THE
THISTLEGORM WAS BOMBED AND SUNK IN THE EARLY HOURS OF 6 OCTOBER
1941Found
in the '50s then forgotten again, the Thistlegorm first re-appeared
in Diver early in 1993, when John Bantin wrote about it. "In
late October 1992 Simshon, an Israeli skipper who did diving as
well as fishing charters, was told about a good site for fishing
by Bedouin fishermen," he told me. "He was the person
who rediscovered the Thistlegorm, and told all the other Israeli
skippers. The foreign boat-operators wanted to keep the position
secret from the Egyptians, for just an elite few!". Bantin's
article referred to "a unique opportunity to dive a wreck that
has been virtually undisturbed for 50 years... this has to be the
best shipwreck in the world". He ended, however, with
an ominous comment about "the depressing noise of the wreck
being vandalized" by a group that arrived as his boat was departing.
On his return a few months later, he commented: "I was shocked
to witness the results of the diver activity which had already taken
place. The souvenir-hunters had already started their vandalism".
Mark Hobday visited the wreck later that year. "It was
my first live aboard trip in coral waters. I had read John Bantin's
article and was astounded at how she was a real 'time capsule',
just as he described her. The Thistlegorm will remain the best wreck
dive ever, because it was so pristine and complete - upright and
full of an army's shopping list. What sticks is being down first
with no silt, floating into the hold with the collection of Bedford
trucks.
For More Details,
Go to Thistlegorm
Curiously, the Dunraven is not marked on any of the Admiralty charts
for the area, so her discovery was never one of "let’s go and
check this out!"
One
published account of the Dunraven states that, in 1977, a German
Geologist came across the wreck whilst undertaking survey work for
an oil company and, although he passed on what little information
he had collected to the owner of a local Diving facility, his co-ordinates
were so vague that the vessel remained unexplored for at least another
2 years. Another account, however, states that the Geologist in
question was an Israeli - but that man turned out to be a local
diver who never found the wreck. Yet another version suggests that
this whole "geologist" story was deliberately created
to lessen the achievement of those who claimed to have discovered
the wreck.
