Category: No Roses on a Sailor’s Grave

WWII veteran's quest to find D-Day shipwreck and build a memorial to lost shipmates
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WWII veteran's quest to find D-Day shipwreck and build a memorial to lost shipmates

EXCLUSIVE: Seventy years after she was sunk off the French coast in the wake of D-Day, a chance encounter launched an extraordinary project to locate the wreck of a British ship… and commemorate those who went down with her.

The 158-foot-long headquarters ship, one of thousands that set forth across the Channel, was part of the first wave heading for Sword Beach in Normandy.

“I had certain qualms in my stomach, but you very quickly dismissed that because you’re busy,” Patrick Thomas, now 98, recalls.

“When we arrived there initially, we didn’t get a very friendly welcome.

“The Germans were rattling machine gun bullets on the hull. I saw the infantry running up the beach and sometimes they’d get shot and go down.”

For the next two weeks, in the heat of battle, LCH185 played a key role in defending the landing beaches and saving survivors from other Allied vessels, which were taking a fearful pounding from relentless German attacks.

Then, on June 25, Patrick’s world changed forever when LCH185 was hit by an acoustic mine. The veteran recollects that cataclysmic moment.

“I didn’t hear the explosion, but it must have lifted the stern up and driven the bow under. The next thing I knew, we were underwater.”

Read the full article on Express.co.uk.

Award For Helping To Find A Lost D-Day Wreck
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Award For Helping To Find A Lost D-Day Wreck

By Max James

A diving club’s help in finding the wreck of a ship lost during D-Day for one of the few who survived its sinking 75 years ago was rewarded with an award at the Nautical Archaeology Society (NAS) annual conference this month.

Southsea Sub Aqua Club had joined the search for the ship that went down in 1944 with the loss of 35 of the 40-man crew. It started with the chance meeting of archaeologist John Henry Phillips, 25, and naval veteran Patrick Thomas, 95, during a D-Day commemoration. Patrick told John the story of how he had escaped but the ship had never been found and how he wished to honour his teenage friends who died in the sinking.

The story of how John found the wreck and the friendship between the two has been made into a feature-length documentary called No Roses on a Sailor’s Grave.

The role of Southsea Sub Aqua Club in helping to identify the wreck has honoured with the Adopt A Wreck Award at the NAS conference in Portsmouth.

The club did extensive research into wrecks in the Baie de Seine and their detailed survey work is to be used in a bid to gain these rapidly decaying ships better protection.

Alison Mayor from the club said: ‘The wreck is just one of at least 150 in the Baie de Seine believed to be associated with the Allied forces invasion. Our report has been submitted to the French Maritime Cultural Department and will form part of the documentation supporting the application for UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. We hope that our work will help keep the memory of these events alive and properly recorded within history’.

Read the article on divemagazine.co.uk

Award-winning wreck-dives captured
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Award-winning wreck-dives captured

Southsea Sub-Aqua Club members have won the Nautical Archaeology Society (NAS) 2019 Adopt a Wreck Award, and their search for a landing-craft sunk during the D-Day landings has been captured in a documentary called No Roses on a Sailor’s Grave.

In 1944 young sailor Patrick Thomas narrowly survived the sinking of HMS LCH185 during the Normandy invasion. He had never spoken of the incident until, years later on a trip to Normndy, he met archaeologist John Henry Philips, who told him that he would to try to find LCH185.

In August 2017 hydrographer Chris Howlett introduced Southsea SAC members to a documentary team from Go Button Media.

“Chris believed he may have found Patrick’s wreck and recommended us as a dive-team who were capable of undertaking a survey of the wreck-site to confirm its identity,” said club-member Martin Davies.

“When we heard about Patrick’s wish to commemorate his lost shipmates, we were very keen to support the endeavour so that he could honour his friends after more than 70 years, and support John in his promise to find his ship.”

Most of the 7000 vessels involved in the Operation Neptune landings in June 1944 were lost, and many of those who died on them were never found. The divers surveyed the target wreck and created a report, as reflected in the documentary.

“The wreck is just one of at least 150 wrecks in the Baie de Seine believed to be associated with the Allied forces invasion,” said the club’s Alison Mayor. “Our report has been submitted to the French Maritime Cultural Department and will form part of the documentation supporting the application for UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

“We hope that our work will help to keep the memory of these events alive and properly recorded within history.”

For what the NAS describes as their “exceptional work” on the project, Mayor and Davies were awarded the Adopt a Wreck Award at the NAS Conference in Portsmouth.

The feature-length documentary will be screened at film festivals from early 2020. “It’s rare you get a chance to change history, and in a small way we felt that following Patrick and John’s adventure achieves just that,” said director Daniel Oron.

“Stories like these are important for current and future generations. Sadly, we lose more veterans each year and with so few still among us, the memories are fading and the world will move on. Yet events like those Patrick took part in are critical if we are to learn from history.”

Read the article on diver.net