In 1960 the Dhekelia Sub Aqua Club 120 Special Branch located a wreck in
the Bay of Ormidhia. At the time it was believed that the wreck had been
a blockade runner to Palestine, captured by the British in 1948, stripped
of engines in Famagusta and then scuttled in its present location. It is
not known who started the story but being a romantic one it was handed
down with the odd alterations until the author heard it for the first time
in August 1985.
I first dived the wreck in August 1985 and was immediately taken by her silence and hidden secrets. From that first dive I was determined to identify her and trace her history. In January 1986, Bryan Booth, my wife and myself began the project of trying to identify what was then known as the Ormidhia Wreck. Little did we know of the arguments, the long hours, the planning and hours underwater this would take. From that date to now over 1500 dives have been carried out on this project, the author alone has 225 logged dives on her and still she is giving up the odd secret to add to the many in the last two years.
That first serious dive in January 1985 on HMS Cricket revealed two things; that the craft had a straight bow similar to a ship of the First World War vintage and that she had a flat bottom, indicating that she must have been a river or delta boat.
It is hard to describe a ship in a letter to either the Imperial War Museum or the Maritime Museum at Greenwich so the team decided to measure and photograph her in order to build a scale model. This was duly done and finished by early August 1986.
In the meantime Bryan had discovered an eyewitness living in the village of Ormidhia. You could imagine the excitement when we read the translated letter giving us our first clue to her identity.
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The distinct straight bow of a 1st World War war ship.
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The flat bottom and three large rudders indicating a highly maneuverable river or delta ship...
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Over 150 dive hours in 30 meters of water were completed by each member of the team in order to measure, chart and photograph the wreck.
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On completion a scaled clay model was produced for identification purposes...
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Scale model 1cm/1m made in clay, of HMS Cricket as found and surveyed by the team...
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The three distinctive rudders which helped to identify the wreck as an
Insect class gunboat...
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Photograph of rudders taken during the construction of HMS Cricket.
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HMS Cricket, upside-down, superstructure seen right.
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English translation of letter
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| A VISIT TO THE ABANDONED SHIP |
If my memory is right, it was August 1943. The war was in progress and
fierce fighting was going on between the allied armies and the axis forces.
It was a war for the conquest of Europe and Asia. CYPRUS, at that time
a British colony, had a lot of unemployment as there was no work, no money
and insufficient food and clothing.
I was just 20 years old, married with one child and a second baby was on the way.
I was unemployed and feeling miserable and searching for some work to keep my family. In the meantime I used to go to the beach with the hope that I might catch some fish, mussels or even an octopus.
One day while I was fishing, I noticed that a ship was brought in which
was rather larger than I had seen before. The ship was being towed by another
one and brought to a location and anchored. This area was called PHRVOLA
(garden). The ship was anchored at a distance of about 1 ½ kilometers.
It was left there while the other one went away. (We later discovered it
was a German ship was captured and had been brought to that spot for practice
purposes). At first we thought to ourselves that it may be a damaged ship
that had been brought for repairs, and that it would later be taken away.
Days went by and the ship was still there. The only difference which we
noted was that every day a squadron of aircraft used to come and fly over
it. We used to look at this scene and laugh over it. However, I do remember
that the pilots of the aircraft used to arrive and dive over this ship
with great precision and then fly away towards NICOSIA. Days went by and
there were all-sorts of rumors about the ship and many of us were asking
questions as to why and for what purpose it was brought and left there.
One day at about 10 am, I was at the beach fishing with another chap, a
friend. Our own fishing area was close to the position of the ship and
the sea was so calm that one felt like jumping into the sea to reach the
vessel. I estimated the distance and then said to my friend, “Shall we
go as far as the ship and find out what there is on it?” My friend tried
to make me change my mind and make excuses in case there were some people
on it who wouldn’t let us on board. However, I was determined to go to
the ship, even if I had to go alone.
I jumped into the sea and then told him, “I am going to the boat and if by nightfall I am not back, could you inform my family and the police?” Suddenly I noticed a young boy of about 12 (he was Chambis CHRISTODOULOU) was following me and he shouted, “Wait, I am coming with you.” I became angry and told him to go back because if something were to happen to him, his parents would kill me. The boy kept on insisting that he would come. I tried to explain the distance and difficulties and that he might drown but he kept on saying, “I want to come.” I threw stones at him to keep him off the beach but all was in vain.
For a while the young boy sat on the beach. Then I started swimming towards the ship but, when after a while I turned back, I noticed that the boy was following me. He was swimming, in fact he was a very good swimmer and much faster than me. Occasionally he stopped and rested on his back. Eventually we reached the boat but at that moment we realized there were three others who jumped off the boat and started swimming away. Those three were another group who thought we were from the Coast Guard. We got to the stern of the ship, which was rather low, and from that position we began shouting, “Is there anyone up there?” Having not received any reply we climbed on board and were taken by surprise. The deck was completely whitewashed with plaster. Chambis started to measure the length of the deck. In the meantime I continued to call out, just in case there was a crew who might think we were thieves. I then explored up and down in the storage area but no human beings were to be seen anywhere. Then Chambis, who was holding a torch and an empty match box, joined me and said, “One of the chambers (cabins) down there is full of these.”
Suddenly we heard the noise of aircraft and looking around carefully, we
saw that these were coming towards us. (Note a line is missing here - not
reproduced by the photocopier). From one of the port hole windows we noticed
that as the squadron approached, they separated and dived over the ship
one at a time. This was repeated several times. The young boy next to me
was terrified and trembling and kept on saying, “You know they are going
to bomb us and we will get killed.”
Although I tried to console him, deep inside me I too was worried and for
a moment very worried. The first lot of aircraft disappeared and a little
later on others came and repeated the same things. When the second lot
went away, we explored the rest of the ship. We went down to the engine
room but there were no engines. These had been removed and the stern of
the boat was full of water, that is why it was so low. While touring around
we picked up anything that we though would be useful to us. We found some
drums with paint and some rope, plus single beds and other small items.
We made a raft and threw it into the sea and started moving to the beach.
By this time it was nearly 4 pm. The sea started to get rough and within
10 minutes we were on the beach; our swimming time to the ship had taken
an hour and a half. When we arrived at the beach the coast guards were
already waiting.
In a few days time, the boat sank. It’s still there and has become a breeding place for fish.
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This letter was of tremendous value, however slightly misleading because of the date August 1943. Later on we discovered more eyewitnesses who corrected the sinking date to August 1944, but that is a later story.
We now had enough to approach one of the museums, but which one. Bryan flew to England and decided to approach the Maritime Museum at Greenwich but to no avail, no-one could identify the wreck until by chance one of the museum investigators arrived and immediately identified the wreck as an Insect Class river gunboat. You can imagine the telephone call from Bryan in England to us here in Cyprus. It was time to celebrate. The wreck was British.
There was only one snag according to the Maritime Museum, all of the Insects were accounted for and none had come to Cyprus.
Now we knew what type of ship we were looking at, research started on trying to identify which Insect she was. The first clue came from the Garrison Library in a book titled WWI Ships. This book revealed that twelve Insect Class river gunboats had been built but according to the book none had been sunk in Cyprus.
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| Editor's note: HMS Glowworm was scrapped in Malta. |
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