Expeditions

Loch Erne September 2007

Loch Erne sunrise

A guest article by Ed Howarth

The night was calm and the surface of Loch Erne in Northern Ireland was smooth, making the conditions especially difficult for landing a Sunderland Flying Boat.

This is an impressive machine in anyone’s books, having a 34 metre wingspan and a height of almost 10 metres. It had a range of 3000 miles and a top speed of 210 mph. Doug Dolphin, aged only 23, was a superb pilot and his take offs and landings on this particular night were a perfect demonstration of his skill.

He was an officer of the Royal Canadian Air Force and his task on the evening of the 18 November 1943, was to drill two junior captains in night take offs and landings. Having demonstrated these twice, one of the junior captains took over the controls. Twice, the attempted landings were aborted. Then on the third, the nose of the aircraft lifted too far and the machine crashed into the water, sinking within 45 seconds. Of the eight on board, five managed to escape but three, including Doug Dolphin, died. His and one other body have never been recovered.

Bruce and Ed should be filling cylinders In September, 2007, a team of divers planned to visit Loch Erne and dive the remains of the Sunderland. As it's a war grave it could not be touched, but we planned to video the remains of the aircraft. Contact had been made with a number of relatives of the crew, including Doug Dolphin’s sister and brother who live in Canada; they wanted to come over to see the site of the accident. A documentary company also showed interest and they sent a film crew to be with us and record things on the surface and a local BBC news crew also visited one day. We certainly were not short of media attention!

Those of you who do not know Loch Erne are missing a treat. It is a particularly beautiful place, surrounded by high hills. If you are a diver however, you may not want to go there twice as the underwater conditions being nothing short of appalling. The water has the reddish tinge of tea, being full of peaty particles. A mere six metres underwater and all natural light has disappeared: this is dark with a capital D. Even the strongest torch produces only a deep red glow.

O-ring King tending the compressor The Sunderland is reputed to be in 35 metres of water, not a great depth for us hardy Lancashire divers, but the utter darkness, cold and the special qualities of the bottom quickly made us realise what a tough challenge this was going to be. The word is probably “gloop”, but maybe “gloop” infers some slight solidness, so it might not be a good word after all.

When you have dived some of the English Lakes (as in Lake District – not training quarries), you think you know all about gloopy bottoms. You know, when you can put your arm in all the way to your armpit and still waggle your fingers. But that is nothing compared to the nothingness of Loch Erne’s muddy bottom. It could be argued that the bottom actually starts at the top, each infinitesimally small particle is surrounded by slightly less water volume the deeper you go. Sitting on the RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) and carefully putting your foot into a fin seemed to produced enough turbulence in the water to bring clouds of silt from 35 metres up to the surface. Truly a frightful place to dive.

We went armed with good quality side scan sonar images of an anomaly which seemed to be the right dimensions for a Sunderland and we carefully dropped shot lines around the area that the GPS figures told us it occupied. Meticulous searching using all manner of techniques produced no Sunderland Flying Boat. You would think that a huge aeroplane like this would be easy to find in 35 metres of water and that it would show up on any depth sounder. But no.

After five days’ of searching by six divers we admitted defeat. The wreck had either been swallowed deep into the silt or the sonar information was flawed. We attempted a dive on the site of another flying boat, but with the same result – nil visibility, no discernible bottom and no wreck.

The highlight of the week was a remembrance service held on the shore of the loch, with many people attending, including relatives of the aircraft’s crew and locals who remembered the Air Force base during the war.

The boat leaves for the crash site Our two RIB's drove out to the site of the crash and laid a wreath, an exceptionally moving moment that brought home to us that our pastime of wreck diving usually results from a tragedy. When, on the actual wreck site, you meet and talk to the people directly affected by that tragedy, it is a very humbling experience.

Thanks to everyone who helped with this expedition. Special thanks to Keith Siberry, Brendan Lilley, Michael Whitley and all the members of the mighty Enniskillen Sub Aqua Club. They unquestioningly lent us their club boat for the week, took us diving in the (comparatively) clear waters of the sea and entertained us with hilarious tales of the many unconventional uses of “hairy ned”.

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