The wreck of the submarine HMS Olympus, which sank after hitting a mine off Grand Harbour 70 years ago in one of the worst naval disasters of World War II, has been identified by the Aurora Trust. The trust, an archaeological team located at Key Largo, Florida, with its logistic base in Malta, reports that the submarine is in a rather good condition and lies upright on the seabed with its hatch open. The hole caused by the mine lies in the bottom, as revealed by the image taken by the remotely operated vehicle used to identify the submarine.The wreck was originally located in May 2008 by divers of Dive-Tech based at Guildford in Surrey, England, and of Tec Deep Blue of Qawra but the depth of the wreck limited close survey.
HMS Olympus (Lt Cdr H.D. Dymott) arrived in Malta from Gibraltar on May 5, 1942 on another Magic Carpet mission with avgas and stores. She was one of a small number of submarines that had been diverted from operational patrols and had the inside space adapted to carry stores to Malta. On her return trips, she had taken out a number of service passengers.
I swam about 20 yards and then turned to see Olympus take her last dive. I did feel lonely.- John A. Mizzi
There were in early May various crews of submarines that had been sunk in Malta – P-36, P-39 and Pandora – and it was decided to send these trained personnel to the United Kingdom as passengers in Olympus because they were needed to man new submarines.
It was a tight squeeze in the confined space of the Olympus. Dymott and his officers – Lt B.H. Band, Lt R.A. Milne-Thomson and Sub-Lt John F. Wilford – and his crew of nearly 60, were joined by the captain of P-36, Lt H.N. Edmonds, and two senior ratings, the captain of P-39, Lt N. Marriott, and his officers – Sub Lt G.P Bulmer, Sub Lt D. Hawkyard, Lt P.G. Owen and Warrant Engineer H.G. Howes – and 25 ratings, Lt J.A. Lindsell, the first lieutenant of Pandora, and sailors from HMS Penelope who had been recovering from injuries when the light cruiser was bombed in the dockyard.
In all, about 100 persons (11 officers and 89 ratings) were in the submarine, six officers and 30 ratings as passengers when she sailed at 4 a.m. on May 8.
An hour later, the submarine, still on the surface, struck a mine some seven miles from Malta. There were only 11 survivors. One of these was Chief ERA W.G. Wright of P-39 whose story is told in Beneath The Waves.
“At five o’clock in the morning, that is one hour after leaving harbour, there was a big bang followed by the boat shuddering at half speed... When I got into the control room it was ankle deep in water.
“The rolling action of the boat caused electrical flashes and also caused the lights to go out and then on again. The lights continued to do this with increasing periods of darkness. The engineer officer of Olympus, Bill Keeping, I think his name was, was at the bottom of the control room ladder ushering men up the ladder. Shouting ‘Abandon ship’, I rushed back into the engine room...
“I also thought that I saw yellowy chlorine gas. With 15 or more men in front of me, it seemed that I had not much time to get out so I went for’ard to the gun tower hatch, that is towards the chlorine. At the bottom of the gun tower hatch, I found young Lieutenant Bulmer of P-39 doing the same job as the EO of Olympus. He had apparently sent his last man up the ladder when I appeared. ‘Hello, Chief. Up you go,’ he said cheerfully. And up I went.”
Wright found some men on the gun platform attempting to fire the 4-inch Mk4 semi-automatic but it was jammed.
“When I looked up to the conning tower I saw my captain (Marriott) signalling with a hand torch towards Malta, a dark shape on the horizon and over which an aeroplane with a faint yellow light was flying. Lieutenant Edmonds, the captain of P-36, was on the gun platform. As the bows of the boat began to slip deeper into the sea he said to us: ‘Keep your submarine sweater on as long as you can. It will keep a layer of warm water next to your skin.’
“We all took off our boots or shoes and placed them neatly in pairs on the platform before making our way down off from the saddle tank and into the sea. I swam about 20 yards and then turned to see Olympus take her last dive. I did feel lonely.
“Most of the survivors were standing on the fore casing; others were on the gun platform and conning tower. It appears that the recognition flares attached to the periscope would not ignite and the Aldis signalling lamp was out of action. At first there was a lot of shouting for the whereabouts of friends and also a few shouts from non-swimmers calling for help. No doubt, some people used up their energy helping others.
“Quite soon things quieted down and we were able to set as a group for Malta where we expected help to come from, especially when daylight arrived and they could see us. I slowly discarded my clothing, with the exception of my short pants and belt. I had decided to keep my belt as, at one point, I had found a small piece of wood which I tucked under my belt to add to my buoyancy. After an hour or so the wood had chaffed my skin and so I had thrown it away but I had kept my belt in the hope that a more comfortable item of buoyancy would come along.”
Olympus sank in about nine minutes and in that short time about 90 men had got out of the submarine.
“The number of swimmers got less as time went by. We saw a floating mine with a sort of whip aerial on it. One swimmer started to swim towards the mine but we all shouted at him and he came away from it. We saw the breakfast time raid on Malta.
“We had been swimming for two hours... We saw two or three air raids on Malta... At 10 o’clock in the morning, by which time I was close to the shore, I saw an ambulance on a low cliff. I then saw two soldiers (from C Company, 1st Bn Dorset Regiment) watching me from the beach below. When I got quite close to them I shouted ‘Help!’ and put my feet down. But there was no bottom. I came up spewing out water. I thought ‘You fool! After all this you are going to drown yourself.’ I then swam breaststroke until I grounded on the sand, grazing my knees and elbows. As I got to my feet the soldiers came and put their arms under mine. I knew then that I was safe.”
Wright fainted and came to in a hospital with six other survivors. Two other survivors, Gordon Selby and Syd Seymour, had gone straight to Lazaretto.
Only 11 out of 100 persons were saved. The Outside ERA of Olympus, Geordie Talbott, on reaching the shore, stood up and collapsed dead.
Only five bodies were recovered.
Two days after the tragedy, the survivors were sent to the United Kingdom in the fast minelayer HMS Welshman.