Off the coast of the Scottish Isles, divers explored a sunken ship they identified as the German submarine SM UC-55.
This is reported Heritage Daily.
The SM UC-55 is a Type UC II minelayer submarine. It is one of 64 UC II submarines used by the Imperial German Navy during the First World War.
This vessel is credited with sinking 9 ships in its service history. At the time of the sinking, there were 26 crew members on board under the command of Horst Rühle von Lilienstern. On 25 September 1917, SM UC-55 left Heligoland with the mission of placing mines in the Lervik Canal. It was a strategic area serving as a southern route to the port of Lerwick in Shetland.
The sinking occurred when the submarine was carrying out mine operations. She lost her skin, which ended with a dive beyond her working depth. As a result, the bow compartments were flooded, after which the battery failed, and chlorine gas also accumulated.
The captain realized that the ship could no longer be saved, and therefore ordered to surface. However, SM UC-55 was spotted by the armed trawler Moravia and the destroyers HMS Tirade and HMS Sylvia. It was the latter that fired shells and depth charges that destroyed the German submarine.
Its fragments were first found back in 1985 at a depth of 105 meters. However, only thanks to a recent visual inspection by divers, it was possible to identify the found object.
“It certainly didn’t sink by accident. It was wartime and if you haven’t been to these depths before, you won’t appreciate that it’s pitch dark, very quiet, it’s pretty creepy when you’re swimming doing it. Deep down you have to remember that this is, in fact, a grave for probably 20 people who, unfortunately, did not make it out alive, ”shared Jacob McKenzie from the diving team
Cursor also reported that archaeologists have found large public baths in Spain.
2023-07-29 01:15:54
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