My photo expedition to the Perseus submarine, Greece — Meine Foto-Expedition zum Wrack des U-Bootes Persus, Griechenland — La mia spedizione fotografica al relitto del sottomarino Persus, Grecia

By Nico Luzzi | Published January 9, 2020

The Perseus was a 79 m long Royal Navy Parthian-class submarine launched in 1929. The night of 6 December 1941 she hit a mine while she was patrolling the waters around Kefalonia, she had left Malta only a few days earlier.

The conning tower
The 120 mm L40 mark X deck gun in a 50 degree CPXV mounting
The 120 mm L40 mark X deck gun in a 50 degree CPXV mounting
The stern of the Perseus
The conning tower of the Perseus is covered in lost nets. A big seabream was caught in the net and we managed to free her. On the left, the periscope is still retracted in the tube, an indication that the sub was on the surface when it sank.
The escape hatch placed towards the aft of the vessel. From here the night of 6 December 1941, John Cape and three comrades left the Perseus behind swimming into the darkness and ascending towards the surface. From Cape´s encounter of what happened; he had a torch in his hand and while ascending he came across another mine, just very near him. He had to use the breathing device as a reverse parachute to slow down his ascent. When he finally reached the surface was alone, his destiny was to survive.

John Capes died in 1985. For his entire life, only his family truly believed in his story. It was not until 1997 that his name was finally cleared; that year a Greek diver discovered the wreck of the HMS Perseus, inside everything was as Cape described for years, it was the moment of truth, the proof that John Cape was really in that vessel that night and he really made that escape.

This entry was posted in Ambiente, Diving, Photography, Travel, Underwater photography.

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