Imported post
Hi Ian
CADMUS, Depth 25m, lowest astronomical depth.
Reference: N53 50 950 E000 12 344
Location: 18.97-miles SSE from Flamborough Head & 9.32-miles NE from Withernsea.
At 8.40 p.m. on 18th October 1917, the CADMUS was torpedoed and sunk by the German Imperial U-boat SM UC 47. Under the command of Captain M. Morilla, the SS CADMUS was on passage from Dunkirk for Blyth after picking up a valuable 900-ton cargo of empty brass shell cases for recycling from the Western Front. Before firing the torpedo, the U-boat had shadowed the steamer for some time and on a parallel course without navigation lights. Some of the crew actually saw the wake of the approaching missile. However, there was insufficient time to take evasive action, before it detonated in the No-2 hold. The explosion caused such a massive hole below the waterline that the steamship immediately settled to port and started to sink. Her crew of twenty-two abandoned ship in the two boats at once and sat watching their vessel go down, just ten minutes following the explosion. The enemy-raider surfaced and stayed in the vicinity for further twenty-five minutes, but made no further effort to bother the survivors. Luckily weather conditions were reasonable and the crew in the master’s boat were picked up off Spurn and landed at Immingham. The other boat carrying the mate was picked up by a patrol-boat and landed at Grimsby.
The SS CADMUS was insured under the Government’s war risk scheme and Christian Salvesen received £93,000 for her, making a profit of £48,495 from her loss.
(SM UC 47 was later rammed and sunk off Flamborough Head on 18th November 1917.)
Wreck-site
The wreck lies orientated in a NE to SW direction, on a seabed of fine sand, small black shells and stones, in a general depth of 25m, being the lowest astronomical depth. She has been commercially salvaged in recent times, but much of her cargo, which includes boxes of live shells and empty 8.16-kilos (18-pound) shells are still scattered around. Locally she is now referred to as ‘the shell-case-supermarket’, but local divers ration themselves to two shells per person. There was so much of the cargo left, that at one time, the authorities considered declaring her a prohibited site to sport-divers. Large amounts of the wreck are now partially buried and the upper structures are collapsed and broken. She is lying in two halves near the boiler and engines and large loose coils of steel-wire, empty shell cases and other debris lie between the two major sections. A spare propeller lies aft of the boiler. The hold still contains many complete boxes of shell cases in good condition and only recently the ship’s compass was recovered among the shell cases.
Cheers Ron
Hope that helps
