Operation Downfall, scheduled for 1945/46)
Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2023 4:07 pm
Divers find possible wreck from Royal Navy wartime tragedy off Land’s End
Divers believe they may have found one of six Royal Navy ships lost off Cornwall in a forgotten wartime tragedy.
Half a dozen large landing craft were lost off Land’s End in October 1944 when a storm overwhelmed their convoy, killing more than 50 Royal Navy sailors.
A team of divers – known as the ‘Gasperados’ – operating out of Newquay on the boat Atlantic Diver took the plunge off the westernmost tip of the English mainland in the hope of locating a shipwreck.
They didn’t find it, but around 100 metres down, in an undisclosed location, they did come across a different wreck – possibly an amphibious vessel.
They sought the advice of Dr Harry Bennett, Associate Professor of History at Plymouth University to identify it.
He suggested that it could be the one of six Landing Craft Tanks (LCTs) lost while being towed to Asia in 1944 in anticipation of the planned invasion of Japan (Operation Downfall, scheduled for 1945/46).
Continues at - https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-l ... -lct-wreck
Divers believe they may have found one of six Royal Navy ships lost off Cornwall in a forgotten wartime tragedy.
Half a dozen large landing craft were lost off Land’s End in October 1944 when a storm overwhelmed their convoy, killing more than 50 Royal Navy sailors.
A team of divers – known as the ‘Gasperados’ – operating out of Newquay on the boat Atlantic Diver took the plunge off the westernmost tip of the English mainland in the hope of locating a shipwreck.
They didn’t find it, but around 100 metres down, in an undisclosed location, they did come across a different wreck – possibly an amphibious vessel.
They sought the advice of Dr Harry Bennett, Associate Professor of History at Plymouth University to identify it.
He suggested that it could be the one of six Landing Craft Tanks (LCTs) lost while being towed to Asia in 1944 in anticipation of the planned invasion of Japan (Operation Downfall, scheduled for 1945/46).
Continues at - https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-l ... -lct-wreck