From the Debris Fieldw….
Wreck divers are invited to submit short pieces of timely information about a shipwreck in their general area. Perhaps there is not enough information, or not enough archival and/or underwater images, to submit it as a full-length article, so this From the Debris Field… column becomes the ideal venue for a short piece. This, however, does not preclude it from becoming a full-length article in the future.
We welcome short, written submissions, ideally, but not necessarily, accompanied by a photo or two, for future issues of Wreck Diving Magazine. Please send them to joe@wreckdivingmag.com
Grave Robbing a World War One Shipwreck?
When blood-stained canvas hammocks used by wounded World War I soldiers on board the ocean liner, RMS Hesperian, surfaced in the final months of 2017 from the waters off Ireland’s southern coast, and brass taps and water pipes were snagged in commercial fishing nets, it was feared that the 102-year-old shipwreck had been recently disturbed.
The 448-foot (148-meter)-long RMS , a British ocean liner built in 1908 and used as a transport during World War One, was steaming between Liverpool and Montreal when it, the same U-boat that had attacked and sunk the RMS a few months earlier, on May 15, 1915, an act that eventually inflamed the U.S.A. enough to declare war against Germany. While 1,198 passengers and crew died in the RMS sinking, the human toll in the attack on the HMS was 32 lives. The latter ship sank in deep water two days after the attack while being towed back towards Ireland in a damaged condition.
