The seas around Denmark have seen thousands of shipwrecks from ancient times until today. We take a look at a selection of wrecks from WWII minesweepers to WWI Battle of Jutland armoured cruisers to Age of Sail vessels with cannons.
After the Titanic, the RMS Lusitania is probably one of the wrecks in the world which most captures the imagination. It was therefore a great and challenging endeavor for me to be able to see this wreck with my own eyes.
The wreck of the German battlecruiser SMS Scharnhorst, sunk by the Royal Navy during the First World War with the loss of all her crew and Admiral Graf von Spee has been found in the South Atlantic. SMS Scharnhorst, the flagship of the East Asia Squadron which was once the scourge of the Royal Navy, went down with most of the rest of the formation on December 8, 1914, in the Battle of the Falkland Islands.
The battlecruiser sank on Dec. 8, 1914, with more than 800 crew members on board, including German Adm. Maximilian Graf von Spee.
HMHS Britannic was the largest ship to sink during World War I. (Weighting in at almost 50,000-tons she was also the largest ship in the world).
Many argue she is one of the most beautiful, intact, well-preserved passenger liners accessible to divers. It is little wonder that these factors, and the story behind her construction and sinking continue to capture divers imagination.
The newly protected wrecks are HMT Arfon, Submarine U-8 and HM Submarine A3.
The 10,850-ton armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire departed Scapa Flow in Orkney on 5 June 1916 on a voyage around the north cape of Norway to the port of Archangel in northern Russia. She was carrying Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, and his staff to Russia to discuss mutual war aims and strategy.
From Churchill's blockships dotted along the rugged coastline, to dramatic battleships, the wrecks of Scapa Flow continue to fascinate and enthrall divers.
The Halifax bomber was struck by heavy flak and made a successful crash landing 600ft down a water inlet in northern Norway.
The sunken bomber will be protected as a war grave because of the likelihood of the remains of the two airman still being on board. Four of the six-man crew bailed out into a dingy but nothing was ever seen of navigator, Flight Sergeant Albert Columbine, or wireless operator, Arthur Evans. It is believed they drowned when the bomber went down.
The 400-ton Russian submarine, commissioned in 1911, was the biggest in the pre-revolutionary Russian navy. During the first world war, she served in the Baltic Fleet making 16 patrols and unsuccessfully attacked the German coastal defence ship SMS Beowulf.
In November 1915 during her 17th patrol, she struck a mine and sank near Hiiumaa with the loss of all 35 seamen and came to rest at a depth of about 30 meters.
The project was launched by the English Heritage as part of an initiative to create up to a dozen trails by 2018 for historic wreck sites from the 17th to 20th centuries. Trails are already running on three sunken warships including HMS Colossus in 1787, which off sank off the Isles of Scilly.
The Coronation sunk off the coast of Plymouth in 1691 and the Norman’s Bay sank during the Battle of Beachy Head in 1690 in Sussex.
