the 21st August 1991, Edward Elias took his boat, Chrissy 2 for another
sweep of anchorage F. He knew Thistlegorm wasn’t far having read all
about it in National Geographic magazine some years previously. Eddy, as
he was known, was a safari boat owner and skipper and often spent a few
hours on the homeward stretch to Sharm taking GPS co-ordinates of
previous searches hoping that by a process of elimination he’d find his
prize. In fact, he was so fed up with his luckless quest that this was
definitely the last sweep before admitting defeat.

An accomplished diver, Eddy finally made his chance discovery on his

birthday and was swiftly over the side for a look at the magnificent wreck,
lying almost untouched for nearly 50 years. Eddy said he never removed
anything on the Thistlegorm, preferring to leave it as the museum it was in
every splendid detail. Later, he was to change his mind when witnessing the
greed of visiting divers when the wreck became public the following year.

‘I noticed one day, that someone had removed the ship’s radio mast into a
position where they were obviously going to return and lift it off. I
immediately tied a rope around it and got it on board Chrissy 2. I’ve kept it
in good condition and it’s now on display in my garden where people can
come around and look at it. I was disgusted at the way these people were
looting the wreck. Some even took live shells off attempting to fly home
with them back to Europe. There were several incidents of airport police
stopping these people at customs. A few shells are still lying around the
Travco jetty confiscated by the police before the new rule came in banning
any removal of artefacts. I once caught two divers from another boat trying
to remove a case of medical supplies from one of the storage holds. I won’t
tell you what I did but let’s just say that their ascent was a bit quicker than
they intended!

‘I remember there were a few crates of morphine and plenty of utensils

and fittings in the galley. I even found a whole goat in the freezer, but that
was all gone after a few months. There were generators on two wheels that
used to be towed behind the jeeps and of course rows and rows of
motorbikes.’
The Local

‘There was simply nothing going on here before the 80s. Only a handful of
boats were in the area. Colona II, Chrissy II, Ghazala 1, Lady Jenny 5,
Xanadu and maybe Abu Hara. The only decent wreck that anyone visited
was the Dunraven. Ras Mohammed was a shore dive and all the local sites
were normally reached by road. Before that, is anyone’s guess; it’s all about
accessibility. The place was a war zone and very few tourists were around
then.

I remember the radio mast alright. I was there the day he took it up. In fact
I gave him a hand, but understand we were only stopping these artefacts
from leaving the country. I’m glad they’ve put a stop to all that now. You
really need to speak to a guy called Shimshon who was here way before
anyone else. He ran safari trips all over the place in his Sunboat. No idea
where he is now but he’s your man.’

The Doctor

‘The strangest thing I heard about Thistlegorm concerned its cargo of

medical supplies, in particular the morphine on board and a story
circulating in Cairo in the 50s. Morphine addiction was fairly high then and
the drug enforcement agencies were investigating a case about a new supply
finding its way onto the streets of Cairo. I remember that it was traced to a
group of foreigners, mostly French, who were staying at the Shepheard
Hotel, a known hangout at the time for travellers, spies, shady businessmen
and all sorts of interesting post-war characters. The morphine was over 15
years old and perfectly preserved in ampoules. It was alleged at the time
that the entire supply was removed from a recently discovered wartime
wreck in the Red Sea.’

The Custodian

‘Yes, I’ve been looking after it now for a few years. The skipper you
mentioned gave it to me for safe keeping and I maintain it here in my
garden. It’s pretty much as we found it all those years ago. No attempt has
been made to clean it as there’s still some coral growth on the surface metal
and it might cause damage if we try to take it off. If you want to take a few
photographs then I’ll help you move it around a bit. It’s very heavy.’

The 63 year-old radio mast stood nearly seven feet tall and weighed over
200 pounds. It took both of us to lift it up onto a platform where it could be
photographed against the sky. The owner preferred it that way, as he didn’t
want anyone to recognise his house.

‘Gives people the wrong idea. Things were different then, there were no
rules or regulations. We did pretty much as we pleased but with hindsight
things are best left where they belong. The trouble was that if we didn’t take
them, then someone else would. Almost certainly they would have left the
country never to be seen again.

Things are better now that the rules are more strictly enforced. I remember
a car being pulled over in the early 90s on the Cairo road. The police nearly
had a fit when they found a whole boot full of rifles, shells and ammunition
all from Thistlegorm. The driver and passengers spent a few days in jail and
were all heavily fined. I think that was the last straw. Nobody can do that
now… much better that way.’

Open for Business

Perhaps the most significant event of the early 90s was the opening of SS
Thistlegorm by the Egyptian authorities to visiting divers. This was
achieved following an expedition to the wreck by Tamer Elena and General
Ahmed Saleh Al Edkawy, who was head of security in the Sinai.

‘We filmed the wreck extensively,’ said Tamer.

‘The condition of SS Thistlegorm was amazing; it was covered in soft

corals. There was some early concern in those days about the cargo of
bombs on board and whether divers should be allowed to swim among
them. General Ahmed was instrumental in making the assessment and
obtaining permission to open it up as a leading Red Sea dive site. That was
in 1992. The rest, as they say, is history!’
 Tamer, a long-term Red Sea dive professional, now owns Wide Angle
Productions, the award-winning underwater filming company. General
Ahmed later returned to the Sinai as Mayor of Sharm el Sheikh. They
remain keen scuba divers.

OceanofPDF.com
Tamer Elena of Wide Angle Productions. One of the early videographers to film the SS Thistlegorm.
(By John Kean)

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General Ahmed Saleh Al Edkawy was responsible for getting the diving ban on the wreck lifted after
the authorities deemed it unsafe because of its explosive contents. Bomb disposal experts generally
agree that the cargo is safe for divers who act responsibly. He became the new Mayor and head of the
city council of Sharm el Sheikh in 2008. (By John Kean)

OceanofPDF.com
 Caroline Hawkins and the BBC

‘In 1995 my parents visited my father’s relatives on Vancouver Island. My

father took along a copy of my newly completed documentary Last Voyage
of the Thistlegorm. While it was playing, his cousin Jack Bastone left the
room and returned clutching his army ID book. He had served in the
military police in 1941 and was sure he had travelled in the same convoy as
Thistlegorm from South Africa to the Red Sea. He remembered
disembarking at Port Tewfik with all the other troop ships but the supply
ships were held at anchorage due to port facilities being so limited.

‘When he reached Egypt he was told his unit’s motorbikes would not be
coming because they’d been lost in a transport ship. When he saw the
video pictures of the BSA’s in Thistlegorm’s hold he said, ‘I think one of
those motorbikes would have been mine.’

‘He was also interested in the locomotive because he had witnessed the
Royal Engineers building a railway for which presumably it was destined,
along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. He was captured at Tobruk the
following year and spent the rest of the war as a POW in Italy and then
Poland. He emigrated in 1947 and now, aged 92, lives in a care home in
Canada.

‘My first dive on the Thistlegorm was with Colona Dive Club. In my log
book it reads like this’:

S/Y Colona II
16th January 1993. Wreck of the Thistlegorm. Sha’ab Ali.
40 mins. 20.4m
Buddy: Ian Critchley.

My first warm water wreck and a practically undived one. First discovered
by Jaques Cousteau in 1950. Over 300ft long, built in Sunderland in 1940
and sunk by 2 German bombers Oct 6th 1941.9 crew killed and one awarded
George Cross for rescuing injured gunner by running barefoot across hot
metal. Incredible. Upright with all contents: lorries, motorbikes, trucks (sat
at steering wheel!), coral-encrusted ladders and handrails. Went inside
through large door. Complete railway engine upright on deck and tender
falling into hold. Enormous drone fastened to deck and winch gear hanging
in mid-water. Swam through port sidewalk accompanied by 20cm yellow,
black and silver Double bar Bream. Hull almost completely intact. Amazing
to hang mid-water alongside. Twisted metal where bombs landed in
munitions hold. Incredible dive.

Later the same day...

35 mins. 28m
Ian had problems with his weight belt so I descended to team up with Sallie.
Very adventurous dive swimming through and under decks. Went into
cabins hanging with cables covered in soft corals and sponges. Toilet still
in place and broken sink. Inquisitive fish of all kinds and shoals passing
overhead. Motorcycles and lorries lined up in holds. Worked deeper into
current to find propeller 15’ diameter. Sole of a shoe and nose cones of
shells. Brass portholes still in place! Started ascent with less than 50 bar
having done deepest part last (not good dive profile). Colona II proceeds
under sail.

‘I’d taken a few photos on those dives and on my return to the UK I

showed them to the Design Editor of the Daily Express. He commissioned
me to conduct more research into the Thistlegorm and a return trip to
photograph it. At this point my friend and TV colleague Sally Lindsay
stepped in. Inspired by my stories of the wreck and with a great personal
interest in history, she asked if she could undertake the research. She did an
amazing job. Almost every day she came up with an exciting revelation.

‘Hours spent at Kew Records Library and the Registrar General of

Shipping and Seamen in Cardiff and weeks of detective work resulted in a
mass of records and, most importantly of all, contact with Harry Bansall,
Thistlegorm’s Fifth Engineer. Armed with information we chartered Colona
II for a return trip.

‘Over a five day period in May 1993 a group of friends and I dived the
Thistlegorm 12 times, photographing, drawing and recording all that we
could from stern to bow. This was now far beyond just wreck-diving. We
had a far deeper appreciation of what we were seeing. My dive logs over
that period record the artefacts that were there at that time’:

Came across glass rectangular box with chrome edges…boxes of Lee

Enfield rifles… shiny 303 shells…glass flasks…a heavily encrusted Singer
sewing machine… a fob watch… brass portholes all along the length of one
corridor with glass still intact.

‘Italian diver Paolo Rossetti was also researching Thistlegorm at that time.
His charter boat, Malamalu, was moored just a few feet away. We freely
shared information and hospitality. I remember Paolo bringing up a teapot
from the wreck. There was some discussion as to the ethics of this but
actually I believe he did the right thing in this case. On his return to Italy he
had it cleaned and put into a presentation box he then flew to England and
gave it to Harry Bansall. Paolo published his own book and produced his
own film Operazione Thistlegorm shortly after that. My last dive of that trip
reads’:

Regretfully back to the shot line with Kevin and find it quite moving to
watch Thistlegorm disappear beneath us. Will it be intact if we ever come
back to make the documentary?

‘The Daily Express were delighted with the article and published it as a
colour centre-page spread but now all I could think about was making that
TV documentary.’

OceanofPDF.com
 ‘Last Voyage of the Thistlegorm’

‘I had no idea how difficult it was going to be to convince the BBC that
this was a film worth making. Nobody seemed interested. ‘We’ve done a
lot of war history recently’ or ‘Viewers find diving films a bit boring’
seemed to be the standard rejection. ‘But if we don’t do this now, there will
be no survivors left to tell their story’ I protested. And then at last I found a
sympathetic ear. Peter Symes in Bristol was running a series of
documentaries on BBC2 entitled, Picture This. The negative, he told me,
was that I would only have half an hour in which to tell the story but the
plus was that I would have his full support, a good budget and great creative
freedom.

‘The race was now on to find survivors. Sally embarked on another

intensive period of research resulting in the discovery of Ray Gibson, Glyn
Owen, John Whitham and Dennis Gray. She nurtured these new
relationships with great sensitivity, well aware that for some we were
uncovering painful memories. Harry Bansall, had the greatest difficulty in
reliving the past. He helped us enormously but found his recollections
extremely painful and asked not to be filmed.

‘I returned to Thistlegorm in December 1994 with Sally, cameraman Peter

Scoones, underwater photographer Peter Rowlands and David Wright of
Dive and Sail. I dived the wreck now knowing some of the men who had
served on her. Here was the crumpled deck on which Harry had once
walked… here the anti-aircraft gun that Glyn had handled… that was the
very railing that we had a photo of Ray leaning against…

‘On one of the last dives we found a bent and twisted fork embedded deep
inside the bombed-out stern. We pondered whether to leave it there but
knew that it would soon be spotted by another visiting diver. It lay exactly
where I estimated the gunners’ quarters had once been. I carefully levered it
out. On my return to England I placed it in Glyn Owen’s hand. ‘I think this
might be yours’ I said.

‘Sally and I kept in touch with all the survivors until one by one they
passed away.
By the mid 1990s Harry Bansall was no longer with us. In 1998 John
Whitham died and in 2000 Glyn Owen’s son called me to say that Glyn had
passed away too. We last saw Ray Gibson, fighting fit, at a war
commemoration in London. Not long after that his Christmas cards ceased.
We tried to trace him through his branch of the Burma Star Association but
to no avail. Dennis Gray died shortly after.

‘The video interviews I recorded with all of them are now archived at the
Imperial War Museum.’

OceanofPDF.com
 Thistlegorm’s Secrets
‘Pirates’ is situated at the other end of the promenade in Naama Bay about
a quarter of a mile from The White House. It’s one of the oldest pubs in
town and attached to the Hilton Fayrouz hotel with an interior adorned with
fishing nets, old small boats, paintings and various maritime memorabilia.
The two diving instructors, one of whom was also a skipper, were having a
quiet drink at the bar when I joined them on that particular Sunday
afternoon. Both had been living and working in Sharm el Sheikh for several
years.

‘Have you got your camera ready then? We’ll leave in 20 minutes; it’s just
a short walk from here.’

I’d been after the ship’s plaque for some time. It was a solid brass square
plate giving details of Thistlegorm’s rite of passage through the Suez Canal.
Like other artefacts, it remained in a ‘private collection’ but the owner
granted occasional access to genuine enthusiasts. Once again, anonymity
and privacy were the order of the day.
The boat skipper had been a regular on Thistlegorm and was one of the
early divers to visit the wreck when it became public in 1992.

‘When we moored up for the day I used to drop in myself and go

‘shopping’. Divers and their scuba gear would regularly part company over
Thistlegorm and I’d often return to the dive boat with all sorts of stuff. I’d
put the weight belts in a bag, minus the lead of course, along with torches,
masks, fins and if I was lucky, maybe even a diving computer. People
would be careless when entering or exiting the water so things would fall
from them and invariably work their way to the bottom of the sea.

‘I remember one day in particular, conditions were ideal and the water
extremely clear, so I ventured a little further from the wreck by about 300
feet or so and there it was, right in front of me, a perfectly preserved,
section of railway engine. It was still attached to the piece deck, which had
been blown clean off the ship. On another day, I found a small, brass,
ceremonial cannon, which was way off the wreck. Not sure what it was
doing on Thistlegorm, but I’ve often seen these on other vessels that would
fire a shot from them to signal arrival at port. Anyway, it’s safe and sound
now awaiting a complete restoration. I won’t tell you where it is, other than
in several feet of seawater and not a million miles from here!’

Following a short walk along the promenade I was led down a small street
and into the back office a shop. There, hanging on the wall among various
maritime trinkets was the solid brass plate from Thistlegorm. The photo
session finished with, it was suggested yet again that I should go and see the
mysterious Shimshon and his Sunboat.

‘He was the first. He knows everything. Shimshon was here well over 30
years ago.’

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Shimshon Machia (By John Kean)

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Shimshon Machiah shattered popular beliefs about the rediscovery of Thistlegorm in the 90s by
recounting the events of his first dive to the wreck as a grouper fisherman way back in 1974. (By
John Kean)

OceanofPDF.com
 Shimshon Machiah

It was a Thursday afternoon in late October when I finally managed to

obtain a telephone number for the elusive Shimshon.

‘I’m not elusive! I just moved, and you’d better be quick!’ said the deep,
friendly voice on the other end of the line.

‘I leave on Sunday for a three-month trip.’

‘I’m on my way!’

I had a good description of the Sunboat, but Eilat marina was home to over
200 boats. Somewhere among them was a man who held the answers to
many of Thistlegorm’s unsolved mysteries. I stopped at the very end of the
second marina and looked at the two large boats sitting side by side. One
was the Sea Surveyor – a big blue and white working boat with tall,
powerful masts. The other was slightly smaller, but still over 100 feet in
length and built to last. The Sunboat was very different from the smaller
wooden craft seen in Sharm and Hurghada. It was made of steel and would
endure the harshest of conditions that most seas could throw at it. When the
swell kicked up, the watertight doors could be sealed shut and even if it
took a big wave the inside would remain totally dry.

I was taking photographs when out of the side passageway door stepped a
giant – the six-foot four Shimshon. He was built like a tank and took up the
whole of the gangway. The highly amiable skipper welcomed me aboard his
home and led the way into the main cabin where we sat down for a beer.

‘Do they still serve Stella Local in Sharm el Sheikh?’

‘By the ton.’

‘Good, I’ll have to pay a return visit soon.’

I knew it was going to be an interesting meeting when he handed me a

tattered old paperback copy of Jacques Cousteau’s book, The Living Sea.
 ‘It’s very old and not in good condition. The first few pages are missing
but the photograph showed Jacques Cousteau’s team lifting a bike off
Thistelgorm onto the Calypso. You can probably buy a decent copy in a
second hand bookshop. I only ever knew it as ‘The motorbike wreck’. I was
a fisherman before I made safari boat trips and my interest then was in
catching grouper fish. My father was a fisherman; in fact we were a family
of fishermen and divers. At first I was spear fishing as a free diver, but later
I’d dive with scuba equipment. In those days I was getting around ten
dollars a kilo in the fish markets, but all the rules have changed now and
spear fishing is no longer allowed. On a good day I’d catch about 500 kilos
of fish.’

‘A nice day’s work! What was the area like then? Many have said that
Shab Ali was mostly uninhabited?’

‘There were a few missiles flying around at that time because the army
was firing weapons then. Occasionally you’d hear an exchange of fire. I
mostly encountered Bedouin fishing people who of course had lived there
for hundreds of years. We just shared the same sea for our fishing.’

‘When did you first dive Thistlegorm? Many believe that it wasn’t
rediscovered until the 90s.’

Shimshon leant back in his chair and chuckled, casting his mind way back
to a period when Britain had recently gone decimal, Elvis had a number one
hit in the charts and the price of oil had shot through the roof.

‘1974.’

‘Can you repeat that?’

‘Yes, 1974, but not on the Sunboat. I travelled by road down from El Tur,
along the Sinai coast, and met some Bedouin fishermen. They took me over
to Thistlegorm in their feluka boat and we moored up against it for a while.’

‘So there was a mast out of the water?’

 ‘Of course, by about four or five feet; that’s how the Bedouins found it so
easily. You could see it from a long way off, especially when the tide was
low and the waves had dropped. Like I said, I was only interested in the
giant groupers at first, but shortly afterwards I began to look around and
inside the ship. It was truly stunning, completely covered in beautiful, soft,
colourful corals. The detail on the wreck was magnificent, very little had
been changed. I don’t remember seeing a bell, but the radio mast and guns
were still in place. The railings hadn’t been touched then although I believe
they’ve had a bashing in recent years. There used to be an old ambulance on
the top deck. I heard that later on, someone had broken into it and taken
some of the medical supplies. Some of it was morphine and several people
became quite ill from it.

‘I stopped grouper fishing when the size of the fish became smaller. They
can take up to seven years to mature and you need to let them grow and
replenish.’

‘Did you ever see any sharks on the wreck? There must have been a few
when you first arrived there with all those fish around.’

‘Never saw one on the wreck in all those years, although there were plenty
around that part of the Red Sea. The occupying army used to run helicopter
training drills in the Strait of Gubal and I once saw them practising a
winching operation near Thistlegorm. They dropped this poor guy into the
water and the intention was that he had to signal and then the chopper
would come and hover above him and lower a rescue winch. I believe a
shark must have got him. He left the water with one of his legs bitten off.

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Sharm el Sheikh’s, Dr Adel Taher, is the proud owner of an original 1941 model BSA motorbike
similar to those found on the Thistlegorm.

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 ‘The first boat I took to Thistlegorm was Viking. I’d moor up in Shag Rock
about two miles away and then take a zodiac all the way out to the wreck. I
first took the Sunboat to the wreck in 1985 with mostly a Swiss clientele.
The deal was that nobody was to mention anything that would attract
attention to Thistlegorm. There was no mast up at that time because it was
blown down by the occupying navy, so not many people knew how to find
it anyway. So, for quite a few years we’d drop by during safaris and have
the wreck completely to ourselves.’

‘Did you ever see any items on the sea floor away from the Thistlegorm
wreck? I heard there’s a few interesting pieces in the surrounding area that
not many people know about.’

‘Just the two railway engines either side of it and lots of debris lying
around. I never had much case to go further afield as I was either fishing or
guiding my divers on the wreck. Of course on a number of occasions I had
the pleasure of diving the wreck by myself. I don’t know if I was the first to
do that since Jacques Cousteau but there was little sign of anyone else going
there.’

Where are they now?

The ship’s clock now rests on a retired instructor’s mantelpiece in his

house somewhere in the West of England’s countryside. It is highly
polished and in mint condition and despite being offered good money for it
the anonymous owner steadfastly refuses to part-company with his clock.
Whilst its proper place is aboard the vessel it came from, you could say that
this ex-Sharmer has given it a good home for years of corrosion and
careless looting would long ago have seen it disappear forever.

The telegraph was taken from the bridge and was last seen as a photograph
in Paulo Rossetti’s section in Diving Guide to the Red Sea Wrecks where it
is described as being, ‘Solid bronze and withstanding the test of time’.

The ship’s bell remains a mystery; however, there is much speculation that
Cousteau removed it during his well-publicised visit in 1955. It was seen in
the film, The Silent World being cleaned by Calypso’s divers. The Cousteau
foundation suggested approaching the Monaco museum where many of the
great man’s memorabilia was stored, however, following a search the
museum replied to say that nothing of that description was in their
possession. Both the bell and the ship’s radio mast were photographed in
1955 by National Geographic Magazine. The pictures, along with others of
the wreck, feature in their February 1956 edition.

In a recently discovered letter sent by Hans Dieter Schnab to Thistlegorm

survivor William Jamieson, it is mentioned that during a visit to SS
Thistlegorm on Lady Someya III in early 1992 that perhaps the bell was still
firmly attached to the ship. The discovery is mentioned in a TV
documentary outline which covers this early dive on Thistlegorm which
they located using echo sounders.

“Lorries, motor bikes, armoured cars, engines, tenders, arms – now

a department for aquarium accessories. It is only a few meters from the
crow’s nest to the water surface. The ship’s bell is inscribed: “Doth Suffer a
Sea Change into Something Rich and Strange”.

So who has the ship’s bell then?

The clock from the bridge of SS Thistlegorm.

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 Thirty

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The Bomb Collector

July 2008

I always like to ask my scuba students what they do for a living as it may be
an indicator of how they might fare on the diving course. Pilots are often
the best because they have a nice mix of practical and academic training
behind them. The armed services are pretty good too and they always do
what they’re told! The police like to take lots of notes and the clergy just
pray that the Almighty is watching over them and probably me also.

‘I’m a bomb disposal specialist’, says Peter. ‘I work on decommissioning

ammunition dumps and clearing unexploded ordnance. You could say that
I’m the one who clears up the mess after the wars are over.’

Peter Le Sueur is my student this week and he’s signed up for a

decompression diving course. The ‘mess’ to which he refers is unexploded
bombs and hundreds of rounds of live shells or land mines - sweating
dangerously in the heat of foreign deserts.

He joined the profession of ordnance clearance as a technician in 1972 and

has been nose to nose with thousands of the world’s most deadly explosives
for over 35 years. Peter has worked in all of the big hot spots such as
Afghanistan, Kuwait during the first Gulf War, Iraq, Cambodia,
Mozambique, Sudan, Nepal and now in the Balkans decommissioning
munitions dumps in Montenegro.

In many other professions the consequences of error may normally result

in the missing of a deadline, the loss of a sale or the damage of a product.
Even in technical diving there is often multiple safety procedures in place
before things all go terribly wrong. Peter has few of these luxuries in a job
where error means instant death not just of one’s self but possibly of many
others in surrounding acres. He showed me a recent photograph of the
Albanian arms dump that prematurely ignited leaving a crater in the earth
measuring 583 feet long.
 ‘There used to be buildings on that spot. Anybody even close to that
explosion would have been completely vaporized.’

‘What kind of bombs have you dealt with in your time?’ I asked.

‘Grenades, mortars, artillery shells and aircraft bombs weighing up to

2,000 pounds.’

‘Have you ever had a close call in all your years of bomb disposal work?’

‘Yes, I was injured whilst disarming a Chinese grenade. The fuse

functioned unexpectedly and I was just able to toss the grenade a short
distance before it exploded, but not far enough to be out of the lethal killing
area.’

Peter rolled up his Chez Guava shirt and pointed out half a dozen entry
wounds resembling the shapes of centipedes.

‘The ‘legs’ are the old stitch scars. The surgeons weren’t as cosmetically
considerate in those days,’ he chuckled. ‘They removed a total of 23 ball
bearings from my legs arms and body; the scars are mostly caused by the
emergency surgery which was necessary to find them.’

Today Peter and I visited the SS Thistlegorm. Thistlegorm’s cargo

contained hundreds of tons of munitions. Peter has dived Thistlegorm as a
recreational diver but this time he had twin tanks of 36% Nitrox and a 50%
Nitrox decompression stage bottle. With over 80 minutes to play with he
was interested in only one thing – the bombs.

‘After years of handling explosives on the surface how did you find
looking at hundreds of live shells and bombs lying around underwater?’ I
asked.
‘Very, very interesting; I was able to identify a whole variety of different
munitions ranging from mines to massive 15 inch shells weighing almost
2,000 pounds. I’ve defused aircraft bombs weighing up to 2,000 lb but
never underwater. The shells on Thistlegorm are mostly of the armour
piercing type, some with delayed fuses so that the explosion occurs inside
the ship they’ve hit.’

I watched Peter swim among the munitions, studiously observing the

deadly relics of an era when most of the world’s greatest minds were
devoted to grand scale destruction. The products of their labours would
keep him employed for decades to come. Like the Merchant Navy crew on
Thistlegorm who perished when it sank, perhaps bomb disposal experts are
also unsung heroes in warfare. Few outsiders are aware of their deeds.
These individuals are not so much known for tangible achievements but
more for the catastrophic events that they prevent.

‘The long thin, cylindrical tubes measuring about five feet in length are
sea-mines,’ said Peter. ‘There’s one smack under the bow and then half a
dozen lying on the floor near hold four on the port side. These were often
dropped by aircraft and would sink to not more than 150 feet deep where
they would rest on the bottom. The idea is that they would blow up when a
ship went overhead. It’s very likely that they were for use in North Africa
on the Mediterranean coast.’

‘What else did you notice down there? There are many open cases of
shells, often stacked in fours.’ I asked.

‘They are the four-inch shells probably used for guns like the type seen on
the aft deck of the wreck itself. That will be the smaller of the two guns as
the one nearest the stern is a 4.7 inch calibre and would take the larger
rounds that we saw inside hold number five. The big boys are the 15 inch
shells, which would have been intended for battle ships or battle cruisers.
HMS Malaya and HMS Renown may well have been the intended
recipients. These battle cruisers were part of Force H patrolling the
Mediterranean along with HMS Ark Royal.’

Peter studied the underwater photographs we took of the two monster

shells both weighing in at almost 2,000 pounds.

‘They had a range of 22 miles and could knock out destroyers, pillboxes or
coastline defence systems or, of course, other battleships or battle cruisers.’
 ‘Over the years, divers have asked two key questions about the munitions
on the wreck of SS Thistlegorm. Firstly, how come the ship didn’t blow up
immediately with all the ammunition on board? Half of it seems to have
survived the strike, the resulting fire and then finally, the explosion in hold
number four. Surely a chain reaction would occur and blow everything up?’

‘Generally, the four inch shells wouldn’t have exploded in mass. We can
see that because some are intact and some are not. They are all strewn
around the seabed and across the remains of hold four. If the ship, however,
was filled with aircraft bombs, which contain a high proportion of HE
(High Explosive) and are thin cased or anti-tank mines then the whole lot
would have gone at once. The crew survived because of the type of cargo
on board.’

Records and survivor witness accounts show that there was a gap in excess
of 15 minutes between Thistlegorm being bombed and the secondary
explosion blowing it in two. This gave the surviving crew of 33 enough
time to get off and escape the big detonation of munitions. The survivors
also spoke of being sprayed by small arms rounds, which were going off in
the fire. Few were actually injured by the flying bullets and diving guests
have often asked why. I put the question to Peter.

‘When fired from a rifle the propellant gas is behind the bullet, so it’s
coming out at about 2,500 feet per second; that would penetrate several
millimetres of metal. In a blazing fire you wouldn’t get the same propulsion
force of a bullet fired from a rifle, not even a quarter of that, but brass
fragments from the cartridge case would be discharged as the cartridges
“cooked off” in the fire. The likelihood of a bullet penetrating a body is
much, much less.’

‘The other big question is do you think that Thistlegorm is safe for divers?
There are still a lot of live armaments lying around down there.’

‘The chances of anything going off spontaneously or even by a severe

impact, is small. Many of the shells down there are un-fused and the fuse is
the most sensitive part of the projectile. Even when fused these bombs have
many safety mechanisms to prevent accidental detonation. The primers are
at the bottom of the cartridge, which propels the shell from the gun; a lot of
these would have broken down with the ingress of seawater. On land, if you
give a primer a heavy tap with a sharp object then it would probably fire,
but underwater it’s been there so long it’s less likely. With armour-piercing
battle ship shells, of the type found on the Thistlegorm, the fusing
mechanism is inside the shell and they only detonate on impact, after
penetrating the side of a battleship. They are pretty safe.’

OceanofPDF.com
Veteran bombs disposal specialist, Peter Le Sueur, who carried out a survey of the armaments on SS
Thistlegorm. (By John Kean) This story also appeared as an article in the UK’s Diver Magazine:
http://divernet.com/Wrecks/wrecks_general/159391/the_bomb_collector.html

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A crate of 4 inch shells. The date of 1929 is inscribed on the brass casing. (By Farid Atiya)

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 Thistledowne

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 Thistledu

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 Thistleroy

The sale of these three vessels marked the end of the Albyn Line in 1966. (By D.C.E. Burrell –
Thistle Ships)

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Thirty-One

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 End of the Line

Fifty-nine year old, Kenneth Wilkinson Black was a worried man. The
1960s were a troublesome time for the shipping industry, when change was
so dramatic that it resembled the change from sail to steam 100 years earlier
but in a significantly shorter timescale. The Albyn Line was now the owner
of three modern ships, but the future for such break bulk cargo vessels was
uncertain. The era of the big containers had arrived and vessels like the
Thistle ships were fast becoming obsolete in favour of much larger ships
able to carry vast loads of ore, coal and grain.

Stuck between the containership and the bulker there was little room for
vessels like Thistleroy and her remaining sisters, at least not under the Red
Ensign. The freight market, which had fallen in 1957 after a good run,
continued to remain unattractive to fleet owners. Several ships found a new
lease of life under flags of convenience with less expensive and smaller
third world crews. Often they would delay their maintenance until the
inevitable meeting with the ship breakers.

Kenneth gave much thought to the future of his company and along with
co-directors Walter Beattie Allan, Jr, Hugh Edward Joicey and Michael
Edward Joicey they decided that to remain in business or expand would
involve borrowing money or taking the Albyn Line from a private to a
public company. Even then the prospects for a small tramp fleet did not
appear attractive and a recommendation was made to the Albyn
shareholders that the fleet should be sold off and the 65 year old company
put into voluntary liquidation.

With the support of the shareholders, Thompson and Arnell (the London
sale and purchase brokers) were appointed and through them in December
1965, an offer was received from Chapman and Willian Ltd to buy the last
three remaining Thistle ships. This offer valued Thistledowne at £285,000,
Thistledu at £390,000 and Thistleroy at £550,000. The offer was accepted
and thus early in the year 1966 the Thistle flag was flown at sea for the very
last time.
 The Albyn Line distributed £89.90 per share on liquidation and after
closing its books on the 29th March 1966 it ceased to be.

The Scottish Thistle

Adopted emblem of the Albyn Line

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The controversial mast lying on its side. After allegedly spending more than 35 years protruding the
water line by five feet it was finally levelled by explosives in the mid 70s. (By Yann Vautrin)

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 Thirty-Two

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The Mast

Even though this prolific seafarer lives many miles from his former home,
he still considers himself a ‘Sharmer’. I managed to catch up with him and
find out a missing piece of the Thistlegorm story.

‘The occupying navy used to take their boats from the Quay in Ras
Mohammed and head out around Shab Mahmoud. At Big Crack they would
cut through and head north towards the oilrigs and Suez. The Thistlegorm
mast was in the way and very much a danger to their ships, so they decided
to bring it down.’

‘Can you remember when that was exactly?’

‘Not the exact year, but it would have been in the late 70s. I had
experience with demolitions and as an active diver I was the obvious
choice. Looking back, I guess I would have done things differently now that
so much is known about the wreck. But then you could argue that because
Thistlegorm became hidden from view was perhaps a good thing as more
people would have found it and caused damage.’

‘Can you tell me very specifically how you went about bringing the mast
down? What kind of explosives and equipment did you use and where were
they placed? Many people will want to know this as they often ask why the
mast is lying down facing the main bomb damage area and not away from
it. Some have speculated that the Thistelgrom mast was struck by a passing
ship; however, the huge dent at the top was inflicted horizontally and not
vertically like a ship’s bow. Photographs and plans of similar Thistle ships
indicate that the foremasts would have been way above the water if these
ships were resting on the seabed of 100 feet. There is also a smaller part of
the mast inside the main mast which appears to have dropped down inside.
Was that the result of the explosives?’

‘First of all we tied a heavy steel cable around the upper section of the
mast. This would account for the horizontal ‘dent’, as you call it, near the
top. We did this to create a tension, which we achieved by moving the boat
forward to take up the strain. The top of the mast was frequently exposed to
both air and water and hence the oxidation had made it weak and crumbly.
That would explain why the small part may have cracked and dropped
down inside.

‘Around the base we attached a ring of plastic explosives which was called
a Salami. When the charge went off it weakened the base and the tension
from the cable brought the mast down. It wasn’t quick, more like a big tree
falling slowly to the ground after being chopped by a lumberjack’s axe.
There was no sign of Thistlegorm after that - it completely disappeared
from view, forever. I’ve heard the rumours about Jacques Cousteau, but he
didn’t do it… it was me!’

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 Thirty-Three

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Saving SS Thistlegorm

The wreck of SS Thistlegorm is fast becoming a victim of its own success

as a major visitor attraction. Egypt has generally managed to protect its
other assets such as the Pyramids and the Luxor Temples, however, situated
at 100 feet beneath the surface and around three miles from land the job of
preserving a WW2 icon wreck was never going to be straightforward.

Years ago, dive professionals would learn the ‘art’ of tying lines onto
Thistlegorm. Their apprentice-style training would allow them to gain
experience and make good decisions as to where to tie onto the wreck
without causing damage. A forty ton dive boat in a one-meter swell is no
match for fragile pieces of the ship’s fixtures or fittings to which ropes have
been tied. This recent trend of smash and grab is taking its toll on the upper
parts of the wreck where the easier option of tying off in the shallows is
favoured against the more challenging task of tying deeper on items less
likely to cause long term damage.

It is also true that a daily boat dive guide is under immense pressure to
conduct a safe day’s diving for upwards of ten divers often in adverse
weather conditions. Frequently, he or she will have to make the most of
what they have on the day where the temptation to take an environmentally
damaging short-cut for personal safety reasons can sometimes prove
overwhelming. However, with increasing signs of visible damage and
destruction few argued that ‘Something should be done about it.’

Several years of talking and debate proved worthless in the face of daily
abuse of the historic SS Thistlegorm until the first tangible efforts were
made by HEPCA (Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation
Association) in 2007. HEPCA’s managing director is Amr Ali who drafted
and implemented the first fixed mooring system since the wreck became a
popular diving attraction back in the early 90s.

The project, ‘Saving the Red Sea Wrecks’ was launched at the UK NEC
dive show in October of 2007. Leading the representation of dive boat
operators was Natalie Tyler of Blue O Two safaris. Amr, Natalie and I gave
a co-lecture to highlight the importance of this project and educate divers
about the need for long term care of the wreck.

The first phase of the moorings project began on the 15th November 2007
when Thistlegorm was closed for 30 days while drilling and installation
work was carried out. Around the wreck, HEPCA and its team of
underwater diving engineers placed a series of heavy chains, which were
drilled into the seabed to provide a foundation for the strong moorings.
Initially, these proved effective and for the first time in 15 years visitors
could see Thistlegorm in all its former glory without so much as a single
rope
obscuring its view. With no boats above the wreck, Thistlegorm was also
free of overhead shadow. Suddenly, the wreck could breathe again and the
damage slowed down.

In these brief few weeks she reminded us of why she is so special and
deserving of the efforts being made. The first mooring project proved
highly beneficial but they too almost became a victim of their own success
with several large boats mooring up on them. As a result, several of the new
lines became frayed and broken but instead of throwing the towel in, Amr
Ali and HEPCA met with all the leading Red Sea diving operators and
discussed ways of improving the system.

Additionally, HEPCA divers drilled holes in several key areas on the

wreck allowing vast pockets of trapped air to be released. This air had built
up over the years from diver’s air bubbles as they travel through the wreck.
While harmless in open water the air is corrosive to the metal of
Thistlegorm and in some places these air pockets were over a meter thick.

The second phase of moorings made a huge difference with thicker and
stronger ropes. HEPCA also provided floating buoys, which were
positioned around the wreck at about 60 feet deep. These allowed a
shallower option of tying onto the suspended new mooring ropes.

Sadly, over time, these new moorings became overwhelmed and in the
absence of a structured alternative guides have resumed tying to the wreck.
A third and stronger phase of the project is required ensuring that this
practice will cease permanently. This will only happen with a strong and
lasting alternative.

Despite the initial teething problems and physical and logistical challenges
faced by these underwater engineering teams their efforts are nonetheless
worthy of much praise.

John Kean, Amr Ali of HEPCA and Natalie Tyler of Blue O Two, meet prior to the 2007 NEC UK
dive show to discuss the Save Our Wrecks project.

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BBC Radio 4’s John Nightingale (left) making history with the first radio-recorded night dive on a
wreck. The author and Paul ‘Doozer’ Close sit left and right of sound recordist, Tim.

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 Thirty-Four

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The Fifth Survivor

Only through a series of chance discoveries and the growth in the

popularity of scuba diving was the Thistlegorm story told at all. Until that
time the Thistlegorm survivors enjoyed their lives as civilians perhaps
occasionally mentioning that they ‘Did something in the War’. Few spoke
about what was, despite the glamour of modern war films, a truly terrible
event and a scourge on humanity. Only in recent years as the Thistlegorm
story is reaching the masses are people coming forward and saying, ‘I was
on that ship too!’

In June of 2004 I received an email from a Susan Robertson who had read
the original copy of this book and wrote to say that her grandfather was one
of the survivors, William Jamieson, a radio officer. Susan forwarded details
about William’s Merchant Navy career and the time he spent on SS
Thistlegorm. In amongst the wartime records and documents were perhaps
the most significant items I have seen for the Thistlegorm – two
photographs of the brand new vessel at port in Buenos Aires during
Christmas 1940. The ship was gleaming from top to bottom.

Local journalist and underwater photographer, Richard Cook, whose

article appeared in The Leopard Magazine, interviewed William in 1994.
Just like Ray, John, Glyn and Dennis, William had a story to tell no less
spectacular than the others:

… William joined the SS Thistlegorm in 1940, at Sunderland just after she

was built. He had left his home in the village of Slains where his father and
grandfathers were farmers, joined the Merchant Navy, did his training in
Aberdeen, achieved his Seaman’s Ticket and qualified as a Ship’s Radio
Officer. He had to report to his superior officer, George Wicking, and joined
the vessel as Second Radio Officer. He was 17 at the time, and in those days
he was a man, but by today’s standards a mere boy. With not a care in the
world, reality was soon to confront him.
 By September 1941 the ship was ready to sail to the Suez loaded to the
gunnels at Glasgow with war supplies for the British Army. The cargo list,
as William remembers, was endless with Wellington boots, tunics,
motorbikes, halftracks, spare aeroplane wings, fuel tanks, trucks and jeeps.
In No. 4 and 5 holds were machine guns, rifles and large and small
munitions. William spoke of the two locomotives and their tenders that
were secured to the port and starboard decks. They were not part of the War
effort but were built by the North British Loco Works in Glasgow for the
Egyptian railways.

The Thistlegorm set sail on 5th September 1941 for Freetown, West Africa
with a backlog of three months mail, continued to Cape Town and dropped
off some cargo. Then they sailed around the Horn and followed the East
Coast of Africa past Madagascar through the Mozambique Channel to the
Indian Ocean into the Gulf of Aden. There she bunkered in the Port of Aden
for two days before joining Operation Crusade, a convoy of 19 ships
proceeding up the Red Sea to a secret anchorage – The Straits of Gubal.
The journey had taken less than three weeks.
October the 5th arrived and William had been on duty all day. He had eaten
his evening meal in the galley and decided to retire to his cabin where he
lay on his bunk and dropped off into a troubled sleep. The heat during the
day and night was taking its toll on all of the men. Many of the crew and
naval gunners slept up on deck.

The bomber circled the vessel shooting off rounds of tracers. William said
that on the third circuit it dropped two of its biggest bombs on the after-
deck near No. 4 and 5 holds. The next thing he was awakened very abruptly
by the whole vessel shaking and shuddering. He looked out of the porthole
and stepped back in horror. The sight that met his eyes was the bright
orange streaks of tracers shooting past the portholes. These were the rounds
from the bomber as it flew off. All this had taken just a moment and his
initial thoughts were to get out of the cabin. He got dressed, grabbed a
lifejacket, opened a door and looked aft; all he could see was a wall of
flames and billowing acrid smoke.

He then turned and ran forward to the main companionway, which led to
the main deck to his appointed lifeboat station. During this time there were
small explosions and bullets shooting off all around. Once on deck most of
the crew and naval gunners were also at their designated stations but worse
was to follow. When they arrived at the lifeboat it had been hit and was a
mess of flames and smoke. While explosions and fires were raging all
around him some quick thinking by the crew remembered the ‘Jolly Boat’.
This was the craft used for runs ashore when they anchored near harbours.
They started to work on its davits to see if they could lower it into the water
not noticing that the floor of the boat was full of holes due to the tracer.
Luckily the Jolly had buoyancy tanks built around her gunnels – they would
only get their feet wet.

All along, small armaments were going off and the fires raging were now
licking the tops of the masts. The tangled metal decks contorted and twisted
by the explosions were now glowing white-hot. Through the entire furore
no one had noticed a wounded naval gunner lying across the poop deck
winch, he was moaning and looked as though he had been knocked
unconscious and received a chest and shoulder wound from flying shrapnel.
It looked impossible to reach him but Angus Macleay came to the rescue
and carried him back to where the rest of the crew were waiting.

They all scrambled into the Jolly including the wounded gunner and it was
lowered into the sea. It was then rowed across the 1,000 foot gap towards
an Australian vessel the Salama that was also part of the convoy along with
HMS Carlisle. They were picked up and taken to the saloon where they
were given dry clothes and the wounded and injured tended. (Years later,
William would meet with George Wicking and recount how one
crewmember swam a distance of nearly a mile, fearing that the rescue ships
would miss him and leave him floating at sea.)

Then they heard some almighty explosions and quickly made their way to
the deck in time to see one of the two locomotives, which had been on the
deck of the Thistlegorm suddenly, lurch up into the air due to a massive
explosion in No. 4 hold. The locomotive then dropped back through the
decks setting off a chain reaction causing the whole ship to go up in smoke
and flames, lighting up the Red Sea for miles around. The crew stood and
watched as it sank. The following morning they sailed through the Suez
Canal. They docked and were then hospitalised.
 After recovering and some shore leave, William Jamieson then joined
another supply ship, the Dumfries. About a year later they were heading for
Southampton – just off the Needles – when the vessel either hit a mine or
was torpedoed, but whatever, it meant that he was shipwrecked for a second
time… and a survivor for the second time!

Not wishing to tempt fate a third time William gave up the Merchant Navy
and went home to continue his life as a farmer, following in his father’s
footsteps…

William Jamieson could be forgiven for thinking back then that

Thistlegorm was dead and buried, remaining a distant memory for just those
33 crewmembers who made it off alive and some of the rescuers of the day.
Perhaps a handful of relatives and friends would later hear their stories
before the subject petered out through new generations.

How wrong he would be!

When Thistlegorm sank it became a time capsule. It wasn’t to be opened

for the public for many years to come. Sadly, William Jamieson passed
away in 2001 but not before leaving us his wonderful account of life at sea
and on his ship, The SS Thistlegorm – a wreck now seen by an estimated
half a million visitors. The Thistlegorm survivors club soon became an
exclusive and sought after institution – now immortalised in print, film and
voice – the latter following John Nightingale’s BBC Radio 4 documentary
Diving into History which featured the world’s first radio recorded night
dive on a wreck, The SS Thistlegorm.

After giving interviews to journalists and TV documentary makers

William decided to visit his old friend, Angus Macleay in Stornaway - one
of a series of trips he made over the years. William also met his old boss,
George Wicking, another Thistlegorm veteran with whom he joined in an
interview, again in the early 90s.

With grateful thanks to Susan Robertson and the Jamieson family, and in
tribute to William himself, the following material is shown here for the first
time:
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A classic SS Thistlegorm photograph taken at Christmas time, portside in Buenos Aires, Argentina in
1940. Young William Jamieson lends his cap and jacket to the ship’s carpenter to pose beside a
gleaming new Thistlegorm easily identifiable by her fixtures and fittings. William said in interview,
‘It was a day of pictures’ referring to a number of shots taken of the Thistlegorm and its crew that
Christmas.

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 Under the watchful eye of Captain George Whitfield, 2nd Radio Officer, William Jamieson, leans
proudly against the railings below the bridge for another Christmas day photograph on the SS
Thistlegorm in Argentina. Captain William Ellis would later take over as Thistlegorm skipper in July
1941.

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Nearly 68 years later, this picture was taken at exactly the same location of the ship as she lies today.
Suffering from the elements and inappropriately tied mooring lines the bridge area has taken
something of a beating in recent years. Nonetheless, many unmistakable features of this area of the
ship remain, such as the small shelf next to the distinctive line of rivets above a row of portholes, the
lower deadeyes and the mooring bits. (By Yann Vautrin)

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Few would welcome the arrival of an official looking envelope during WW2. The office of the Albyn
Line was considerate and thoughtful enough to write a message of reassurance on the back of the
envelope bearing news of William Jamieson. It read, ‘This is not bad news.’

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 The contents of the envelope revealed. News travelled fast in the Merchant Navy during WW2; the
Jamieson family received just three days after Thistlegorm’s demise the confidential letter. They have
kept it to this day.

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Nearly four years later, William was shipwrecked again. This letter, thought to be from the Albyn
Line, via Marconi Communications, shows a very compassionate employer offering their sincerest
wishes for a less troublesome future at sea.

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William poses in another of his Merchant Navy uniforms before hostilities ceased in 1945. He left the
service to become a farmer.

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 He leaves behind him a highly respectable service record as evidenced by his Merchant
Navy’s Continuous Certificate of Discharge. Entries were made in every serviceman’s
booklet for each period spent aboard a vessel. William consistently received ‘VERY GOOD’
ratings for ability and conduct.

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 The two old Thistlegorm celebrities, Angus McLeay and William Jamieson finally meet in
Stornoway for a reunion some 50 years after the sinking. Also in the photograph is Mary Smith,
William’s elder sister who was also a resident of Stornoway. Angus was interviewed by BBC radio
and in future years featured in many articles and publications about SS Thistlegorm.

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 Thirty-Five

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A Day to Remember

Miles takes one last look at the sleeping legend before making his ascent. A
few trails of tiny silver bubbles trickle out of the wreck and flutter to the
surface. Fish appear from everywhere, fusiliers, barracuda, tuna and
snappers. The light is dimming and feeding time isn’t far away.

The surface, however, is brighter and blue with just a light swell kicked up
by a gentle breeze blowing from the Suez. Victoria 2 is a good 300 feet
away pulling up its anchor but the crew signals to Miles, floating with his
marker buoy. Five minutes later they are alongside with a rope.

‘Sorry, Miles, the anchor was caught on something but we’re clear now.’

‘No problem. Can you get the box I gave you this morning and bring it out
on the bow?’

Miles climbs the ladder for the last time that day and removes his scuba
unit and fins. A guest hands him a bottle of Baraka mineral water half of
which he drinks and the other half he tips over his face to get rid of the
saltwater stinging his eyes. After taking off his weight belt Miles walks to
the bow where Ali and the ten guests are waiting with a large, square,
brown cardboard box.

‘Let’s take the boat back along its wake and stop just over there; we
should be over the wreck in that position.’

Morgan eases Victoria 2 along the path it has just sailed to roughly where
Miles had exited the water. The sun is low now and the moon already
visible high over the mountains. Miles checks his watch; it is four in the
afternoon, but more significantly it is the 6th October 2001. From the brown
box, Miles removes the neat wreath of red roses prepared the day before by
a Sharm el Sheikh florist who’s attached an inscription on a plastic dive
slate at Miles’ request. He holds it up and reads it to himself, before tossing
the wreath ceremoniously overboard where it lands flat on the surface,
losing just a couple of rose petals before gently drifting away in the small
waves.

They all stand still, observing a minute’s silence in remembrance of the

nine crewmen who died exactly 60 years ago to the day. Miles glances
across the waves at the small green and red wreath still bobbing on the
surface. If ever he has a hard day on Thistlegorm again he need only
remember that those men had it harder. The unsung heroes of 1941 were
now sung, at least by this small collection of divers gathered three miles out
to sea on a sunny October afternoon.

One by one the guests return to the cabin where a long awaited lunch is
ready on the table. Miles remains on the bow watching the wreath until it is
out of sight. He turns to Morgan up in his bridge and gives the signal to
leave. They won’t be home until late, very late, but today that doesn’t seem
to matter. Miles looks up at the moon before joining his guests for lunch.

It is a full moon.

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 SS Thistlegorm

Monday, 6th October 1941

Arthur Cain Aged 26

Archibald Gethin Aged 19
Alfred Kean Aged 68
Donald Masterson Aged 32
Joseph Munro Rolfe Aged 17
Kahil Sakando Aged 49
Christopher Todds Aged 25
Alexander Neil Brian Watt Aged 21
Thomas Woolaghan Aged 24

May they Rest in Peace

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Thistlegorm photographer and veteran Red Sea diving instructor, Yann Vautrin.

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 The original ‘John Kean’s SS Thistlegorm – The True Story of the Red
Sea’s Greatest Shipwreck’ was launched in 2003 and then republished also
in hardback in 2009. Here is an update of some of the key players and
contributors of the book:

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Contributors

Caroline Hawkins

SS Thistlegorm has made an impact on many lives in many different

ways. For TV producer Caroline Hawkins her fascination with the history
of the wreck and her search to find its survivors marked a turning point in
her career from which she has never looked back. ‘Thistlegorm’s Last
Voyage’, her first documentary, won two international film awards and was
a critical success for the BBC. It led to further films including Survivor
Science and Natural World.

In 2004 she joined Oxford Scientific Films to head its natural history
division where she created the global hit soap opera Meerkat Manor. Now
in its fourth season and with a feature-film narrated by Whoopi Goldberg,
Meerkat Manor has been nominated for three EMMYS and in 2008 not
only won Best Popular Programme at Wildscreen but also beat The
Sopranos to clinch Best Series at a 2008 awards ceremony in Washington
DC. Caroline is married and has an eight year-old son who has yet to show
any interest in diving or filmmaking!

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Caroline Hawkins receiving the prestigious Wildscreen Award 2008 in Washington DC for Meercat
Manor which won ‘Best Series’.

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Sally Lindsay

Sally was Caroline’s research assistant for the original BBC documentary.
She was both moved and inspired researching the story of the Thistlegorm.
The attention to detail, superb directing from Caroline Hawkins, sensitivity
and high production values set a benchmark, which she has tried to emulate
in later films. These include producing an award-winning documentary on
shell shock for Channel Four, a film on Bomber Command, also for
Channel Four, a highly regarded series on head injury for the BBC, and an
exhaustive (and exhausting) series examining the cause and impact of the
Southall rail crash of 1997.

In search of light relief, she accepted the opportunity to be a producer on

I’m a Celebrity Get Me out of Here. However, her love of history pulled
her back from the brink of reality TV; she now also writes for Dorling
Kindersley. Her latest book, on World War Two, took her right back to the
era of the Thistlegorm and brought back many wonderful memories.
Married, with two daughters, she lives in Cheltenham.

Caroline and Sally Lindsay formed a lifelong friendship during the making
of ‘Thistlegorm’s Last Voyage’. Caroline is godmother to one of Sally
Lindsay’s two daughters.
Sally Lindsay during the filming of Thistlegorm’s Last Voyage. She sits with Glyn Owen following
their extensive interviews in 1995.

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Shimshon Machiah

I caught up with Thistlegorm discoverer, Shimshon Machiah, during a visit

to Eilat in 2007. It was five years since our last interview and as ever he had
a story or two to tell. But this time so did I. An earlier chance encounter
with a long-lost Sharmer revealed that a resident of a well-known Red Sea
resort back in the early 90s proudly displayed a motorbike from
Thistlegorm outside his diving centre. Not to be outdone, another fellow
resident and dive boat owner decided that the display of a Thistlegorm
locomotive outside his own nearby establishment would put his rival firmly
in his place.

Allegedly, the huge railway engine was lifted by ropes from the back of a
safari boat and towed away from the wreck on the port side. Realising that
his boat was about to suffer the same fate as the Thistlegorm the skipper cut
the ropes and let it fall to the seabed where it rests now. After hearing this
outrageous story I paid it a visit and sure enough, there were the old frayed
ropes ‘welded’ firmly to the buffers by years of coral growth. The survivors
only ever described one engine flying though the air after the explosion, yet
two sit on the seabed. I mentioned this story to Shimshon but
uncharacteristically he couldn’t recall any specific details about this event!

The amiable giant still lives on the Sunboat, but the vessel is now retired
from a long and adventurous life at sea. Its swansong was a high-risk
mission to rescue a kidnapped official from the African continent deep
south in the Red Sea where piracy and hostile waters is the norm. I’m sure
he felt very much at home! A healthy six-figure reward put him back in
business and now Shimshon is the proud owner of his new boat, the Sea
Bell, from which he runs diving and snorkelling trips out of Eilat.

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Small world big divers. Shimshon recounts the old days with former Sunboat crewmember and now
world record-holding deep diver, Leigh Cunningham. They worked together in the early 90s.
Shimshon towers over his former employee, himself a six-footer! (By John Kean)

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Shimshon reads his story in the original copy of the Thistlegorm book. It was five years since our
first interview about his rediscovery of the wreck in 1974. (By John Kean)

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Eddy Elias

Sadly, Eddy passed away since our last interview in 2002. As well as a keen
diver and skipper, Eddy was also a former motorcycle racing champion and
long-term bike enthusiast. In his last interview recorded shortly before his
death in 2006 for Sinai TV he said, ‘I wish that everyone could experience
the thrill and exhilaration of speed at least once in their lives.’

He will be missed.
Eddy Elias in his racing days.

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Farid Atiya – A Special Tribute

This book is dedicated to the memory of Farid Atiya. I was introduced to

Farid in 2001 when I was looking for a company to produce the original
copy of this book. Although Farid employed dozens of people in a large
print company in Cairo, he was also a one-man production line being an
electronic circuit designer, author, photographer, publisher, amateur
naturalist, scuba diver and book seller through many of his retail outlets
which included the shop in Cairo’s main museum.

Farid pioneered the early reference books in Egypt back in the 90s with
such titles as ‘The Red Sea in Egypt (Two volumes), ‘The Best Diving Sites
in the Red Sea’, ‘Red Sea Panorma’ and ‘The Brothers Islands – Gems of
the Red Sea’. The making of these classic titles involved travelling
thousands of miles around the Red Sea which included several trips to the
Brothers Islands at night in a Bedouin feluka boat. Farid once told me about
these trips. ‘We would wait for calm weather and then head off in the dark
so that we could see the lighthouse light on Big Brother in the distance. At
over 40km away it wasn’t visible by day and once or twice we got a bit
worried. They were adventurous days and it was amazing to be among the
first to dive these islands out in the wilderness.’

Through Atiya Press in Cairo he later produced dozens of titles about

ancient Egypt and the pyramids, some authored by himself, and others by
notable international authors such as Jean-Pierre Houdin (Khufu’s Pyramid
Revealed). Today, the press, now owned and managed by his family,
produces high quality titles which are sold all over the world.

My early development of ‘SS Thistlegorm – The True Story of the Red

Sea’s Greatest Shipwreck’ was greeted with much enthusiasm and interest
by Farid who generously donated several underwater photographs for
inclusion in the book. Farid also personally escorted me to the wreck again
where he took many new photographs which he insisted would, ‘Give the
book that extra bit of quality.’ Farid’s enthusiasm and generosity inspired
me to complete the publication and go on to write other titles.
 ‘You must write more’, he would always say. ‘Lost Wife, Saw Barracuda –
True Stories of a Sharm el Sheikh Scuba Diving Instructor’ the paperback
edition was produced in the summer of 2012 by the Atiya Press. It was a
pleasure to meet the great man again and launch another title together but
sadly Farid passed away in October.

I thank him for his inspiration over the years. He too will be greatly
missed but his work and influence very much lives on.

Farid Atiya pictured during a walkabout inside his printing house in Cairo,
March 2012. (By John Kean)

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 Epilogue

It is perhaps an irony that the pleasure of wreck diving is dependent upon

one maritime calamity or another but few would argue that it is a good thing
that the greatest source of wrecks – grand scale war – should be
diminishing. Despite recent attempts to deny the past, wartime wrecks
continue to remind us of the consequences of massive global conflict –
great loss of life and destruction. The consequences of surface-made
calamities are often quickly swept away or reconstructed. Is it any wonder
why today’s instigators of aggression have such short memories?

Maybe they should dive the Thistlegorm.

John R. Kean
May 2014

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SS Thistlegorm Facts and Figures

Official Website
www.ssthistlegorm.com

Albyn Line
Formed 21st June 1901

Thistlegorm Built
January 1940

Location
Joseph L. Thompson and Sons Ltd Sunderland

Type
Steamship, single screw

Gross Tonnage
4898

Length
415 feet/126m

Sale price
£115,000

Launched
9th April 1940, by Mrs K.W. Black

Voyages
1. USA to bring back steel rails and aircraft parts
2. Argentina, returning with grain
3. West Indies for sugar and rum
4. Final voyage to Suez

Crew
 42

Bombed
6th October 1941

Casualties
9

Cousteau’s visit
1955

discovered
haps unknown but widely recognised as being in 1974 by Shimson Machiah.

Dive site
First publicised in 1992

Television
First UK TV documentary in 1995
Thistlegorm’s Last Voyage by Caroline Hawkins

Location
Safe anchorage ‘F’ in the Straits of Gubal

Depth
Deepest point at 31m
Shallowest point at 13m

Position
Sha’ab Ali 27 48.800  N / 33 55.250  E

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Thank you for reading this book. If you enjoyed it then do please leave your
review on Amazon:

SS Thistlegorm - Amazon.com

SS Thistlegorm - Amazon.co.uk

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 About the Author

John Kean is a diver, writer and more recently a long distance motorcycle
rider. He has written six books, including the bestselling, ‘Lost Wife Saw
Barracuda – True Stories from a Sharm el Sheikh Scuba Diving Instructor’
and more recently, ‘Sharks, Fights and Motorbikes – When it Rains in
Egypt’. 2015 and 2016 saw the release of ‘The Great Buoyancy Scam’ and
‘A Walk on the Deep Side.’ His new book, Spring Loaded, will be released
in August 2022. He was born in Wimbledon, UK and spent 20 years living
in Egypt.
 John Kean Amazon Author Page

https://www.facebook.com/JohnKeanAuthorPage

https://www.instagram.com/deepsidejohn/

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Contact the Author

[email protected]

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 Acknowledgements

My debut on the Thistlegorm wreck was probably like that of thousands of

other divers - a day out during a one-week scuba holiday in the Red Sea.
That was back in July 1997. The dive centre wouldn’t let me go in January
that year, I’d only just qualified as a diver, but that didn’t dampen my
enthusiasm to return and gain the experience to dive the wreck. It was
worth the six-month wait and exceeded all expectations imaginable. 16
years later and with more than 300 dives to the wreck it still represents one
of the best days out at sea. I will never get the chance to dive Thistlegorm
again for the first time, but many of my guests and students are doing this
each week. For as long as these newcomers continue to surface from their
debut dives wide-eyed and grinning from ear to ear then that’s good enough
for me.

The story of the Red Sea’s greatest shipwreck spans over 100 years from
the humble beginnings of the Thistle Ship Company in 1901 to present day
diving on the wreck in this, its 73rd anniversary year. Since 1992, visits to
SS Thistlegorm have attracted over half a million divers contributing
millions of dollars to the economies of Sharm el Sheikh and Hurghada.
Each new visitor will talk of his or her own experience of Thistlegorm and
in the writing of this book I have had the pleasure of meeting many
individuals who have spoken of some unique connection with the wreck
itself, such as those who had relatives on board and even Bedouin natives
who told eye-witness accounts of WW2 activity from the shores of the
Sinai coastline.

A trip around Thistlegorm today is like travelling through time and many
visitors experience high emotions during the dive. It is after all a bombsite
with highly visible signs of great destruction and loss. It’s also a giant
underwater museum, a war grave, a unique piece of military history and an
opportunity to step into the past during a period when the free world was
under threat from one of the most tyrannous regimes of modern times. This
was a period when three-quarters of all merchant ships sunk by the enemy
went under within 15 minutes. So fast to their grave did some plummet that
many brave deed went unnoticed. In spite of this, a total of 9,027 honours
and awards were made to members of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleet
including Thistlegorm’s own, Angus Macleay, who received the George
Medal and Lloyds War Medal for his heroism on the 6th October 1941.

Despite extensive public knowledge and interest in Thistlegorm, it will

continue to inspire a sense of mystery. Jacques Cousteau’s visit in 1955
remains the subject of much discussion and like the legend himself,
Thistlegorm continues to attract speculation and controversy from beyond
the grave. References to alleged activities of Cousteau in this book are
simply that – allegations, or stories passed down among the dive
community and from those who claim to have known the great man.

Whilst a touch of dramatisation has been added for extra effect, all of the
characters and events in this book were or are very real, with the exception
of Miles Rogers who, while fictional in name, does exist in job description
as a Sharm el Sheikh dive guide. His story is a familiar tale, typical of many
of the 950 registered guides and instructors who count the Thistlegorm run
as part of their profession in Sharm el Sheikh. Working long hours and
often with significant risk to their personal safety these dive guides ensure
that each visiting guest has an enjoyable and memorable trip to this famous
wreck.

The accounts of the survivors are reproduced with kind permission of

Caroline Hawkins who in 1995, whilst making the award-winning BBC TV
documentary Thistlegorm’s Last Voyage, had the unique opportunity of
interviewing three Thistlegorm survivors and a Royal Marine gunner, who
witnessed the attack from the escort ship HMS Carlisle. Each describes, in
his own words, his version of events before, during and after the bombing
by two, Luftwaffe, Heinkel planes.

Survivor photographs and personal accounts are reproduced by kind

permission of Mrs Ella Whitham, Mrs Jean Gray, Mr I.T. Ellis, Mrs Irmgard
Bansall and Susan Roberston. Where we have been unable to contact
relatives we trust they would have approved of our efforts to tell the true
story of the Thistlegorm and those who served on her and would have
allowed the use of their material. It is also with grateful thanks to some of
the residents of Sharm el Sheikh who were able to fill in many of the
missing gaps about the rediscovery of the wreck.

It is also with grateful thanks for the valuable new contributions from
survivor’s relatives that this revised and bigger edition is published. I
particularly thank Susan Robertson who has come forward with details
about her grandfather, William Jamieson, who served as a radio operator
aboard the SS Thistlegorm when it was sunk in 1941.

I also thank the efforts of HEPCA and Amr Ali (RIP) who have made
great strides in launching a wreck protection project to include SS
Thistlegorm and other Red Sea icon wrecks. All are now officially
recognised as protected wrecks and must remain so.

The following people and organisations have also greatly assisted me in

the story of SS Thistlegorm and to them I give my heartfelt thanks and
appreciation:

Glyn Owen, Ray Gibson, John Whitham, Denis Gray, William Jamieson,
Farid Atiya, Edward Elias, Derek Kean, David Burrell, Steve Bryson, Joyce
Rogers, Sigrid Kemptner, Silke Beckmann, Rolf Schmidt, Hesham Gabr,
Salah Biyouk, John Liddiard, Robert Hawkins, Simon Mills, General
Ahmed Saleh Al Edkawy, Tamer Elana, The crews of New Age &
Delphinis (who taught me how to tie knots!) Diver Magazine, Public
Records Office in Kew, The Imperial War Museum, Maritime Museum of
Greenwich, Stornaway Gazette, Susan Robertson, Leopard Magazine,
Shimshon Machiah and his Sun Boat, Yann Vautrin, Nathan and Natalie
Tyler of Blue O Two Safaris, the Ocean College Dive Centre in Sharm El
Sheikh and Beyond Limits Dive Stores in Egypt.

Above all, I would particularly like to thank Caroline Hawkins and Sally
Lindsay, for without their valuable contributions and extensive research
work this book would not be possible.

Underwater photography

By
Caroline Hawkins, Farid Atiya, Yann Vautrin and others where accredited.
Front Cover Kindle Edition photograph by Denis Zorzin.

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