Published on 19/05/2007
http://www.arranbanner.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/274/War_dead_on_HMS_Vandal_remembered.html
EX-SUBMARINERS in Scotland have paid their annual tribute to the drowned crew of one of Barrow’s shortest-lived submarines.
Sixty members of the Submariners Association Scottish Branch went to Lochranza to pay homage at the war grave of HMS Vandal, which sank on an exercise in 1943 during the Second World War.
But HMS Vandal was not discovered until 1995 with all the crew still aboard.
This month’s ceremony marked the 10th anniversary of the unveiling of a memorial cairn at Lochranza, on the Isle of Arran, by the Royal Navy.
HMS Vandal was a Royal Navy U-class submarine and was launched in Barrow on November 23, 1942.
The sub was lost while carrying out an exercise in the Kilbrannan Sound following commissioning and had been last seen leaving its anchorage on February 24, 1943 at Lochranza.
An inquiry at the time of her loss concluded that she had sunk during a deep dive she was scheduled to perform later that day north of Inchmarnock.
In reality she never got near Inchmarnock.
At the time of the loss a spotter plane reported a large slick of oil two miles north of Arran, but the authorities dismissed the report.
At the time, prime minister Winston Churchill demanded a full report on the loss of the Vandal, and asked if the submarine had been recovered.
He was told it was lost in deep water off Inchmarnock where salvage would be impossible.
In 1994 the Scottish Branch of the Submariners Association finally persuaded the Navy to search the area north of Arran where a number of trawlers had reported their nets being snagged by an underwater object.
Divers located the vessel lying in pitch darkness on a muddy slope 100m down with a 35 degree list to port just two miles north of Lochranza.
Her 12 pounder forward gun remains covered with a trawler’s net and all 37 officers and men are still on board.
It was recognised by the Royal Navy as an official war grave.
Every year since 1997 a contingent of submariners has travelled to Lochranza to pay their respects to the 37 souls still entombed in Vandal.
(DeepImage is grateful to Barbara Coffee for researching her family and sending this photograph of her father’s cousin, JOSEPH WILLIAM COFFEE, who died when HM Submarine VANDAL failed to surface on 24th February 1943.
Joseph William COFFEE 30.20.1920 ~ 24.02 1943 Service number C/SSX 30251
H.M.Submarine VANDAL Remembered with honour)
HMS Vandal Expedition 2003
Team | History | Expedition | Logistics | Larry Gaines | Results | Sponsors
Sinking Theory | Expedition Images | Wreck Images | Online article |Links
Expedition Mission; To positively identify HMS Vandal, add weight to some of the theories about the sinking and above all write the final chapter for the wreck to be left in peace. The dives will be conducted in some of the most unimaginable conditions in the world and at a depth of 100m/330ft off Scotland’s west coast.
http://www.deepimage.co.uk/wrecks/vandal/vandal_pages/vandal-mainpage.htm