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 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.
At the beginning of World War I the German submarine U-26 disappeared without a trace.
On October 11, 1914, she sank the Russian cruiser Pallada inflicting the first loss of the war on the Russian navy. The boat did not return from sea in August 1915 and is assumed to have struck a mine or suffered a technical failure off the coast of Finland.
The Finnish group of divers who goes by the name Badewanne states on their website:
Situated 25 km (15 miles) north of the Scottish mainland, the Orkney Islands are located on the same latitude as southern Greenland, Alaska and Leningrad, however Orkney is bathed in the warm waters of the North Atlantic Drift that first started out as the Gulf Stream in the Caribbean.
It's been a busy few years for Marine Quest, run by father and son team Jim and Iain Easingwood, and their latest find- the German U-Boat, U-40, is arguably their most impressive find yet.
