RMS Leinster
I recently went scubadiving to the wreck of the RMS Leinster, a mailboat which plied the route between Dun Laoghaire and Holyhead in Wales.
Wreckdiving is a strange experience when you think about it. Often there is loss of life involved in the loss of a ship, particularly with older wrecks when our capacity for early alert and lifesaving was much less than it is now. And yet divers treat wrecks to some degree as their playthings. Upto 500 people were lost when the RMS Leinster was torpedoed by U-132 which in turn was lost when she struck a mine on her voyage home in the North Sea. 22 of the the lost souls were Post Office workers, working in the mail sorting room on the ship which is exactly where the first torpedo struck.
The human tragedy of a sinking often, in my experience, goes over the head of the sports diver. It's hard to connect the rusting skeleton on the sea floor with the ships we travel on, depend upon, ignore in harbours, let alone their crews and passengers. And yet the personal connection for me with the Leinster is that one of the lost post office workers was the father of my maths teacher, a kind, caring man, whose own funeral i attended a few short months ago.
When we go diving on a wreck like this in my club the diving officer always mentions the fact that the ship is a war grave, just to instill a sense of respect and reverence in the divers. I know not all clubs would have the same attitude. I don't think i will go back to the Leinster. Having seen it once (albeit in very bad visibilty) I don't think i will be that pushed on going again.
Wreckdiving is a strange experience when you think about it. Often there is loss of life involved in the loss of a ship, particularly with older wrecks when our capacity for early alert and lifesaving was much less than it is now. And yet divers treat wrecks to some degree as their playthings. Upto 500 people were lost when the RMS Leinster was torpedoed by U-132 which in turn was lost when she struck a mine on her voyage home in the North Sea. 22 of the the lost souls were Post Office workers, working in the mail sorting room on the ship which is exactly where the first torpedo struck.
The human tragedy of a sinking often, in my experience, goes over the head of the sports diver. It's hard to connect the rusting skeleton on the sea floor with the ships we travel on, depend upon, ignore in harbours, let alone their crews and passengers. And yet the personal connection for me with the Leinster is that one of the lost post office workers was the father of my maths teacher, a kind, caring man, whose own funeral i attended a few short months ago.
When we go diving on a wreck like this in my club the diving officer always mentions the fact that the ship is a war grave, just to instill a sense of respect and reverence in the divers. I know not all clubs would have the same attitude. I don't think i will go back to the Leinster. Having seen it once (albeit in very bad visibilty) I don't think i will be that pushed on going again.