How a British Ship Smashed a German Submarine!

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This incredible photo shows damage to the conning tower of the German World War I submarine, the SMU48.
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The damage was inflicted by a British merchant ship, the SS East Point, and resulted in the deaths of two of the
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four crew members who were in the conning tower. One of these was the skipper of the SMU48, Captain Lieutenant
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Bernard Boo, who up until this point had enjoyed a really successful career, sinking 21 ships with a total of over
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50,000 tons. The really crazy thing is that nobody aboard the SS East Point
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knew that this had happened. They'd all actually abandoned ship well before it hit the SMU48. So, it's an incredible
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story and there's a load more to it as well. And if this was the only story associated with the East Point, it'd be
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a pretty incredible one, but it isn't. The East Point is an absolutely fascinating ship. And also, what
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happened to the SMU48 after it been uh hit by the East Point as well. There's
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another incredible story there. So, what I'm going to do in this video is I'm going to talk you through the whole lot.
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Uh and I'm going to show you what it's like to dive the East Point because, of course, the reason I'm talking about it is it's a deep wreck dive and one that
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I've done many, many times. is is absolutely uh a really a real favorite of mine. One of the great things about
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the East Point is that we've actually got some really good multi-beam imagery of it. So, you can visualize what you're going to see before you go down. This is
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courtesy of the University of Plymouth. But what you can see there is the uh that's the stern, which is the highest
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bit, the steering quadrant. You'll see that during the dive. That's where we're going to land. That's where we're going to finish. And it's probably the nicest
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bit of the wreck. Other really nice bit is this lump here, which is the massive, massive engine. and the uh bits of hulse
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sticking up either side of it. So, you'll see those uh on the dive as well. I'm going to give you this whole lot uh
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during the course of the video. I think you'll really enjoy it. I hope you really enjoy it. As always, though, uh
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please, you know, leave us a like, leave us a dislike, leave us a comment, tell us what you didn't like, etc. But
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without any further ado, I'm going to crack on with the story of the East Point and the U48 and the awesome diving
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that's to be done on it. So, I'm sure many of you will have seen that I'm diving with uh with Rick again,
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and there's going to be a whole load of photos during this uh during this video. You'll also see that I'm putting in the
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lazy shots. Uh not as easy as you might imagine, whilst also holding a selfie stick, but hey, there we go. I like to
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challenge myself. And there uh there it goes. Lazy shots going down and I'm using it to uh to pull me down. You'll
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also see that I've got a different camera setup on this dive. So, I've got an Insta 360 Ace Pro 2 uh stuck on my uh
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helmet. I've got my two Paralens Vikitas also on uh on my helmet as normal. And
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on the selfie stick, I have got a GoPro 11 in a in a kind of deep casing there.
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So, so a whole load of video and what I'm going to be doing is uh is chopping backwards and forwards. In fact, there's
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a really interesting story with a selfie stick. I I've got to tell it now. Um, and it's what I've what I do is you'll
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see, you know, a bit further down in the dive, I put the selfie stick away and I actually clip it off on my on my right
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shoulder. Later on in the dive, I in fact, when I've completed the dive, I'm on my deco stops. I reach to try and
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find the selfie stick cuz I think it'd be nice to get some selfie video on deco stops. No selfie stick. In fact, all
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I've got is the actual is the actual clip. So, I've lost the full selfie stick with my deep GoPro housing and
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obviously the GoPro in it. So, that's pretty upsetting, but I have all of the decod kind of come to terms with it. And
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for whatever reason, I don't really tell anybody else on the boat other than Rick. So, anyway, that's the end of
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that. And then, but then later on this even in the evening, I get a a Facebook message from one of the other divers on
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the boat. And as you can see, it's uh it's absolutely wonderful. So, it's uh it's one of those things just when you
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uh you think something's gone, then all of a sudden another diver sorts you out. And I just like to say a massive thank
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you, you know, cheers for uh for for sorting that out and reuniting it with me. So, anyway, that's a great uh bit of
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this dive, but you don't want to know about my diving incompetence. What you really want to know is about the
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stories. So, let's start at the beginning. The SS East Point was built in 1901 in Sunderland. It was a really
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big ship, 118 m long, 5,200 tons, you know, absolutely, you know, similar to
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hundreds thousands of other ships of the period. At the time it was sunk, it was
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operated by the furnace with line and that was how it was identified. You can
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see this kind of crockery here, this plate and this cup, they're both mine and that was how the the East Point
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along with its size. That was how the East Point was identified. you know, maybe 20 or in fact, maybe even more than that, 40 years ago. Now, for those
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who are interested in such things, uh this video is currently being recorded on the Insta 360 Ace Pro 2, but I'm
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going to switch any moment now. And this is the power lens uh fikita footage. Uh
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I think you can see, you know, it's completely different uh different quality there, isn't it? I want to use
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the Insta 360 uh in the future for more of my diving videos. The only problem is
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my helmet mount is is currently looking down too much. So once I've got that sorted, you'll be seeing it in a lot
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more of my videos. What you can see me doing though here is uh is turning off the GoPro. You can see the strobes in
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front of me. So I'm getting to the bottom of the shot. I'm turning that on and clipping it on. And uh this is the
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last time I see this GoPro until uh Ral really kindly hands it to me uh later on
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in the evening. So, um, what actually happened a little screw thread that goes into the bottom of the selfie stick. It
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unscrewed and that's how come it ended up on the seabed, but uh, I've subsequently super glued it, so that
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won't be happening. Again, what I'm doing now is obviously just turning on my strobes and I'm going to be sticking
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on the bottom of the, uh, bottom of the shot line. So, those of you who see my other videos will assume me do this lots
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of times before. And probably the only difference this time is I'm doing it a uh a bit earlier than I than I normally
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do. I guess you're probably also a little bit concerned about the quality of the video. Clearly, it's it's pitch
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black here. The good news is I've got a uh a new torch which also doubles as a video light. And I'm going to turn that
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on in a bit. And uh it makes the uh the quality of the video much better. And of course, what I've also got is a whole
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load more information about the East Point. I've got some photos. Uh I've got some diagrams. And I'm I'm going to tell
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you all the rest of the story, which I know I've been uh I've been neglecting a bit, but but you can see on the dive
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here I am. I've I've got to the wreck. Uh yeah, you can see there's some wreckage down there, but difficult to
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tell what it is at the moment. That torch is coming on any moment now. Now, there we go. Look at it. And just a
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reminder that this is us here on the stern. So, that the highest bit of the wreck and you can see that, you know, 60
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m. The the actual bottom of the seabed here is is 68. So, having a good look around. There's a few other divers
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there. Right, let's get back to the death of Captain Lieutenant Bernard Boost, though. So, I've already told you
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he was a pretty successful German skipper. He'd spent a year in combat, sunk a whole load of ships, and he was
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in this area of Plymouth, which is um Big Brie Bay, or maybe just offshore from Big Brie Bay, and looking for
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ships. He'd already sunk one ship already that day, a small sailing vessel, and he spotted the East Point,
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which must have looked like an absolutely fantastic target. You know, 120 m long, 5,000 tons, and he got
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really close to it. According to the report from the East Point, it was about uh 80 100 m away. So, the the torpedo
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hit on the uh port side just kind of forward uh of the bridge, and the ship
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took about 10 or 15 minutes to sunk. All the crew got off. All the crew got off in boats. There was a load of other
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vessels in the area. So the submarine after torpedoing the East Point uh dived to periscope depth and was looking
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around for other ships to sink. And what must have happened is as the uh East
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Point was sinking, it just the submarine was no longer looking at it. That's when it collided with the submarine. So
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incredible piece of misfortune on behalf of the the SMU48.
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I guess you know the you know that that's what kind of happens. Um back on
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the dive you can see that's the uh the propeller huge uh huge bronze propeller. And I I'll come back to that one later
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on cuz there's another interesting story about that. So now in order to uh fight
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this kind of submarine a type youth 43 you needed to have four men in the
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conning tower. And what happened when the East Point hit the U48? You can
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imagine it was uh you know really significant explosion. It's a massive ship, a small submarine and it knocked
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out uh two of the four people in the conning tower. What also happened is
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that it sprung a leak and you've obviously seen that photo with all the damage as well. So you can imagine the
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guys in the submarine, they've just been hit by a ship. Two of their mates have been knocked out. There's water pouring
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in. So that their kind of first concern has got to be to to kind of save the ship. So supposedly what happened is
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they jumped through the hatch into the main control room as the water's pouring
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in and they then closed the hatch effectively sealing off the conning tower from the rest of the uh rest of
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the submarine. Obviously great for the submarine and the submarine then crash dived uh all the way to the seabed. All
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this information is in the the German logs. And um Oh, actually what you can
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see there is I've just found something. That's uh looks like the lid of a a paraffin lamp. So uh you can see I'm
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just going to put it up there and and leave it there. It's it's brass obviously. Um this is the stern of the
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vessel. So this is presume this there's a whole load of debris here. So it's uh it's it's presumably it's it's fallen
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down. So uh submarine crash dived. Um they seal the hatch off and unfortunately the two guys who are
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knocked unconscious are in the conning tower which now fills full of water and of course uh they drown. Um kind of
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horrendous for them but you can absolutely understand why the why why the submarine felt that they had to do
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that. So what they ended up there for is with uh two dead guys and one of the two
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dead guys was uh the skipper captain Lieutenant Burnt Boo. Uh the other one was um effectively his uh weapons
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officer. Um slightly different name in those days, but yeah. So those are the two guys who who who are dead. The
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submarine obviously can't use its periscope anymore. Um so it's it's got no visibility. So what they they do is
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stay on the bottom um until it gets nightfall and they then come up to the surface. And once they're on the
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surface, they can get access to the conning tower again. They get access to the conning tower and they do a sea
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burial for the two uh the two dead crewmen. And this is all beautifully
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recorded in the uh in the in the log for the the German submarine. And for those of you who've never seen a a German
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First World War log, they're incredible incredible things. I'm lucky that um my
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sister can speak German, so she uh she she translates them for me. But it's
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it's all in there. But that isn't the most incredible bit about the U48 story. And I know I'm talking about the U48,
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not the um not the the East Point. So, I'm going to come back to the East Point. So, the U48 is badly damaged. It
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cannot um operate. The periscopes don't work. They can't go into the Conning tower cuz it leaks. Uh they're in the
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middle of the English Channel and they need to get back to Germany clearly to do some to do some repairs. So, there's
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two ways back for them. One way is they can go up the English Channel. Um the
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problem with that is where it gets narrow at the eastern end where do is they know there's a load of anti-ubmarine nets. There's a load of
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minefields and there's a load of ships there whose uh purpose is clearly to try
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and kill submarines. So that's that's a difficult thing to do um when you're
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when you're badly damaged. In fact, actually, if you look just there, you can probably see that thing I'm holding on to there. That is the the other bit
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of the uh of the lamp. So, it's uh you can see me um playing around with my
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torch, but I am going to uh try and get it out. Unfortunately, it's uh it's completely wedged in there. It's totally
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solid. Um so, it's it's not coming out, but you know, interesting interesting thing to see. And the East Point has
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been dived a lot, so there's very very little uh left on it. Back in the day, uh they used to dive this on air, of
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course, and supposedly they used to go down with crowbars and pickaxes and shovels and all sorts of stuff and
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basically get everything off that they they possibly could. But anyway, they uh they clearly missed that. And uh if you
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want to go down with a and you can see the lid of it just at the top of the video there. Uh and there's also a nice little lobster as well. So if you want
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to go back if you want to go and get it with a pickaxe and a crowbar or whatever, that's where it is. Um oh,
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there's also a diver there. I think that might be uh Rick and uh he's he's trying to get some photos of me. I think I
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asked him to on this dive. But going back to the U48. So the U48 needs to go back to Germany, which means that the
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the only way to come back is around Ireland, over the top of Scotland, and
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past the Ornne Islands and then down through the uh the North Sea. And believe it or not, that is what they
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what they did with a badly damaged submarine. And huge credit to the uh
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executive officer on this submarine who um unlike most of the German First World War submarines, they were they were
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normally captained by regular Navy officers and it was quite a prestigious highass um uh thing to do. So the uh
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Navy reserve officers, which the um which the exo was, were weren't normally
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given command of submarines. They were kind of secondass officers. So I've got to give them a name. It would be rude
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not to. That's Henrik Herman Hashagan. And there he is uh on on a submarine.
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And fair play to him, he he got the U48 back to uh Germany. Not only did he get
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it back, but on route uh sort of north of Ireland. They had a surface gun
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battle with an armed sailing ship and ended up sinking the uh sinking the sailing ship. when he got back to
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Germany and clearly the Germans thought he'd done so well that they actually gave him command of his own submarine.
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So he then took over command of the U22 and went on to have a a really
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successful career. So he he survived the first world war. He had 28 ships to his
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credit uh with a total of 24,000 tons. And by the looks of things, he lived uh
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a long and hopefully uh happy life uh and eventually passed away in uh April
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1978 in Germany. Frankly, what a bloke. They just don't make him like that
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anymore. And uh you know, an amazing story and for that alone, he deserves he deserves to be remembered. But what
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happened to the U48? Well, it was it was repaired and put back to sea again with
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a uh a different skipper and unfortunately the the different skipper um decided that he was going to go
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through the um all the defenses in Dover and he ended up getting stuck on a uh a
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sandbank in the night. Couldn't couldn't float the submarine off. got discovered
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by the Royal Navy in the morning and uh they were attacked by a load of um a
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load of Royal Navy vessels, killed about half the crew. The other half of the crew surrendered and the U48 was was
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left uh partially submerged on this sandbank. Interesting enough, uh, a
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whole load of it was stripped by the Royal Navy. And for years, uh, one of the guns was on display in, uh, in Kent,
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um, supposedly until the 1960s or the 1970s when it appears to have been scrapped. Um, which is really sad cuz
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it's, you know, frankly, what a what a fantastic piece of history and it'd be lovely uh to still to still have it
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around. Anyway, so that was the end of the U48. Um, one of the interesting things about it is during the
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interrogation of the crew um and and once again the transcripts for this uh are available, the crew um slate their
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new skip and effectively say things like this would have never happened if Bernard Boo hadn't uh hadn't been killed
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and presumably if Hashigan Hinrich Hashigan had been transferred to another submarine. So they were they were really
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unimpressed with their uh with their new skipper. So um you know they blame him for the for the submarine being being
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killed and everything or being being destroyed and everything. So uh really interesting and I guess you know shows
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in this kind of small unit environment how important leadership is. So that's
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nearly the end of the U48. Um but there's one more bit of it to talk about which is that the U48
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um was swallowed by the Goodwind Sands which are a notorious area of coast area
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off the um the southeast coast of England where the sand constantly shifts comes and goes and everything. So um the
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U48 was swallowed by it and and vanished. But supposedly it reappears
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every now and again. So this photo shows it reappearing in 1978. You can see it
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just under the water there. Um, but then the sand came in, covered it all over, and it's it's gone again. So, that's the
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uh the st the tail of the U48. Uh, Heinrich Hashagan, you know, what a
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great bloke. But let's go back to the East Point. And before I talk any further, I just you can probably see
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I've spotted something on the dive here. And that there is a spare blade for the
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propeller. I've never seen that before. I've done I've dived the East Point loads and loads of times. Um, so really
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interesting uh thing to see. This is on the seabed. So you can see here that I'm
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um 60 well 66 meters down I guess. So it's it's fallen off the wreck and ended
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up on the seabed. And later on I'm going to spot um at least one more up on the
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wreck. Once again, I've not seen it before. Why is that important? Well, that's important because uh the East
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Point is a wreck that is owned by somebody and it's owned by uh my good
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friend Tony who bought it in the in the 1980s. So, it's it's quite famous uh amongst
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Plymouth divers that this is Tony's wreck. And if you find stuff on it, then you've obviously got to uh he's got to
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give you permission for it. Now, Tony uh is normally pretty good at allowing people to to have anything that they
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find on his wreck. So my my plate and my cup and all that kind of stuff. But the reason he bought it is because he wanted
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it for the the the bronze prop. So his plan in the early '9s was to dive down
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it dive down put a load of explosives on the prop that you've already seen and blow off the prop. He would then get a
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local beam twler which would uh lift the lift the prop up. He would take it in and he would salvage it. Now clearly
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that didn't happen. the prop still there and obviously if he had have blown it off it would have demolished the stern
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as well. So we uh we can be really grateful that didn't happen for the fact that the East Point is such a nice wreck
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and stands up so tall at the stern. But why didn't it happen? Well, the uh the
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amusing thing about it was that the the beam troller that Tony was planning to use um got done for drug smuggling
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several uh well just I think weeks before he'd he'd planned to uh plan to use it. So obviously it got done for
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drug smuggling. It got impounded by customs and excess excise which meant that um Tony's plan to to uh to use it
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was uh was was out the window. So hey it was um a win for for the rest of us. So
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you can just see there that I've come up on the top of the wreck. There's another another diver just swimming past me
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there. Um, you can see I've come up what, four meters, I guess, four or five meters off off the seabed onto the top
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of the the uh the stern. And actually, it's collapsed an awful lot since I uh
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since I last dived it. It slopes down far more than it ever used to. So, you
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know, like all of these wrecks, it's in the uh final stages really of it of its
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life. you know, it will in the not too distant future, it will be completely flat and nobody will be able to um see
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see frankly how beautiful the the stern is. But, you know, there we go. It is
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100 odd years old. It was torpedoed and actually it suffered a whole load more damage. So, I'm going to I'm going to
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come back on to that. But first, I need to introduce you to this gentleman here whose name is Harold Young. He was the
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master of the East Point when it was uh torpedoed. He'd also been the master of the East Point for a long time prior to
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this event and therefore is intrinsically linked with an or almost everything that happens to the East
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Point. Those of you uh who recognize such things will have seen that he was awarded the distinguished service cross
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which was a gallantry medal awarded um at that time for kind of relatively
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junior ranking naval officers but was also awarded to civilians such as
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Harold. although he did subsequently get a uh temporary commission in the Royal Navy Reserve. Now, I've got loads of
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information about Harold and it's all come through an online meeting with his grandson, Nick Young, and I'm so
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grateful to Nick, who has given me a trove of information about his uh his grandfather, as well as some of the
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stuff you've seen already, the photos um and the the framed thing on his wall. He's also given me letters that he
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wrote. He's given me newspaper clippings. He's given me some more photos that I'm going to come on to later on. And um one of the fabulous
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things I've got is, you know, the full details of Harold's career basically from starting till he retired at the
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beginning of the Second World War. And it's absolutely um incredible. And I think you'll all really enjoy it and
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find it interesting. And one of the really nice things I uh as I dive the East Point, as I've done, you know, a
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lot and as I, you know, I I look at those cups and those plates I've got of it, you know, for me that gives me a
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direct connection to this uh person who I'd never have heard of otherwise. Now,
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the reason he got his gallantry medal was because the East Point was taken up from uh from trade in 1915 to support
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the uh the landings at Gallipoli uh in the Dardinels as it was then known. So obviously this was Winston Churchill's
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uh you know gambit to kind of avoid the stalemate of the Western Front and you know it proved to be a bit of a a bit of
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a mess. So but the East Point was sent over there and as a large freighter it
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was used for moving stuff from the um some of the islands which were the kind
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of the main supply bases into the front line which was on the Gallipoli Peninsula which is obviously part of
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part of Turkey now. So the East Point was moving supplies backwards and forwards and Harold Young was the master
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of the East Point whilst all that was happening. Now during one of these runs
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um they were shelled by the Turks. I I don't know, you know, maybe this was a regular occurrence. I'd imagine it
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probably would would have been because in in Gallipoli the Turkish by and large had the high ground. um the Allied
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forces, you know, the Brits, the uh Australians and New Zealanders, the French were all by and large in the uh
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in the in the low ground. So, I'd imagine being shelled was quite a common occurrence. And so so the East Point
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actually got hit by by shells and set on fire. The the shells hit it in the
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forward in a forward holds, so you know, near the bow. And you know, one of the things I always think is I wonder
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whether that weakened the bow and it's why the bow has uh has been collapsed, although that's not the only reason that
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the bow has got damaged. Once again, I'll come back to that. So, so the East Point is set on fire. It's been shelled.
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Um what they did then was they they tried to put the fire out. they couldn't put the fire out, so they they ran it
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ground and um and then obviously once it was a ground they could flood the hold
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which had hay in it for horses and mules and and and those kind of things and
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when they put it a ground they flooded it and therefore they put the fire out although that did take them nearly 18
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hours. So, you know what? What an experience. Must have been uh you know, horrendous for for the skipper and the
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crew. But that's what um Harold Young, his distinguished service cross for, I guess, saving the ship um if not the
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cargo. Now, having got the fire out, it then took them two days to get the uh
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get the East Point off the beach. Uh it's a big ship clearly. Uh they tried a load of tugs, they didn't work, and in
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the end, they had to get a cruiser in to uh to attach some tow ropes and drag it off the beach. And then I think they
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took it back to Egypt where they where they patched it up. And after being
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patched up, the East Point came back to Gallipoli. I presume they were they were short of ships. They needed everyone
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they could get. And while it was in and around that area, it actually got hit
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again in the bow by a uh ship called the Bonvilston.
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Now, um, the Bombust then had a a pretty bad track record because, uh, after
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hitting the, uh, East Point. It then hit a, uh, another another ship in January
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1916, uh, ship called the SSGOong, which was actually big in the East Point, 8,000 tons, and hit it so hard that it
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actually sank. Um, fortunately, there was nobody on board. The the Gong had just disembarked, 1300 Aussies in uh, in
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Egypt. So the Bombston clearly um you know not a great ship if uh it was
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eventually torpedoed by the Germans in October 1918 and the wreck is in the uh the North Channel in between Scotland
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and Ireland. Don't know if you can see there. What I've just done is um below me there that is another uh what I think
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was a blade for the um for the for the prop. One of the spare uh on the spare blade. So obviously you seen the one on
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the seabed earlier on and that one there was was on the top of the wreck. So,
26:42
um, yeah, I'm too busy talking about the Gong and the Bonvilston, but but but and and I don't get very good footage of it,
26:47
but it but it is there anyway. So, the East Point though uh carried on
26:53
supporting the the war effort in in Gallipoli. And actually, if you have a look underneath me there, you can see
26:59
that kind of circular object. That is the uh the prop shaft. So, what I'm now doing is making my way from the stern
27:06
where I've been kind of rooting around and looking inside. Um I'm making my way forward now to to the area where the
27:12
engine is and that's the area that I found um plates and crockery and stuff in the past. So in a bit you'll see me
27:19
kind of rooting around there and you'll see all sorts of bits of fragments and and stuff and and I find a really nice
27:24
um water um filter or parallel water filter anyway. Um but but you'll see that in a bit. So the East Point went
27:33
back to in fact there's a there's a big old winch. Um, so, so I'm kind of in between the two, uh, rear cargo holds at
27:40
the moment. There you go. Uh, imagine the the cargos that that has lifted, you know, particularly in the context of
27:45
this, uh, you know, supporting the Giply, Gilipy Xed. It must have, uh, not
27:50
Gipri Exped, I guess, disaster maybe. I don't know whatever word we're going to use to describe Gallipoli, but anyway,
27:56
the last part that the East Point had to play in the Gipoly campaign, let's go with that one, was to um support the
28:03
evacuation. And for those of you who don't know very much about the Gilibly
28:09
campaign, the evacuation is the one bit of it that is universally regarded as a complete success. Actually, maybe not
28:17
universally regarded. I'm sure the Turkish didn't consider it as a certain success. Um but certainly from the
28:23
Allied point of view, 83,000 troops were removed over uh several nights without
28:29
the Turks being aware of it, which is just, you know, an unbelievable thing to try and achieve. And the East Point uh
28:35
played its part in that. Although at this point, the East Point was absolutely battered. Clearly, it had all
28:41
that shellfire. It had hit the Bonville Sten and the letters from Harold Young
28:47
to I think they're his sisters make absolutely incredible reading. um they really make his feelings uh about the
28:53
whole thing clear. I'm going to read it out because I think it's just really really powerful. He says, "We left
29:00
hurriedly at the end when this wreck of a ship East Point was filled with every
29:05
conceivable old thing from dead men's clothes and empty cartridge cases to
29:11
heavy field guns and motor ambulances. We sailed away with 400 troops on board,
29:17
brought down at night straight from the firing line. By the way, all we had left
29:22
in the way of life-saving appliances was one good boat and just 55 life belts.
29:28
The ship was in a sinking condition and the sea infested with submarines. That's
29:34
really powerful stuff and I'm going to read the best of it rest of it in a minute. But before I do that, I just want you to uh to have a look at this
29:40
which I've just found. Uh I know I'm kind of burning it out with my light there, but but we will come back to it later on. And you probably see there
29:46
that it's a bit of a a charcoal water filter. So, they would they would have charcoal in there. They'd pour water
29:52
through it and it would purify it. It come out of the bottom a lot cleaner. I'm going to bring uh Rick to see that
29:58
later on. He's going to get some photos of it. But you probably see in this area there's various other bits and pieces
30:03
that I'm kind of I'm having a rumage around, you know, all sorts of bits and pieces. I' I've got no idea what what
30:09
that thing is there. Maybe, you know, the base of a lamp, for instance. Possibly.
30:15
uh you know, small port hole, don't know. So, while I'm rumaging around though, I'm going to read out the rest
30:20
of that letter from Harold Young to his sisters because it's it blows me away, you know, how easy it is to connect with
30:27
a man from so long ago. All kinds of people were about that trip. If I count
30:32
Barington's son and air was in charge of the troops and Baron de Robots slept
30:38
under the cabin table. I mean, I just love the uh the the the imagery that
30:44
that portrays, you know, it makes me think, you know, of of a, you know,
30:50
horrendous ship, you know, that's gone through all these traumas that's been battered, you know, maybe that the crew
30:56
as well. And and certainly the master comes across like that as well, you know, and all of a sudden they're participating in this really important
31:02
event, the evacuation, you know, they must have known how important it was. They must have known the risk. And um
31:08
you know I think that all comes across in that brilliant letter from uh from from Horus there and and really kind of
31:15
you know for me brings it all uh you know sort of it reaches back over a
31:21
hundred years and all of a sudden I can feel you know I'm on the wreck but I can feel that I'm in that that that place. I
31:28
can feel you know what they must have been thinking what they must have been enduring. And here I am you know looking
31:33
on the seabed and there's all sorts of broken bits and pieces broken crockery. You've probably seen I've just picked up
31:38
a spoon there. And that always makes me think, did Harold Young eat with that
31:43
spoon? You know, probably, I guess. Did Vic count Barington's son eat with that
31:49
spoon? I just love those kind of connections and I want to talk more about Harold Young because he's an
31:56
absolutely fascinating individual and, you know, he's part of this whole East Point story as well. And because of Nick
32:03
Young, his grandson, I've got loads of information about him, which is which is great. So I know he was born in 1880 in
32:09
Stoke, Newington. So at the time of the uh the East Point sinking, he was 37 years old. He uh learned his trade in
32:16
sailing ships. So he was part of that transition from um you know sail to steam and in fact there's a photo of him
32:22
on one of his first uh ships with some of the other crew and they look like a uh a right well it looked like a mly
32:29
crew to be honest, but incredible. um he uh broke an arm
32:35
falling out of the rigging of one of them. So, you know, that's while he was learning his trade and eventually he qualified as a master uh and took over
32:42
the East Point in 1909 and obviously was on the East Point
32:48
until it was sunk in in 1917. So, was the master for 11 years. Uh following
32:53
the sinking of the East Point, he was then given another ship, the SS Rapalo, and that was torpedoed again in January
33:00
1918. So within less than 12 months he'd been on two ships that were sunk um both
33:06
of them by submarines. Unfortunately the second one uh there was a casualty which was the assistant cook um a lad called
33:15
uh Thomas Samuel Jenkins who's only 15 years old at the time. So you know a
33:21
really you know really you know boy not even a man I guess. Uh Thomas Jenkins
33:26
was from Cardiff and is commemorated on the uh the memorial in Tower Hill which
33:31
if you've never been is is an incredible place and um one of the other interesting things about uh Harold Young
33:38
is he was there for that um for that to be opened and I often wonder um in fact
33:45
one of the things I've got from from Nick Young is a copy of the uh the program from from the opening of the
33:50
memorial and I often wonder if while Harold was at whether he thought about uh Thomas Jenkins. I can't imagine that
33:58
he he wouldn't have done. But um Harold Young continued his career and his last
34:04
chip was the MV Pacific Ranger. Uh he retired from that one in mid 1940 which
34:10
was obviously uh in the middle of the Second World War or not in the middle of the Second World War at the beginning of the Second World War. He left it in in
34:18
June 1940. And in October 1940, the uh the Pacific Ranger was was torpedoed um
34:26
about 100 miles northwest of Ireland. Um and the and the crew spent a week in
34:32
small boats. Um I often wonder what Harold Young thought about that. No doubt he was sat in his uh you know
34:39
wherever he retired to um you know in a cottage or whatever hopefully in front of a fire uh with a you know much
34:46
deserved cup of something and uh you know no doubt he was very pleased that he wasn't on the Pacific Ranger when
34:52
that happened. So Harold Young uh after the after retirement he became one of
34:58
the wardens of the Sunk ports which is a uh a really old traditional appointment.
35:05
the sunk ports are all um uh they're all silted up now. So so none of them are
35:10
actually ports. They're in Kent. Uh so it's kind of like a ceremonial appointment and he got to open um you
35:16
know fates and all that kind of stuff. So no doubt he enjoyed all of that and when he eventually died there is a
35:23
wonderful wonderful letter sent by the secretary of the furnace with lines um
35:29
you know explaining how much he's missed. And once again, I'm going to put it up so you can see it and I'm going to read it out. It is with deep regret that
35:37
we learned from your letter of the death of your father. And I wish to express to you and all his family our deepest
35:42
sympathy. Captain Harold James Young, DSC, had a fine record of services from
35:48
1903 to 1940 with this group of companies. I gather his first command was the East Point and he was her master
35:55
from 1909 until she was torpedo in 1917. Then he was appointed to Rapalo and
36:01
commanded her until she was torpedoed in 1918. Pacific Ranger 1935 to 1940 was
36:08
his last ship. Those of us who remain from those days hold his name in high
36:13
esteem and that is uh that's a fabulous eulogy. It's uh I think you know shows
36:20
exactly what kind of um man he was and how the esteem in which he was held. So
36:26
back to the dive. Um, obviously we've missed a whole load while I've I've been talking about the the stories. And I'm
36:32
afraid I'm a bit of a an East Point obsessive, so uh, apologies if you wanted to know more about the diving,
36:38
but this is all, uh, still in and around that area near the, um, near the engine.
36:43
So, just just behind the engine. I mean, dur while I've been talking, I've actually gone around the engine. You may
36:49
have glimpsed it briefly. I don't really look at it. Um, I'm kind of more focused on what's on the on the seat, which is
36:55
all this sort of stuff. And I've been in and around this area before. You probably just seen the diver above me
37:00
there. That is that is Rick. And I've just remembered that that is that beautiful um bit of water filter there.
37:08
So I think to myself, ah yeah, that'll make a that'll make a really good photo. So what I really need is is to go and
37:14
get Rick and get him over here and uh to get a photo of it cuz I know he will uh
37:19
he'll like that. So um I haven't quite thought about it yet, but I am going to think about it very very soon. Um I
37:26
think just before I do it though, there's another spoon to be had somewhere in here. So um uh you can
37:31
probably see in in amongst the silt there's all sorts of bits and pieces there. And um this area is really
37:37
interesting cuz what happens is the the tide uh clears stuff out every now and
37:42
again and stuff will move around. So you do find find new bits and pieces in here. So I've had um several plates and
37:49
cups and I've seen egg cups and all sorts of bits and pieces come out of here. Clearly, I'm I'm getting a bit
37:55
ahead of myself with this whole calling Rick over, but I I I remember it from the dive. I definitely I definitely got
38:02
Rick to come over here, and I'm waiting for him to come over because I want to show you the photo, and the photo um he
38:07
takes is is really cool. Um, and for those of you who don't know, the way I
38:12
make these videos is I is I don't watch the video um in advance
38:18
very often. What what I tend to do is uh is talk over my memory of it. But there you go. I knew I was going to get Rick
38:24
and uh he's actually swinging back to the shot. So, I'm going to grab his fin and say, "Hey, Rick, come over here.
38:31
I've got something you need to you need to see." And whenever I do this, there's always a bit of a kind of moment. Oh, I
38:36
wonder if I can remember exactly where it is. But, um I I'm not very far away clearly. So, I'm going to take Rick
38:42
over. And you can probably see one of the nice things you can see about this shot is the way that actually the deck has collapsed and it's kind of sloping
38:48
down from top left to top right. And that must have been uh a bulkhead there. So probably to the right is maybe
38:55
outside and uh to the left is inside. So this is, you know, the galley or something like that. So um I'm pointing
39:02
that out to to to Rick who I'm sure will will spot it himself. You can also see I've got my my torch on video light
39:09
which is obviously, you know, hopefully helping him illuminate it. And there, you know, Rick is going in going in for
39:14
the kill. He's got that massive fisheye lens. He's got that really good quality camera. And there it is. You can see the
39:22
uh uh the results there. Lovely, lovely photo. I mean, that thing would be
39:27
absolutely gleaming if it was intact. I of course are very keen to show Rick my uh my spoon
39:33
a photo with it. At this time, I think it's silverplated. Um I subsequently discover it's not. It's uh it's nickel
39:41
oxide which is um also doesn't corrode under water but is clearly nowhere near as exciting. In fact, that's it. I've
39:48
got two spoons. One which was silverplated and the silver's come off it. And the one that I've just picked up there, the the one in my right, that's
39:54
the nickel oxide one, which I think is is silver, but unfortunately turns out not to be. Now, of course, the other
40:01
thing is I have a uh a real personal connection with the East Point or I feel that I've got a personal connection
40:06
anyway. And it's not because of the fact I've dived it loads of times, although that does give me a strong affection for
40:13
it. It's not just cuz it's a great dive, which of course it is. It's not just cuz I found various bits on it. So, I've had
40:19
obviously the plates and the cutlery. I've had port holes off it in the past uh and various other bits and pieces all
40:25
obviously, you know, gone through the receiver of wreck and everything. But the uh the reason I have a strong
40:30
personal connection with East Point is it was the dive on which I managed to flood my rebreather in August 2024. And
40:39
for those of you who haven't seen it, I uh I've I've put that video online and
40:44
you can see me. In fact, this area here where I am now is where I start to realize that I've uh I've got a problem
40:51
with my Ruba and it's when I start um I then head from here back to the back to
40:57
the shop. very similar to to what you're going to see me doing um shortly on this dive. So
41:03
um now fortunately I'm not having that problem this time. My uh my rebreather is all in uh in good order or certainly
41:10
seems to be anyway. So, uh, but if you if you haven't watched that video and you would like to do it, I'm going to,
41:16
uh, put a link, um, so so you can go and find it. And, you know, it's something I
41:21
know lots of people have enjoyed watching and, you know, hopefully it's it's helped a few a few people, but it's
41:28
it's another personal connection with it. Anyway, back to the dive. So, you can see I'm still here with Rick. Uh,
41:34
we're rooting around. For those of you who have been watching my um my sheer
41:40
water in the bottom left, you can see that we're up to uh 96 minutes of TTS. So, uh that's that's an hour and a half.
41:47
Been on the bottom um or dive time is about 30 minutes. So, if I leave for the
41:52
surface now, I'm going to be coming up somewhere between that kind of 2 to 2 and 1/2 hours uh sweet spot, which is
41:58
which is normally what we do on these uh on these trips. Uh James the uh the skipper of Indep uh from Secret of
42:05
Indeep, you know, that's his normal thing. No more than 2 and 1/2 hours. Now, maybe me, I always try and uh and
42:12
dive 2 and 1 half hours. Hey, you've got to you got to feel like you're getting value for money, right? But um clearly
42:18
there's a fine line there and uh you know, I do sometimes get it wrong and end up a bit over. But what I'm doing
42:23
now is is with Rick, we are we are heading back on the uh on the bottom. Uh
42:30
you probably recall from the the multi-beam right at the beginning of this video that the kind of there's threeish high points on the wreck. One
42:37
of is at the stern, one of them is in the middle where the engine is, and there is a slight there's a kind of
42:43
highish point near the uh near the bow as well or certainly on the port side of it. But in order to get from from the
42:50
engine to the um to the stern and clearly we're going to need to drop down onto the seabed. There's the there's
42:55
that winch that that I went past earlier on. You you may may recall that. And if you just saw up in front of me there,
43:02
there were the uh the strobes. And I think, you know, they've got to be 20 odd meters away. So, I think it shows
43:07
just how good the visibility is. Obviously, it's dark, but the visibility is good. It also shows how fantastic
43:14
those strobes are as well. And I go on about strobes quite a lot in a lot of my videos, and that's because they're
43:21
really important to me. And and on a dive like this, you know, as soon as you see the strobes and you're heading back, it's it's a really nice feeling cuz it
43:28
it means that you know that you're um you're going to be able to to get back to the shot line. And you probably just
43:33
seen in front of me there, there's a there's a diver with some with some fins on um light colored fins. So, you know,
43:39
once again, they're they're doing the same thing. And you can see the wreck is starting to kind of come back up again
43:45
here. So, this is the the stern. We talked about that earlier on, how it's it's it's started to to collapse down
43:51
from what it once was, but it's still, you know, still really impressive, still really big. And this is somewhere up
43:56
here is where those uh those blades were. In fact, there's the there's the shot line. You can see the the blue string. That was how it was um that was
44:04
the waster. So, that's how it was secured into the first pair. Obviously, in fact, just in front of me there, the other side of the rope, I think you can
44:10
see one of those blades. Um so, the first Yeah, there you go.
44:15
You can you can see it definitely one of those blades. I didn't know that was there. There may even be another one on the left hand side. Or that could just
44:22
be a bit of plate. Bit difficult to see. But in front of me there, those there's my uh my double strobes. And you know,
44:28
if you haven't watched my strobe video, I'll I'll put a link in for that as well because these they're really important
44:34
to us on this kind of diving. But you can see what what I'm not hanging around. I'm I'm starting my
44:41
ascent all the time. I'm I'm putting my stuff away. You probably see I'm just having a look down there. You can see some other divers on the wreck. Once
44:47
again, shows how good the visibility is. Um, even though it's even though it's
44:52
really dark and really green, I'm kind of It's a bit disappointing. I'd love to have my um
44:59
uh my Insta working, you know, so you got better better footage of it, but it's it's just looking down. So, it's uh
45:06
it's quite disorientating and not pretty good. But hopefully in future videos you will you'll see the Insta 360 because
45:13
I'm sure this would be would be much better quality. Um and you get a real, you know, a much better sense of what
45:19
was going on. But hey, there we go. Uh always you always got to be working to improve. Always got to be working to do
45:25
things differently. You probably see there on the uh the little graph on the bottom. You can see me starting to the
45:30
red dots climbing up the purple line. So that's that's my ascent there. You can see the TTS 106 minutes. First deco stop
45:37
is at 30 meters. There we go. Oh, nice nice good shot of the sheer water. Uh you can see there's another diver. I
45:43
think that No, it's not Rick. Rick's doesn't have uh aluminum cylinders. So
45:48
Rick's I think down there below the diver with the white fins. In fact, the diver with the white fins. Um that's
45:55
Mike, I think. The diver with the yellow box there. Not 100% certain who that is,
46:01
but you it does give you a good feel for what it's like on an ascent there. You can see all the strobes down the bottom.
46:06
You can see divers coming up. I I like to do what I'm doing here, which is to come off the line. It's it's uh much
46:11
less congested. Um and I also quite looking like looking back at the line as well. So, I've just skipped forward a
46:18
little bit. Um and the reason I've done that is uh so that you can see this, which is me changing the um uh P2 on my
46:28
uh inspiration. I don't often get that on my videos, so uh it's quite nice to see it. But there you go. if you're
46:33
interested in how you do it. That's the uh the button sequence. And I've also got this one here, which is my uh my
46:38
sheer water as well. So, you can see me well kind of see me doing it on that as well, but there you go. You can see I'm
46:44
40 odd meters. I've pushed up to 1.5 P2 on both my on both my computers. You can
46:50
see loads of other divers in the water around me uh above and below me. And this is really common for for this stage
46:56
of uh a dive like this. You just get all, you know, everybody's gone in pretty much together. Everybody's coming
47:02
up the line together. And as long as everybody is together, it's uh it's going to make the whole thing a lot
47:08
safer. Next item on the agenda is going to be the uh lazy shot. And if you have a look
47:14
there, you can see the uh the diver with the yellow Gbox. They're uh they're currently removing their tag. And then
47:20
Rick is forming an orderly queue just off to his side. So So Rick will go in next and then I'm going to go and get
47:25
mine. Uh after that, you can also see the lazy shot there is uh under a bit of
47:31
tension. I don't think there's too much current because nobody's hanging on for grim death on the uh on the shot line.
47:37
So, it's probably just um you know, it was pulled down quite well to make it quite nice and tight, which is obviously
47:43
something that we that we try and do. But you see there's only two tags left on there. So, that means there's there's
47:49
two divers below us and also probably means it's going to get released uh fairly fairly soon. So, so that's good,
47:56
right? And uh I think it's time for me to do what I do, which is uh skip to the deco profile. And uh there it is. That's
48:04
the download from the sheer water. You can see uh in the descent there, you can see the the deepest bit of the dive is
48:10
right at the beginning where I was uh down near the rudder. Um and then what you can see is go along the bottom and
48:15
then I climb back up and that that bit there is probably at the top of the the stern. Carry on, you know, in around the
48:21
engine. Don't bother going down to the bottom. There I am on my ascent. This bit here is where I change from 1.3 to
48:29
1.5. And you can see kind of go from about I don't know 10 to about 96
48:35
minutes. So accelerating my deco saves me 15 minutes. There's the rest of the
48:40
uh the profile. You can see fairly uh fairly steady. Obviously get at the trapeze when I'm shallow. And the big
48:46
the big news for this is I come up at 2 hour 33 minutes. So I'm 3 minutes
48:51
overdue what the skipper would like. So, uh, obviously that's not very good and, uh, clearly I'm in trouble. But this is,
49:00
uh, right at the end of the dive here. You can see there's the trapze underneath me. You see my strobes hanging off me there. And just waiting
49:07
for my final bit of deco to clear. Now, some people ask me about um, what
49:13
happens at the end of the dive. Well, as you can see here, I'm I'm all alone. So, all the other divers have finished their
49:19
deco. They've come up once a deco is clear and I'm the uh the last diver onto
49:24
the boat. And there it is. You can see the boats stood by which is uh which is always always nice to see. And cuz
49:31
conditions are so good at the moment, they can end they can go really close to the shot as he as he has here. And you
49:37
can see me just swimming over to to the back of the boat. Engines are stopped. Always uh always good. No props turning.
49:44
They're uh they're bad. And I'm going to be getting on the uh on the lift, getting out the water. I hope very much
49:50
hope you've enjoyed this video. Hope you've enjoyed hearing all about um you know the hor Harold Young. I hope you've
49:58
enjoyed the sad tale of Burnt Boost who was killed by the ship that he sunk. I hope you've enjoyed hearing all about
50:04
the East Points, uh, the sterling work that it did in Gallipoli and all the
50:09
other stories that surround the ship and surround the people involved and, you know, including stuff such as the U48,
50:15
you know, absolutely unbelievable story. But, uh, that's me for this one, but I
50:21
very much hope um, you know, you'll give us a like, you leave us a comment, and of course, I hope you watch my next
50:27
video. Thank you very much.

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