The HMS Trooper (N91), a Royal Navy T-class submarine, was launched in 1942 and spent a significant portion of its operational career in the Mediterranean.

In September 1943, it set sail to patrol the Dodecanese islands. It was expected to return to Beirut (now Lebanon) by October 17 but never did. It was believed that a German mine had struck the vessel.

The wreck of the HMS Trooper has finally been found by the private deep-sea research company Planet Blue at a depth of 830 feet (approximately 250 meters) in the Icarian Sea, near the Cyclades Islands. The team was led by Greek diver and researcher Kostas Thoktaridis.

Greek media first announced the discovery on October 6, nearly 81 years since the submarine was presumed lost.

The HMS Trooper, which served with the Royal Navy for over 13 months before its disappearance, has been found in three separate sections, raising suspicions that a mine explosion may have caused its sinking.

The discovery has elicited emotional responses from those connected to the submarine. George Malcolmson, the former director of archives at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, shared his sentiments upon learning about the successful search.

He said, “It is with great emotion that I learn that the distinguished Greek researcher Kostas Thoktaridis and his team have solved an 81-year-old mystery and discovered the location of the wreck of the British submarine HMS Trooper.”

Royal Navy Captain Richard Wraith CBE, whose father commanded the HMS Trooper, acknowledged the long-standing efforts of the search teams, expressing hope that this definitive status of the wreck would provide closure for families of the 64 servicemen who lost their lives when the submarine sank.

“I have known for many years the painstaking effort of the search team to locate the wreck of the submarine, and now I am very pleased and excited that their efforts were rewarded,” he said.

Search efforts for the HMS Trooper began in 2000, but earlier attempts had produced no results until the Planet Blue team achieved success.

The research team confirmed that they documented the wreck but did not disturb the site, as it serves as the final resting place for those who perished in the tragic incident.

The HMS Trooper

The HMS Trooper was a Royal Navy T-class submarine constructed by the Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Limited, commonly known as Scotts, located in Greenock. It was launched in March 1942 and embarked on a brief yet impactful operational history.

Throughout her short service, the Trooper primarily operated in the Mediterranean Sea, where she demonstrated her combat capabilities by sinking the Italian tanker Rosario, the merchant ship Forli, a sailing vessel, and the Italian submarine Pietro Micca.

Additionally, she inflicted damage on two other enemy ships and attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to attack the Italian merchant vessel Belluno, previously known as the French Fort de France.

The Trooper’s first mission was part of Operation Principal, which employed human torpedoes (human torpedoes or manned torpedoes are a type of diver propulsion vehicle on which the diver rides, generally in a seated position behind a fairing. They were used as secret naval weapons in World War II, and the basic concept is still in use) to strike Italian ships in Palermo harbor. This early involvement set the stage for her future engagements in the region.

Following Italy’s surrender to the Allied forces in September 1943, the German military aimed to thwart the Allies’ efforts to seize control of the Dodecanese islands. These islands, located off the coast of Türkiye and now part of modern Greece, had been under Italian occupation since 1912.

By the end of September, British intelligence became aware of a buildup of German ships in the ports of Piraeus and Crete, where troops and supplies were being loaded, presumably destined for the Dodecanese.

Concurrently, the German minesweeper Drache was active in laying mines in the Icarian Sea, intensifying concerns over German intentions in the area.

In response to these developments, the HMS Trooper, under the command of Lieutenant John S. Wraith and manned by a crew of 64, departed from Beirut on September 26, tasked with patrolling the Aegean Sea.

In addition to conducting these patrols, the Trooper’s mission included transporting three agents and valuable supplies to the port of Kalamos on the island of Evia.

The Trooper arrived late on the evening of September 30, successfully disembarking Major Georgios Diamantopoulos of the Greek intelligence service, Lieutenant Emmanuel Vais, his radio operator codenamed ‘Thomas,’ and 400 kilograms of supplies.

The mission was completed on October 1, 1943, marking the last time anyone exited the submarine alive. On October 5, 1943, British intelligence reported a potential German operation aimed at the island of Leros.

Consequently, Trooper was ordered to patrol between the islands of Naxos and Ikaria. Unfortunately, after failing to establish further contact, and with no return to Beirut by October 17 as anticipated, the absence of any response to communications from the Admiralty led to the official declaration of HMS Trooper as lost on October 20, 1943.

Archive Search Leads To Discovery

The search for the British submarine HMS Trooper has spanned over two decades. It began in England in 1998 when researchers first delved into historical records. The first underwater search was conducted in 2000, marking the start of a long mission to locate the wreck.

Since then, 14 more expeditions have been launched, primarily focusing on the waters surrounding the Dodecanese Islands. However, despite these efforts, no trace of the submarine was found in the early years of the search.

For more than 20 years, the focus remained on the underwater minefields near the islands of Leros, Kalymnos, and Kos, where it was believed that HMS Trooper may have met its fate.

Teams scoured 10 minefields, yet no evidence of the submarine’s remains was uncovered. The situation remained unchanged until a breakthrough in 2023, when a new theory related to an encounter in October 1943 emerged.

Between 1942 and 1945, the British Royal Navy conducted covert operations in the Aegean Sea using a squadron of small wooden schooners called caïques, which it had requisitioned from local fishermen. These boats, part of the Levant Schooner Flotilla, played a critical role in covert missions during the war.

On October 14, 1943, one of these boats, designated Caique LS8, reported an encounter with a T-class British submarine that surfaced alongside it in Alinda Bay near Leros. The captain of the caique, Lieutenant Commander Adrian Seligman, would later recount this event in his post-war memoir, ‘War in the Islands.’

In his book, Seligman said that the submarine was none other than HMS Trooper, citing the distinctive voice of its commander, Lieutenant John Wraith, who he had recognized during the encounter.

This account was widely accepted because it aligned with HMS Trooper’s orders at the time. The submarine had been instructed to patrol the waters off Leros, an area known to be heavily mined by the Germans. Given these circumstances, it seemed plausible that Trooper had fallen victim to the minefields in the region.

Subsequent inquiries by Greek researcher Kostas Thoktaridis and his colleague Spyros Vougidis have raised doubts regarding the validity of Seligman’s account. While reviewing the logs of other British submarines operating in the Aegean, the researchers discovered a report from the captain of HMS Torbay, another T-class submarine, which documented an encounter similar to the one described by Seligman.

This revelation suggested that Seligman might have misidentified the submarine and that the HMS Trooper was not located in the area where it had last been reported.

Using the new information from British, Greek, and German archives, Thoktaridis and Vougidis embarked on a detailed study of the German minefields laid in the Aegean during the war.

Their research found that on September 26, 1943, the same day HMS Trooper set sail from Beirut, the German minelayer Drache had laid five minefields containing 287 mines north of the island of Donousa.

This region corresponded to the designated patrol zone for HMS Trooper from October 6 to October 9, 1943, before its subsequent planned deployment to Leros.

The new theory shifted the focus of the search, and in 2023, Thoktaridis’ team redirected their efforts to the waters north of Donousa.

Their perseverance paid off when they finally located the wreck of HMS Trooper at a depth of 253 meters in the Icarian Sea, just north of the Dodecanese Islands. This discovery closed a long-standing mystery and marked the end of an extensive search for one of the Royal Navy’s lost submarines.

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Submarine Found In Three Broken Sections 

The discovery of HMS Trooper’s wreck was made possible through CHIRP sonar technology, followed by careful analysis of footage captured by an unmanned ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle is an unoccupied underwater robot that is connected to a ship by a series of cables).

This footage was compared with the submarine’s original shipbuilding plans to confirm its identity. The exploration team exercised caution to ensure the wreck, considered a war grave for the 64 men lost, was not disturbed.

All 64 crew members perished in the tragedy. Kostas Thoctarides, the lead researcher, explained that the submarine had broken into three distinct sections—bow, midship, and stern—indicating the force of the explosion.

He noted that the mine was a German EMF type, packed with 350 kg of hexane explosives, causing the immediate sinking. The wreck lies on the seabed in eerie disarray. The bow and stern rest near each other, with the conning tower detached and located further away.

The bow is angled slightly forward, which shows that the submarine was on the surface at the time of the explosion. The bow planes are folded in, and the periscopes and engine telegraphs indicate that it was moving “half ahead.”

The midship section, listing 7 degrees starboard, bears severe damage, particularly where the engine room’s watertight door was located. The accommodation compartment was completely obliterated, and the gun was missing from the deck.

The stern section is the least damaged, with a 43-degree list starboard. The Direction Finder (DF) antenna remains in good condition, and the stern planes are in their normal position.

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