On 31 October 1915, Eidsiva struck a mine and sank, part of the grim run of losses from UC-6’s newly laid field that also claimed or damaged vessels including Toward, HMT Othello II and HMY Aries. For divers, Eidsiva offers a proper First World War Channel story: a neutral Norwegian collier, a cargo of coal, a Dover Strait minefield, and a wreck lying in the busy waterway where commercial trade and naval warfare collided in steel, steam and bad luck.
On 31 October 1915, Othello II was sent to patrol "Section Two", between the Goodwin Gate and the Gull Lightship, after UC-6 had laid mines there the previous day. In a strong south-south-easterly gale, she struck one of those mines at about 11:55am and sank rapidly. The mine was laid by SM UC-6, commanded by Matthias Graf von Schmettow, the same field that also claimed SS Eidsiva, SS Toward and HMY Aries. Nine men were lost, with a single deck-boy survivor reportedly squeezed out through the wheelhouse window before the vessel went down. For divers, this is a small but deeply powerful Dover Patrol wreck: a fishing trawler turned minesweeper, lost in the same deadly wartime trap as several larger ships, and carrying a human story far bigger than her size suggests.
