Steve Dover reports on Leamington & Warwick BSAC ’ s expedition to locate , dive and identify a Navy Trawler sunk by a WW1 mine off the Isle of Wight
UKDIVING
Peter Draper
Never Forgotten :
The Apley Project
Steve Dover reports on Leamington & Warwick BSAC ’ s expedition to locate , dive and identify a Navy Trawler sunk by a WW1 mine off the Isle of Wight
Cowes
●
●Newport Isle of Wight
Shanklin ●
Ventnor ● Steephill Cove
Portsmouth ●
● Ryde Seaview ●
Priory Bay
Bembridge ● Whitecliff Bay
Sandown ● Sandown Bay
Highland Brigade
SS Luis
HMT Apley
� � � � � � � � � � � � � �
HMT Apley
At 9am on 6 December 1917 , a telegram from Admiral at Portsmouth to The Admiralty read :
Regret to report that Trawler No . 143 APLEY was blown up by a German mine this morning Thursday in position Lat 50.36 N Long 0.55 and a half West . List of casualties will be reported later . Request a wireless Mine Sweeping Trawler be sent to replace APLEY with an Officer trained in Mine Sweeping in Command .
As with so many of these communications it is purely factual , almost completely bereft of emotion and seeking to plug a gap in defences caused by the loss of a ship . After enduring three years of the savage ‘ War to end all Wars ’ we can only imagine how the loss of lives had numbed the minds of those closest to the action . There was simply no time to dwell on the human loss . Just an imperative to keep fighting and defending .
Six men survived , but 11 lives were lost .
Relatives and research
On board His Majesty ’ s Trawler ( HMT ) Apley was Royal Naval Reservist ( RNR ) Frederick James Bloxham Walker , the ship ’ s wireless telegraphist . He was the 3rd cousin of one of our divers – Peter Draper . As well as a keen BSAC diver , Peter has a passion for researching his ancestry and it was while following one thread of the family histories , with the cause of death stated as : “ Killed when ship in which he was serving was sunk ”. The date on the certificate was 6 December 1917 .
In that moment of realisation , the seed of the Apley Project was sown in Peter ’ s mind . Perhaps he could find the wreck of the ship , and perhaps it was at a depth that could be dived ? With the help of his BSAC club and its members , he could resurrect the story of the Apley , his third cousin and the others who were lost in a spirit of remembrance .
Additional trips by Peter to the National Archives at Kew surfaced a wealthy seam of interrelated information . This included some entries in HMT Apley ’ s log factually recording arduous sweeping duties ; the odd order received from Portsmouth Admiralty and a single line , “ Albion sunk ”, recording the loss of another trawler in the flotilla that swept the busy shipping lanes between the Owers Lightship and the Isle of Wight .
Peter ’ s other research uncovered that the mine that sunk Apley was from the German submarine UC-71 under the command of Oberleutnant Ernst Steindorff . Four months after the sinking of HMT Apley , UC-71 torpedoed and sank the SS Highland Brigade and SS Luis , carrying general cargo and anti-personnel munitions .
With Apley as the focal point and UC-71 as a common denominator in the demise of all three vessels , a plan was drawn up to dive Highland Brigade and Luis on the Saturday , and then the Apley – being the deepest – on the Sunday .
40