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'The
Longest Night' The story
of the Empire Heritage Con t.....
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Records indicate that at 2259 on the 7th Sept
1944 a second class bearing was obtained by HF/DF by the SS
Pinto a small RFA 1346-ton motor vessel on Government service
acting as rescue ship for the convoy. The bearing was reported
as an enemy submarine drying out aerials, bearing 052º,
the operator estimated a distance away of 30 miles but only
in ground wave. No ship in convoy HXF 305 heard the enemy transmission
although the reception of SS Pinto's signal was reported to
senior |
| officers although there appears no trace that the information
was then transferred to HXF 305 or even to shore authorities.
The board considered that in fact the intelligence was too indefinite
to influence the senior officer C5 and that in all probability
did not emanate from the U-boat, which attacked the convoy the
following day. At 0355 in the early morning hours of 8th Sept
1944 off Northern Ireland the wind blew a N.N.W approx. 2-3
with moderate visibility through the dark although objects were
not visible at five miles and less in squalls. The moon, aged
20 days had rose at 2140 and was obscured by clouds from time
to time. Sunrise was due in at 0549, for the convoy asdic conditions
were good. At 0400 Empire Heritage took a single torpedo directly
into her starboard side and sank in ten minutes. There were
two explosions! RFA Pinto proceeded from the port quarter of
the convoy and stopped to pick up survivors, The escort vessel
HM trawler Northern wave then proceeded to close in order to
carry out observant duties. At least 15 survivors including
the chief officer of Empire Heritage reported 4-10ft of periscope
close on the port bow of Pinto moving right to left to seaward
at a speed of 12-15 knots. The periscope is said to have passed
right through the survivors and dipped apparently on sighting
Northern Wave approx. 3 cables on Pintos port beam. Almost immediately
afterwards at 0434 Pinto herself was hit also in her starboard
side directly under the bridge and sank in 90 seconds! For the
survivors of the Empire Heritage there ordeal in the hours of
darkness was of the worse imaginable having been sunk by torpedo
at 0400 only to be sunk for a second time 34 minutes later in
the vessel that had rescued them. Leaving not stone unturned
my research unveiled reports indicating that of the 161 aboard
Empire Heritage 113 were lost as a result of the incident 60
crew and 53 passengers. The survivors then went through the
exact ordeal once again 34 minutes later, but the extraudinary
account of this story is that many of the passengers aboard
Empire Heritage were actually survivors from various lost ships
picked up through the passage of convoy HXF 305! A number of
these men then actually survived as many as 3 torpedoed and
sinking ships in perhaps as many days although it is not clear
exactly how many. |
| HMT Northern Wave then opened up to 5 cables and
commenced a square search anti clockwise for their enemy. At
approx. 0440 she rapidly turned to port to avoid torpedo hit
herself reported at the time by asdic. Very shortly afterwards
Northern Wave then claim's via the report to have hit an object
reported from lookouts as a submarine diving steeply, periscope
and stern clearly identified. She then searched with square
search around the position although no contact was obtained.
Northern Wave then picked up the survivors immersed in the cold
Atlantic many of them for a second or even third time! Interestingly
enough for a vessel that took a single torpedo she now lies
in quite a broken and unusual manner. |
Sillouette of a US Military tank upright at
a depth of 280ft off the wreck of the Empire Heritage |
Agreed the wreck lies exposed to all the eliminates of the
Atlantic and with some big swells locally Empire Heritage is,
at almost 70m depth depending on the state of tide, a dive for
experienced trimix divers only. The wreck lies 17 miles North
of Lough Swilly 55.27N 8.01W over a gravel rock seabed in a
position just off NW/SE and practically across the tide. The
position in which she is exposed to the Atlantic Ocean possibly
accounts for her condition. The very stern end of the wreck
lies at the Northern position and it is here that the skippers
shot is more likely to hook alongside the wreck being the highest
section along other than her boilers. There is a huge four bladed
bronze propeller here still attached to the wreck that is enough
to dwarf a diver and although the prop rises high above the
seabed the stern section itself is virtually upside down. The
wreck then appears to twist back on itself before the diver
meets an exposed and very large six-cylinder triple expansion
engine and then six huge scotch boilers that tower high above
the seabed. From the boilers themselves the diver is able to
see in the distance two high derricks that rise 15m from the
deck to a depth of some 50m. Each time I have dived this wreck
I have made this central section of the wreck a termination
point whereupon I have worked my way up either derrick before
bagging off at 50m.
On the deck level adjacent to these derricks are sections of
deck winch machinery and it is here that you are able to stand
high on the wreck and view all the Sherman tanks and trucks
across the seabed. Many of the military trucks amazingly still
have there tyres attached and totally intact whilst bucket dump
trucks become obvious in the clear distance. In one corner close
to the starboard side of the wreck there lies quite literally
a pile of tanks on top of one another. Many of the tanks themselves
still have there tracks attached, some lie on their side, some
upside down while others that lie upright and fully intact make
for great silhouette images as you are able to see in this article.
Once again I have set up a tripod system over the seabed in
order to capture the true atmosphere of the wreck with ambient
light time exposure photographs. Through my research I have
been in contact with a gentleman named Frank Wilson who lost
a brother on the Empire Heritage! Today Frank has one of my
monochrome images of the wreck enlarged in his home, from the
research and information his family has been able to learn more
about the Empire Heritage as well as now having some form of
visual contact with her.
From amidships the diver swims in a direction forward where
they will cross a cargo hold with its hatch combing still very
much intact, the hold appears empty quite possibly at one time
where some of the 16000-tons of oil was stored. Today the hold
is home as is the entire wreck an abundance of wrasse and ocean
pout, so many fish in fact that inside the hold on occasions
it becomes virtually impossible to see! Visibility in general
over the wreck site is always around 30m/100ft distance and
on days with the sun high in the sky possibly more. The bow
section of the wreck is in a poor state compared to the remaining
wreckage and lies very flat to the seabed and fairly smashed
over an even area. There is no particular bow point here to
familiarise you with this section of the wreck other than the
present anchor chain and an anchor itself.
Attacking such a large convoy single handily during the later
part of the war was indeed a daring task in itself and the sinking
of 17,048-tons of shipping from HXF 305 in the early morning
hours of 8th Sept 1944 is credited to KL Hartmut Graf-von Matuschka
of U-482. The information here retracted from the public records
office was secret naval information of the time dating back
to 1944 nowadays of course exposed to the public on request.
The documentation therefore did not hold information at the
time as to the attacking U-Boat or U-Boats in question. In order
to complete both sides of the story I made the journey to see
my old diving friend Innes McCartney a well-known leading U-Boat
historian in his own right. Indeed as I expected Innes unquestionably
had the information at hand that I needed in order to complete
this article. He went on to tell me of the attacking U-boat
in question U-482 and further more the actual fate of the vessel
itself. U-482 was one of the first U-Boats to be fitted with
a Snorkel and in that patrol alone when she sank the 'Empire
Heritage and the Pinto' she covered a staggering 2729 miles
of which just 256 was on the surface. At this stage in the war
a U-Boat sighted by aircraft on the surface would be fatal to
the Germans with more chance of loss than not. Contrary to the
public records information the reports indicate that the crew
of HM Trawler Northern Wave claimed their vessel to have struck
the attacking U-Boat soon after it sank the Pinto. As Innes
indicated to me this was often the case with the allies, to
make claims of such, whether to assist the propaganda war or
simple to justify there own actions at the time of losing vessels
is questionable. We know that U-482 completed her patrol that
Sept without damage, which today corrects the information given
to the board of Inquiry over the incident. Matuschka and U-482
returned to the Atlantic waters off Malin head soon after on
a second patrol although never returned home having disappeared
on the 1st Dec 1944 possibly in a mine field laid in the North
Channel not far from where Empire Heritage and Pinto where lost
themselves.
Although only a very small vessel the nearby wreck of the SS
Pinto in the same depth of water as Empire Heritage still makes
for an interesting dive, a dive that completes the history of
the morning of 8th Sept 1944. Lying only half a mile to the
south west of Empire Heritage Pinto represents a perfect ship
although collapsed into a skeleton of a ship. By this I mean
descending down the shot line the image of a complete ship from
above is obvious however the entire wreck has collapsed down
to seabed level. Her hull walls and bulkheads have fallen outwards
although everything is there in a position where it should naturally
be; the prop is in situ as is the bridge gear central to the
decks. Again superb visibility in the area makes this another
worthwhile dive, skipper Steve Wright of Loyal Watcher who discovered
the wreck tells me that groups that have visited the site have
always claimed her to be a cracking dive.
Like HMS Audacious I recently wrote of Empire Heritage was
another wreck discovered by Alan Wright during the mid to
late 90's. No one knows more about the wreck and local conditions
than Alan who regularly visits the site with technical divers
aboard the MV Salutay. www.salutay.com
. Once again I dived Empire Heritage from Deep Blue Diving's
Loyal Watcher a specialist technical diving charter boat equipped
for the task in hand.
© Leigh Bishop 2002
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