SS Thistlegorm

How did the Thistlegorm sink in October 1941?

The Thistlegorm is a 126 meter British cargo ship, launched in Sunderland in April 1940 for the Albyn Line. On her fourth voyage, leaving Glasgow on June 2, 1941, with supplies for British forces in Egypt, she sailed around Africa via Cape Town, then waited at anchor in the area known as "Safe Anchorage F" near Sha'ab Ali for her turn to pass through the Suez Canal, blocked by a collision.

On the night of October 6, 1941, at 1:30 a.m., two Heinkel He 111 bombers flying from Crete spotted her. Two bombs hit hold 4, the ammunition exploded, and the ship broke apart and sank. Nine men died, four sailors and five gunners; the survivors were picked up by the cruiser HMS Carlisle, anchored nearby.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau found the wreck in the early 1950s with help from local fishermen. He brought up the bell, the captain's safe and a motorcycle, showed it in the February 1956 issue of National Geographic and filmed it for The Silent World. The site then fell back into obscurity until the early 1990s, when Sharm el-Sheikh became a dive resort.

What can you see on the Thistlegorm wreck?

The wreck sits almost upright on the sand, at 30 to 32 meters, with the main deck at about 18 meters. The bow section is intact: holds 1 and 2 shelter BSA and Norton motorcycles lined up in rows, Bedford trucks, rifle crates, rubber boots, aircraft wings and engines. Tracked Bren carriers and railcars are still recognizable.

At the back, the explosion ripped the ship open: the stern lies broken, twisted away from the hull, its gun still pointing upward. The two steam locomotives, carried on deck, were thrown to either side of the wreck and can be visited on the sand. The propeller stayed in place.

Schools of barracudas, batfish and anthias circle the structure; tuna, morays, lionfish, stonefish, crocodilefish and turtles also frequent the wreck.

What are the two Thistlegorm dives like?

The first dive goes around the outside, between 18 and 30 meters: the bridge, the guns, the locomotives on the sand, the propeller. The second goes into the holds, between 25 and 30 meters, for wreck-trained divers with a guide: that is where the motorcycles, trucks and rifle crates are. Photographers come back three or four times on a liveaboard, for the morning light on the deck and hold 2 with nobody in it.

Why is the Thistlegorm protected as a war grave?

Nine men died here. The wreck is protected by Egyptian antiquities law: nothing comes up, not even a shell casing. Boats tie up directly to the structure, for lack of lasting moorings: the thirty-two buoys laid in late 2007 had vanished two years later. Every fin kick in a hold, every hand on a plate wears down a ship that has been rusting for more than eighty years.

The Thistlegorm Project, led by the University of Nottingham with Ain Shams and Alexandria universities, produced the first complete photogrammetric survey of the wreck in 2017: it is the benchmark for measuring what the wreck loses each year.