DATELINE: 27th July 2001

CHANNEL WARSHIP FOUND
A team of mixed-gas technical divers has located and dived the wreck of HMS Charybdis, a major British warship sunk in 1943 off the Sept Isles in northern France.
Led by Keith Morris, one of Britain's pioneer mixed-gas divers, the team made 14 dives on the wreck, establishing that it lies on its port side at 83m.
Charybdis was afloat for only two years but was engaged in convoy duties in the Mediterranean, Bay of Biscay and South Atlantic, supported the Allied landings at Algiers and Bizerta, and embarked General Eisenhower at Salerno.
The Dido class anti-aircraft light cruiser went down when she was torpedoed by a German destroyer while serving as surface strike leader in Operation Tunnel, which set rapid deployment forces against German convoys running along the north coast of France.
Only 107 of the ship's company were saved. The 460 lives lost were the war's biggest single death toll in the English Channel and the wreck remains a sensitive issue along North Brittany and the Channel Isles. A Charybdis Day is held each year on Guernsey to commemorate those lost.
"It was imperative that this project received the correct permissions and backing," Keith Morris told Divernet. "We obtained permits from the French authorities and, with current political tensions focused on such sites, we also approached the Charybdis & Limbourne Survivors Association, which gave us its backing."
Aboard the liveaboard Wey Chieftan II, skippered by Graham Knott, the team located the wreck 600m from a position given by Jersey-based John Ovenden, who had also supplied a sonar side-scan image of the wreck. Charybdis had previously been visited in 1993 by French divers Michel Cloatre and Joel Guizien, who dived on air to recover shellcases to identify it.
On trimix, Morris's team - Tim Bach, Leigh Bishop, Andy Heatherton, Toby Herbert, Roy Smith and Ian Taylor - had more time to survey the ship. They found "considerable damage" to the starboard side, but both sets of 4.5in guns remained in position, barrels facing the seabed.
Aft of the bridge, the divers explored the port gunwale and noted both masts with their ladders, and the stern guns.
A full report with pictures will be sent to the survivors' association.

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