Silent Warriors

Volume 2 of Ron Young and Pamela Armstrong’s informative trilogy on submarine wrecks of the British Isles focuses on the South Coast, from Beachey Head in Sussex down to the Isles of Scilly. More than 150 British submarine and U-boat wrecks in British coastal waters, specifically those in the English Channel, are described in detail, including information on the vessel’s type and technical specifications, its voyage history, how it was sunk, a list of crew at the time of loss, details of the wreck site, and the current state of the wreck. Huddled with a knot of shivering boatmates, we endure the anguish of young Rudy Wieser as his stricken boat, U 1195, slowly fills with freezing water and chlorine gas, and 19-year-old Franz Neumayr, who survived the sinking of U 1063 with 16 colleagues. Then there is the tragic quintet of British boats lost in these waters. We read of the last patrols of L24, M2, and M1, and, perhaps most poignantly, of HMS Swordfish.