The British Submarine PERSEUS set-off on November 24, 1941, from Malta towards the gulf of Taranta in the Adriatic Sea and the Ionian Sea for for an offensive patrol mission.
On December 6, 1941 she struck a mine off the coast of Kefalonia and went down taking with her 60 officers and lower rank men.
The British crew member (stoker) John Capes was the sole survivor, as he managed a daring last minute escape from the sunken submarine. Using a special escape apparatus named DAVIS, he performed a "second to none" effort to succesfully ascent from the Perseus shipwreck, to the surface of the cold Ionian sea water and also to his saviour...
He swam to the nearest shore of Kefalonia, a beautiful island which was then under the Italian occupation. There, the villagers found him in an extremely distressed condition, treated him medically and took him into shelter. Having been in good hands for more than 18 months, he was helped to escape to safety in Smyrna.
John Capes extraordinary survival adventure was difficult to be taken seriously. No one believed his story, as it seemed too far fetched. No one ever understood what this man had really gone through, as this seemed to be a journey from hell to paradise. To escape from such a depth, it was actually a first.
Unfortunately John Capes is no longer with us and back then, his superhuman escape story could not be verified ...
From the sixty men that were drifted along with the submarine on the seabed of the Ionian Sea, an English rating managed to accomplish something unique in the Naval History. The stoker John Capes was resting at the aft compartment just before the explosion occurred. He was going through some letters, drinking rum. When H.M.S PERSEUS began going down, the aft compartment did not flood until the submarine touched the bottom of the Ionian Sea.
Although injured, Capes started to search for other survivors and found three other stokers alive in the debris who were very seriously injured. Without wasting any time, Capes found the Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus and helped his wounded companions to put them on. Then, he had to find a way to open the hatch of the aft compartment. That could be only done by balancing the pressure in the compartment with that in the sea. First, he lowered the collapsible canvas escape trunk and secured it by lashings to the deck. Unfortunately, when he found the valve which he had to use in order to flood the compartment, he saw that its spindle was bent and immovable. So he had to find another way to do it, otherwise they would be trapped. And he did. He flooded the compartment using the underwater gun, which, under normal circumstances, is used for sending smoke signals to the surface. Immediately he helped his shipmates duck down under the water, came up inside the trunk and got out to the sea through the escape hatch. Then he followed the same procedure and from 52 meters depth, he began his own ascent. Straining through his painful ascent, he managed to surface and started looking around for his companions, but alas, in vain. No one else had survived the sinking of H.M.S. PERSEUS that became an underwater grave for fifty-nine men.
Despite being badly worn out, Capes summoned up all the energy he had and started swimming towards the dark mass he could discern in the horizon. After many hours struggle with the cold sea, he reached a rocky beach. With great effort he crawled over the rocks and finally came ashore onto one of the most impressive beaches of Kefalonia Island. Exhausted as he was, he lapsed into unconsciousness.
The next day, he was still lying there when Miltiades Xareras and Xaralabos Valianos, two fishermen from the nearest area, Mavrata village, found him...
http://www.planetblue.gr/content/index.php?option=com_content&view=articl...
The great escape
http://www.divernetxtra.com/wrecks/perse898.htm
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Sea Wreckage Of World War IIby swiggy1957364,937 views
It is no more disrespectful to dive on a war grave wreck than it is to visit a military cemetery. It's only disrespectful if you take things, or enter the wreck itself.
That being said, even on protected or controlled war graves, it is possible to get permission to enter the wreck for legitimate research purposes. Trying to prove or disprove John Capes' story would probably qualify as such.
BTW the HMS Perseus is not designated a war grave. It should be, but under law it is not.
silirat 2 months ago
@grivasy trying to work out where that was on the video, do you know what time stamp I need to look at ?
vespaUK125 2 months ago
Great video , and a great achievement though as a fellow diver I have mixed feelings about anyone swimming around the inside of whats effectively a tomb.
ossianuk 2 months ago
the diver is one of the best divers in the world. the purpose of the dive was to prove the story of the only survivor John Capes, a non listed passenger was true.In a series of dives to the wreck of Perseus, Kostas Thoctarides discovered Capes's empty torpedo tube bunk, the hatch and compartment exactly as he had described it, and finally, his blitz bottle from which he had taken that last fortifying swig of rum.
grivasy 2 months ago 2
WTF are these guys doing in a war grave?
SuperAncientmariner 3 months ago
the bodies are still on this ship and it is a war grave as my great uncle died on this sub in 1941 and it is meant to be protected
GRAMGPB 5 months ago
ok gise the ship is going to disapear any ways so why the fuck not
mastercheif98612 6 months ago
@damo4576 je ne comprend pas l englais
mais un sous marin de la ww1 peuut tres bien avoire eté coulé en 1941
druisten3 1 year ago
@druisten3 Read the description, it says 1941, now work it out....
damo4576 1 year ago
Were the bodies of the 59 crew members removed then? I'd have thought a grave site like that would have some kind of law prohibiting anybody from entering the wreck, not to mention the immoral and disrespectful connotations. Although it's a good video, I'd feel bad if I knew it was still a grave and the divers were not supposed to be there. I know nothing of this wreck though, will Google.
damo4576 1 year ago 2