Armed Trawler

A small Aberdeen-built fishing trawler became a Royal Navy minesweeper, then vanished in one of Dover’s deadliest First World War minefields. HMT Falmouth III, FY152 struck a mine laid by German submarine UC-5 on 19 November 1915, two days after the same field sank the hospital ship HMHS Anglia.

The blast blew Falmouth III in half and killed seven men. Even more strangely, she is said to have sunk directly onto Anglia’s wreck before a storm later shifted her. A compact Dover Patrol wreck, a brutal Channel story, and another reminder that minesweeping was courage wrapped in thin steel.

A Milford Haven fishing trawler turned wartime patrol vessel, HMT Lydian was doing the dangerous work of the Dover Patrol when she struck a German mine off South Foreland on 18 September 1915. The mine had been laid by UC-6, one of the small German submarines turning the Channel into a hidden battlefield. Eight men died when Lydian sank. Today her wreck lies in about 23 to 24 m of water east of South Foreland, a compact but powerful First World War dive with a bell-confirmed identity, recovered artefacts and a brutal reminder that minesweepers often found mines the hard way.