British Sub Lost During WWII Discovered in North Sea

It was sunk by a Nazi vessel in 1940
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 7, 2016 6:00 PM CDT
British Sub Lost During WWII Discovered in North Sea
The wreckage of a British T-class submarine, such as this one, was found earlier this year after disappearing during a battle in 1940.   (Wikimedia Commons)

A WWII submarine that is the final resting place for at least 50 British sailors has finally been found 76 years after it was sunk off the coast of Denmark, Gizmodo reports. Records show the HMS Tarpon—which Archaeology describes as a Royal Navy T-class submarine—attacked a German vessel believed to be running guns to Norway in 1940. But its torpedoes missed the Schiff 40 while alerting the vessel to its presence. The Schiff 40 proceeded to launch a lengthy attack on the Tarpon using depth charges. It was never known exactly what ultimately happened to the British submarine or where it sank.

That changed last March when the owner of a war museum and an archaeologist discovered the wreck of the Tarpon 130 feet below the surface of the North Sea, the Guardian reports. Danish divers explored the 275-foot submarine last week. The evidence of the Tarpon's final battle was still visible in the wreckage. Two of its torpedo tubes were empty, and it had sustained significant enough damage that Innes McCartney, one of its discoverers, says "it would have flooded in seconds." One of the Nazi depth charges even left a crater in the seafloor. McCartney says he hopes officials will find a way to protect the wreckage. "After all, they are the tombs of British sailors," he says. (The fate of a lost German U-boat was revealed a century later.)

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