Head inside the hole in the hull and climb the ladder on the back wall. Follow the power cables from any lamp and they will all lead into the shipwreck. There is a campsite on the beach next to the shipwreck, but all of the lights are off due to a power supply issue. If you’re struggling with any element of it, we’re here to help.įirst, you need to turn the power back on. It’s found in chapter three onboard the Lady Shannon shipwreck, but there are plenty of steps to complete it. Mr Parton said he would hate to see the memorabilia auctioned on eBay.The black ooze frequency test is one of several puzzles to solve in Call of the Sea. Each of the four frogmen was issued 20 gold sovereigns, silk maps of Siam and Malaya, a telescope and heliograph, watch and compass, a revolver, a commando dagger, plus a cyanide capsule. There may be more war souvenirs on the seabed around Dok Mai. Thai officials are waiting for advice from the British Admiralty. Thai maritime law is explicit, however: any antique found in Thai waters belongs to the nation.Ĭomplicating the case is confusion over whether these MK II Chariots are vessels or spent weapons. As historic curios, the rusty Chariots have generated considerable international excitement. It was Mr Parton's business partner Adam Douglas, whose father had piloted a miniature submarine during the war, who recognised the silhouettes of these rare weapons on the sea bed. I let Smith feel the split pin that meant the charge had been set, we shook hands and were away." "By the time I rejoined Smith I had to been aboard for some 20 minutes - long minutes they had been too. However, as I made my way up the engine-room ladder and across the deck to where I thought Smith would be waiting, I was able to reflect on the big bang I had left just below me. a further fall had torn open my head piece and gashed the top of my skull. But I was too preoccupied with several personal discomforts: my suit was full of water and one of my hands were bleeding badly. "Then I had to take a chance and put another four hours on the clock that's when my life was in my hands. The fuse-clock was ticking away and I knew my time was running out as I negotiated a series of steps down into an engine-room and placed the charge where it could not move. I had to grab the charge again and struggle with it across the deck. I had about 45 minutes on the clock when the lashing parted and my hand was cut. "I took the charge with me and lashed it to one of the deck fittings and took the pin out of the time-setting clock. Mr Brown described the operation in graphic detail to a member of the Submariners' Association, Dave Barlow, before his death. Three of the retired commandos later came back to Phuket to revisit the site where they had earned Distinguished Service Medals. ![]() Mr Parton reckons it was "an intelligence fiasco", and that the likely source of the propellers heard on the submarine's sonar was the returning Chariots. The pair of Terry Chariots sank in the jade-green waters off Thailand. ![]() A Japanese warship was reported lurking nearby, so the Trenchant dived and sped back to base at Trincomalee. Smith, Albert Brown, Anthony Eldridge and Sid Woolcott, were ordered to jettison before the Chariots could be stowed. The cargo ships Volpi and Sumatra blew up just after the commandos made it back to the submarine.īut when a monitor picked up the sound of propellers, the four frogmen, William S. One team was detained an extra20 minutes because they could not dive beneath the bigger ship, and had to sneak into its engine room to plant their time-bomb. The frogmen were meant to plant explosive charges on the ships' hulls, set the timers, and ride their battery-powered torpedoes, minus the warheads, back to the command submarine. War records recount how four British commandos, sitting back-to-back astride the two top-secret MK II Terry Chariot torpedoes, were sent to sabotage two Italian cargo ships anchored off Japanese-occupied Phuket. A strong current makes recovery difficult, but Mr Parton, 58, said they could be retrieved within three months if government permits come through.Ī surprise attack using human torpedoes was launched from the British submarine HMS Trenchant on 28 October 1944, just after midnight. "Tiny" and "Slasher", the last two "human torpedoes" used by British Royal Navy commandos in combat, may have been found in the southern Andaman Sea east of Phuket, some 60 years after they were abandoned and sank.Ĭhris Parton, a marine salvage expert, told The Independent that he and his former business partner, Adam Douglas, tracked down the Second World War-era miniature vessels to the seabed near Dok Mai island, a haunt of leopard sharks and moray eels.Īfter the Boxing Day tsunami pounded the reefs in 2004, the rare sneak- attack weapons came to rest at a depth of nearly 40 metres.
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