A British-based diving team has located and dived a rare WWII German armed merchant raider, between Alderney and Cap Le Hague in France.

Wreck hunter and historian Innes McCartney led a nine-strong team on a week's charter aboard Mike Rowley's Maureen, out of Dartmouth.

Armed with a possible position from his research into the ship, McCartney struck lucky and located the wreck of the HK Komet by sounder early in the trip.

But challenging conditions, with very strong tides and short periods of slack, meant that the team needed the next "two days to work out the best time to dive".

When they descended, the divers found a 40m-long stern section, at a depth of 70m. The 110m ship was blown apart by a large explosion during its 1942 night engagement with Royal Navy vessels, killing all but one of its 352 crew.

The first thing to appear out of the murk were the rudder and a propeller. The hull is upturned with one side sufficiently clear of the seabed for deck appendages to be seen.

"The hull lies with the tide and there was no marine growth on the keel due to the strength of the currents in these waters," McCartney told Divernet. "Off the starboard side there's a debris field, with ladders, steps, masts and rigging."

No absolute proof of identity has been gathered, but McCartney was certain of the find. "Visible under the hull was the 155mm centreline stern gun, and we located expended 155mm ammunition cartridges," he said. "We could also see a flak gun right on the stern.

"So what we had here was a heavily armed vessel that clearly wasn't a naval ship. It could be nothing but the Komet."

The ship was one of nine freighters converted into surface raiders by the German navy. All were sunk or broken up, none being found before the discovery of the Komet.

The ship was not active for long, but was deadly. She claimed 43,000 tons of shipping on her first tour, before being sunk at the start of her second deployment.

British intelligence picked up the ship's location off France through decryption of Enigma signals. A fleet of nine destroyers and eight torpedo boats was sent to intercept the raider and her escort vessels.

McCartney's interest in the wreck was fuelled by David Woodward's book Secret Raiders. He obtained a sinking position from the MoD's Hydrographic Office, and decided to mount a diving exploration after interesting local information came to light.

Local knowledge proved a Godsend as, said McCartney, the wreck's position is "some way out" from the official record. The team located the ship's bow section a quarter of a mile from the stern, but did not have time to dive it.

Future dives are likely to centre on solving a controversy as to whether the ship was sunk by a torpedo from an MTB (whose commander received the DSO) or by shellfire from destroyers, igniting a fuel store for the ship's two seaplanes.

Project divers were Innes and Patricia McCartney, Mark Callaghan, Greg Marshall, Sarah Jepson, John Cobb, James McGuinness, Phil Grigg and Robert van der Meer.

The exploration was self-funded, with equipment support from Poseidon UK, Hydrotech UK and Otter Watersports.

Related links
Innes McCartney - wrecks history

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