A British World War II submarine that disappeared with 64 people on board during a secret mission in 1943 has been found off Greece.
The remains of HMS Trooper have been discovered 830 feet underwater by a private deep-sea research company, solving the 81-year-old mystery over its whereabouts.
The 275-foot-long submarine is divided into three distinct sections, the owner of Planet Blue, the company that found the ship, told Greek media.
Costas Thoktaridis said the separation of the bow, midsection and stern confirms that HMS Trooper suffered a very violent sinking following a mine explosion.
The discovery of the wreck is expected to finally bring some closure to the families of the submarine’s crew, which included British submariners and Australian volunteer Lieutenant John Stuart Ryder, 22.
HMS Trooper discovered by Greek deep sea search team
Creepy footage shows fish circling barnacle-covered submarine wreckage
Submarines aboard HMS Trooper in an image from February 4, 1943.
File image showing the Royal Navy submarine HMS Trooper at sea, undated
Richard Wraith CBE, a Royal Navy captain and son of the captain of HMS Trooper, said of the news: “I have known for many years of the painstaking effort of the search team to locate the wreckage of the submarine and I am now very pleased.” and excited that their efforts were rewarded.
“I hope that the family members of those who were lost along with my father can use the Trooper’s final status as a reference point to help lay to rest the memories of their loved ones.”
George Malcolmson, former director of the British Royal Navy’s Royal Submarine Museum Archive, told Greek news agency ANA-MPA that he was “very moved” to hear that Thoktaridis and his team had solved the decades-old mystery.
HMS Trooper was launched in October 1943 for a patrol mission between the Donoussa islet and Ikaria after British intelligence received information that the Nazis might attempt a new landing on Leros.
The submarine was ordered to return to Beirut port on October 17, but did not surface and was reported missing.
It was assumed to have been hit by a German mine in the Aegean, probably near Leros.
It was eventually located between Ikaria and Kos, where it is believed to have been destroyed by a mine.
Efforts to locate the missing submarine began in 2000, but more than 14 searches throughout the Dodecanese failed.
Searches for their remains focused on the well-known German minefields of Leros, Kalymnos and Kos.
It was eventually located between Ikaria and Kos, where it is believed to have been destroyed by a mine laid a few days earlier by the German minesweeper “Drache”.