Wrecks off Malin Head, Donegal

Twenty-five bars of gold remain unaccounted for. The White Star Line passenger liner, converted to an Armed Merchant Cruiser, struck two mines laid by U-80 off Fanad Head on 25 January 1917, sinking with the loss of 354 lives in temperatures of minus 9 degrees Celsius. The wreck at approximately 40 metres off Lough Swilly is heavily collapsed from both natural deterioration and years of intensive salvage.

The SS Carthaginian set out for Montreal but got no further than Malin Head. A steel steamship of 4,444 GRT belonging to the Allan Line, she had been built in 1884 by the Govan Shipbuilding Co. for the run between Glasgow and Montreal; she was 116 metres long and 21 metres across, with room for 596 passengers and a crew of 57. On 14 June 1917, about 2.5 miles northwest of Inishtrahull Lighthouse, she ran onto a mine sown by the German submarine U-79. Her wreck rests at around 58 metres and lies fairly flat, rising no more than 4.3 metres from the bottom. She is one of a remarkable cluster of wrecks off Malin Head, on this stretch of the Donegal coast.

For the entire duration of World War I, the British Admiralty pretended HMS Audacious still existed. The King George V-class dreadnought battleship struck a German mine off Tory Island on 27 October 1914 -- one of the first major warship losses of the war. Despite hours of rescue attempts, she capsized after a magazine explosion. All crew were rescued by the White Star liner RMS Olympic, sister ship of the Titanic. The loss was kept secret to deny Germany a propaganda victory. The wreck now lies inverted at 58-68 metres depth, roughly 18 nautical miles northeast of Tory Island.

SM U-89 sits at approximately 62 metres depth, 25 miles off Malin Head, remarkably well preserved with deck guns at both bow and stern and torpedoes still in storage. She surfaced just 200 yards ahead of the cruiser HMS Roxburgh on 12 February 1918. The cruiser rammed the conning tower without hesitation, sending U-89 to the bottom with all 43 crew. Large cod, pollock, and conger eels patrol the wreck. Designated war grave.

Ninety seconds. That was all the time between the torpedo impact and the Pinto disappearing beneath the Atlantic. She was doing what rescue ships do -- stationary, picking survivors from the water after U-482 had torpedoed the SS Empire Heritage just 30 minutes earlier. The same U-boat fired again, and the 1,346 GRT convoy rescue ship sank almost instantly. Captain Lawrence Boggs, M.B.E., was among the dead. Built in 1928 and converted for rescue service in May 1942, the Pinto had sailed with 10 convoys before her loss on 8 September 1944 while stationed with Convoy HX 305. The wreck at approximately 66 metres lies near the Empire Heritage wreck site, north-northeast of Tory Island.

She nearly changed the course of the war. U-2511 was the only operationally deployed Type XXI "Elektroboot" submarine in World War II -- the revolutionary design that could have devastated Allied shipping had it entered service earlier. Commanded by Korvettenkapitan Adalbert Schnee, she made one war patrol and had a British cruiser group in her sights before the ceasefire aborted the attack. Surrendered at Bergen, Norway, she was scuttled by Royal Navy gunfire on 7 January 1946 during Operation Deadlight after her towing cable parted. One of the most historically significant U-boat wrecks anywhere. Featured on BBC Dig WW2 with Dan Snow.

Sherman tanks sit upright on the seabed at 67 metres, some perfectly intact, others still racked neatly in the holds three deep. The SS Empire Heritage was a 15,702 GRT tanker carrying aviation fuel, tanks, and half-track military vehicles from New York as part of Convoy HX-305 when U-482 torpedoed her on 8 September 1944 approximately 20 nautical miles northwest of Malin Head. She went down in under five minutes, killing 113. Thirty minutes later, the same U-boat torpedoed the rescue vessel Pinto as she picked up survivors. The wreck is a designated war grave.

Her first commander, Adolf Piening, gave his name to the Piening route across the Bay of Biscay, and in August 1944 command of the Type IXC boat passed to Ludwig-Ferdinand von Friedeburg, the youngest U-boat commander of the war. U-155 surrendered at Fredericia in Denmark in May 1945, was moved to Loch Ryan that summer for Operation Deadlight, the Allied disposal of surrendered U-boats, and was sunk on 21 December 1945. Her crew kept meeting long after the war, and at their reunion in 1995 the RAF pilot who had once bombed her was among them. A team led by the nautical archaeologist Innes McCartney found and identified her in 2001, sitting upright and largely intact; she lies in 70.5 metres of water.

It took two U-boats and two days to sink the Justicia, at 32,234 GRT and 237 metres long one of the largest vessels lost during World War I; accounts of how many torpedoes struck her range from four to six. Laid down as the Holland-America liner Statendam, she was completed as a British troopship. UB-64 torpedoed her northwest of Malin Head on 19 July 1918, but she stayed afloat and was taken in tow. The next day UB-124 found her and fired two more torpedoes, and by noon she had rolled over and gone down. She lies at 70 metres, more than 25 nautical miles offshore, and everything about her is built on a vast scale: oversized chains, derricks and capstans on the foredeck, and a massive anchor still in place on the broken-off bow.

Owned in New Zealand, pressed into service by Britain and sunk by a German torpedo, the SS Roscommon ended her days off the Irish coast. Workman, Clark & Co. built her in Belfast in 1902 for the Union Steamship Co. of New Zealand, a cargo steamship of 8,238 GRT. In the First World War she was taken up under the Liner Requisition Scheme, and on 21 August 1917, on passage from Manchester to Australia, she was caught about 20 miles northeast of Tory Island by U-53, commanded by Kapitanleutnant Hans Rose. No casualties were reported. Her wreck lies at 76 metres, among the deeper wrecks off Malin Head.

First blood from the Berlin minefield. On 23 October 1914, the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Berlin laid 200 mines off northwest Ireland on her very first wartime mission. Four days later, the SS Manchester Commerce sailed straight into them while bound from Manchester to Quebec. Fourteen crew died including the Master. On the same day, the same minefield claimed a far more famous victim: the dreadnought battleship HMS Audacious.

She sent no distress signal, left no survivors and has never been given a conclusive explanation. HMS Viknor disappeared off Tory Island on 13 January 1915, taking all 295 hands with her, and her loss ranks among the worst the Royal Navy suffered off Ireland during World War I. Her career had begun in 1888 as RMS Atrato. A later sale renamed her The Viking and turned her into a cruise ship, and late in 1914 the Admiralty requisitioned her and sent her to war. What sank her was never established. The chief suspect is the minefield laid by SMS Berlin, which also accounted for HMS Audacious and SS Manchester Commerce. Not until 2006 was the wreck found, by the Irish survey vessel Celtic Explorer, at a depth of 85 metres some 18 kilometres west of Tory Island. She is a designated war grave.

Built in 1925 by Fairfield Shipbuilding in Glasgow for the Anchor Line, she was requisitioned in August 1939 and converted to armed merchant cruiser F56, serving on the Northern Patrol. On 10 August 1940, U-56 torpedoed her approximately 40 nautical miles northwest of Malin Head. Taken in tow, she later foundered. Approximately 300 officers and ratings were rescued by nearby trawlers. The wreck requires a 3-4 hour boat transit from the Donegal coast.