‘Somber and eerie’ shipwreck filled with live torpedoes found off Scotland, captain says
Divers recently discovered a century-old shipwreck off the coast of the United Kingdom, according to a ship captain.
The vessel is a German submarine that was sunk during World War I, Hazel Weaver, a ship captain who oversaw the expedition, told McClatchy News.
It was found 341 feet underwater near the Shetland Islands, a Scottish archipelago.
“Lots of live torpedoes and mines” were spotted on the wreck, Weaver said. A deck gun and hatches leading into the vessel’s interior were also located.
Videos posted by Jacob Mackenzie, one of the divers, show fish darting around the monochrome gray wreck, which appears overgrown with plants and coral.
“If you haven’t been to those depths before you won’t appreciate that it’s pitch black, it’s very quiet,” Mackenzie told the BBC.
Based on the ship’s design, divers were able to identify it as a German U-boat, a type of military submarine that once stealthily prowled the sea, searching for and sinking enemy ships.
Damage to the hull further helped identify the vessel as SM UC-55, a submarine sunk by the British Royal Navy near the end of World War I.
After sustaining a leak while laying mines on Sept. 29, 1917, the German vessel was forced to surface off the Shetland Islands, according to Lost In Waters Deep, a group that researches lost shipwrecks.
Several British Royal Navy ships then spotted the submarine and opened fire, eventually sinking the vessel, according to the site. Seventeen of its sailors were taken captive, while the rest were not as fortunate.
“Eleven of her crew lost their lives in the sinking,” Weaver said, “so we treated the site as a war grave.”
The British government has designated the site as an official war grave, meaning no future dives can be made without express permission from the government, a spokesman for the Royal Navy told McClatchy News.
“Those who lost their lives should be left in situ and undisturbed,” the spokesman said.
About 20 million people, including soldiers and civilians, died during World War I, one of the deadliest conflicts in history, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The wreck is “a somber and eerie reminder” of the war, Weaver said.
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