Environmental Impact - Sunken Wrecks

HMS Exmouth

HMS Exmouth gained the cruel distinction of being the first naval loss of the war with all hands, when she was torpedoed by a German U-boat just 22 miles from the coast of Wick.

HMS Exmouth is a war grave. She was an E-class destroyer, sunk in January 1940 in the Moray Firth after being torpedoed by the submarine U22.

All 189 crew were lost in the attack.

HMS Exmouth was escorting a merchant vessel from Aberdeen to the Orkneys when she was hit. The skipper of the freighter, the Cyprian Prince, heard two loud explosions, and approached to try to recover any survivors.

The voices of men could be heard in the water, and ladders were let down. But after only three minutes the Cyprian Prince was forced to move on. It was a clear moonlit night, there was a submarine close by, and Admiralty orders stipulated that ships must not stop to recover survivors.

It was a decision that was to prove difficult for the captain of the Cyprian Prince to live with and was debated at the highest levels of the War Cabinet but ultimately decided justifiable in the circumstances.

By the time a rescue was launched by local fishermen from Wick, there was no sign of the Exmouth or any survivors. A week later, bodies of 18 of the crew were washed ashore at Lybster and taken to Wick for burial.

On the 1st and 2nd September 2001 a diverse group of mixed ages and from a variety of backgrounds, made the long journey to Wick from opposite ends of the UK and the distant shores of the USA and New Zealand for a memorial weekend.

For most it was a pilgrimage of love and a quest for the truth, born out of 61 years of uncertainty and heartbreak.

At least 150 relatives of the crew of HMS Exmouth gathered in Wick and a large contingent met at Wick Harbour on the Saturday morning. e to journey out to sea to the site of the wreck

It was only in 2001 that Mark Reeves and his ‘Extreme Dive Team’, located and dived the site of the wreck of Exmouth - prior consent for this having been granted by the MoD.

Donald Sutherland, a local, recalls how as a lad of 10 years old, he had been playing truant and as he wandered along from the harbour out to the Shaltigoe Wall made the sad discovery of the bodies of some of those washed ashore. He remembers he had witnessing the Exmouth funerals in the Cemetery by hiding behind a wall with his friend. The friend’s father housed hunting dogs in kennels adjacent to the cemetery and Donald could not make out how the dogs had remained silent during the moving funeral proceedings - they were notorious for barking uncontrollably at the slightest sound. Later his friend’s father revealed that he had drugged the dogs to keep them quiet for the occasion as a mark of respect for those lost.

The people of Wick had buried the men with dignity in January 1940. Hundreds of people lined the streets to pay their respects and they were laid to rest with full military honours.

Nowadays beautiful marine life makes its’ home in the wreck. It is perhaps fitting that the site has been transformed from one of death and destruction to a scene of tranquillity and life.