Ships Lost to Mines

The Dakotian's end came with shocking speed. A Heinkel 111H bomber dropped a parachute magnetic mine into Milford Haven in November 1940, and when it detonated against the anchored cargo steamer she went down in barely three minutes — one of the earliest parachute mine casualties in Welsh waters. What the site lacks in crystal water it makes up for in atmosphere: swimming along a 120-metre hull canted on its beam ends, knowing how suddenly and violently her war ended, gives the Dakotian a sombre character that clear-water wrecks sometimes lack.

If there is a gateway wreck on the Lizard Peninsula, the Volnay is it. A German mine from UC-64 ended her war service in December 1917 while she carried Canadian ammunition south past the Manacles. Her two great boilers now anchor the site, rising from silty sand that conceals wooden ammunition boxes, scattered bollards, and chain. Pink sea fans have colonised the higher wreckage, adding unexpected colour to a scene that might otherwise be all rust and silt.

Of the twelve men aboard the armed minesweeper George Milburn, only one lived: the blast hurled him clear into the sea, and a passing fishing boat later picked him up. She was a 37-metre steel steam trawler, built by R. Irvin & Son and converted for war service. On 12 July 1917 she was escorting the oiler SS Wylie on the run from Queenstown to Milford when a mine from UC-42 went off amidships and tore her apart, killing eleven of her crew outright. She now lies broken in two at 23 metres, west of Hook Head in Waterford Harbour, and is a designated war grave.

The crew of UC-42 were laying mines to destroy other ships when one of their own mines destroyed them. On 10 September 1917, this German UC II-class minelaying submarine was deploying a minefield at the entrance to Cork Harbour off Roches Point when a mine detonated, killing all 27 crew instantly. She rests on her port side with the keel visible and an external bow torpedo tube lying in the silt beneath. A licence under the National Monuments Acts is required to dive this protected site.

She never made it. British hydrophone operators tracked her approach and detonated a remote-controlled mine that killed all 34 crew — the last U-boat lost in the First World War. Raised in 1919, she broke free and sank again at the mouth of Pan Hope Bay; a controlled explosion later dealt with her remaining live torpedoes, and the blast left her barely recognisable as a submarine. What remains is a scattered field of torn steel and bent piping in 26 to 32 metres, with the conning tower standing as the only clearly identifiable feature. Orientation is challenging, but the story gives every twisted plate its weight. This is the physical full stop at the end of the U-boat war.

Friday the 13th lived up to its reputation. On 13 April 1917, the SS Bandon struck a mine from German submarine UC-44 off Mine Head while sailing from Liverpool to Cork. The blast beside the engine room killed 28 crew; only 4 survived, including Captain Kelly. In a grim twist, UC-44 herself was destroyed just four months later by one of her own mines off Dunmore East, with her commander Kurt Tebbenjohanns as the sole survivor. The Bandon wreck lies badly broken up at 33-34 metres, oriented east-west. INFOMAR multibeam surveyed. Built in 1910 by Swan Hunter, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 81.1 metres long. War grave.

No wreck anywhere on the Sussex coast is larger. The RMS Alaunia, a Cunard Line ocean liner of over 13,000 tons, was designed for the transatlantic trade and had room for more than 2,000 passengers, at a time when going by sea was the only way across. War gave her a first in 1914: no Cunard ship before her had carried Canadian troops over to fight in Europe. Two years on, on 19 October 1916, she was outward bound from London for New York when she hit a mine off the Royal Sovereign Lightship, and two of her crew died in the sinking. Off Eastbourne she rests on her port side in around 36 metres, the 159-metre hull rising 10 metres above the seabed in places. Her bow is canted at a striking 45-degree angle, the port anchor still hanging from its hawsehole, and lines of portholes are still fitted along the riveted plating of her hull.

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.

At 43 metres on a rocky seabed near Baltimore, a German U-boat sits almost perfectly intact -- torpedoes still loaded in their tubes, the periscope glass unbroken, the Walter snorkel standing upright after eight decades on the bottom. U-260 was a Type VIIC submarine that struck a British mine approximately 32 kilometres south of the Fastnet Rock on 12 March 1945. The entire crew survived and were interned in Ireland for the rest of the war. Apart from mine damage to the bow, the hull is remarkably preserved. The conning tower, twin bronze propellers, and DF aerial all remain in place.

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.

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.