Disasters of the Century | Season 3 | Episode 15 | HMS Thetis | Ian Michael Coulson | Bruce Edwards 

Lol. Poor choice. More destroyers have sank than submarines, with more loss of lives.

@@robinstewart6510 nah I'd rather be on a destroyer idc if I have a higher chance of dieng you wouldn't catch me in a sub

Under pressure to "volunteer" doesn't seem much like volunteering to me?

@John O'Neill Welcome to the military concept of "Volun-told"...as in it SOUNDS like you're being asked....you're not.

Good stuff, way to stick to your guns and thank you for your service Sir!!!🙏👍

Actually death most the time is quick if you reach crush depth.

Caledonia--You mentioned that your boat was of the same class--When did you serve?

That's a great story, thanks Cath

Thank you for sharing such a wonderful story Cath. It helps keep alive the memory of this tagedy and the people effected.

The natural enemy of all craftsman the painter. They are painting over all kind of holes, locks, switches... as long as you can name it they paint over it.

Including the details of coordinates!

@@matekochkoch 😄 Story is tragic; not funny, but your comment is priceless.

Sounds like the same thinking that doomed the Kursk crew.

Roger Balcer yes,but the dicipline was first class!!

reminds me of the kursk

@Roger Balcer Well the same could be said of another navy across the pond who failed to carry out correct maintenance and sent the USS Scorpion and its crew to their death. Its not arrogance at all or incompetence. These were decisions made for expediency without thought or recourse to risk assessment. Major changes to US submarine safety after the incident. The same thing happened after Thetis. Its simple really we have to learn by our mistakes, thats life Im afraid. Too easy with hindsight to say it was arrogance or incompetence.

@@BigBlueJake Not quite the same. The Kursk suffered an explosion on board whilst dived from a hight test peroxide propelled torpedo. HTP is highly volatile and its use was dropped by the Royal Navy following tbe loss of HMS Sidon in the 50's. I cannot understand why the Soviets used this technology in the 80's when the risks of using HTP was well documented. Now this is arrogance.

They reused this piece of shit submarine again. That is stupidity at its finest. Feel bad for those that lost their lives and the family and friends they left behind.

I think the book you refer to is 'The Admiralty Regrets' its the best account ever written about HMS Thetis and later renamed HMS Thunderbolt.

Seems "Murphy" has been shadowing me. Kidding aside, it's usually "3" things that go wrong. As it was here, I have a theory about that and living in 3 dimensions.

equarg -- Now it makes sense, the wisdom of Murphy's law. Ditto on the rest in peace for the crew and civilians of the HMS THETIS.

A WWII German sub captain wrote a book and called it "Iron Coffins". He was right at least to some degree.

Omg it’s mr tounge Vs Assring

There was also Cochino lost after a fire, and Stickleback sunk in a collision. But those were on the surface, so could have happened to any type of vessel. The RN also lost two boats soon after the war - Affray and Truculent. Most of Truculent's crew escaped from the sunken boat but were swept away in the dark and died from hypothermia.

thank you for saying "boat". Thank you for saying "diesel". I mean it.

Yes absolutely. I think the American boats adopted the sub safe system in the 60's following the loss of tbe Scorpion. A similar process was adopted by the Royal Navy altbough not identical.

Heel to Port! lol

THAT should have been a sign.

@Moth Man =j Koji =

It says USS Thetis on the title screen n. Sloppy.

Oh yes, incredibly, after being refitted and relaunched as HMS Thunderbolt, in 1943 she was sunk off Africa by an Italian mine and another whole compliment of sailors died. If you believe in that kinda stuff, it's like that sub was cursed.

XxpauldadudexX: When you mentioned Churchill that doesn't surprise me, it's not the first he sacrificed innocent lives for his own agenda. When the Lusitania was sailing on her ill-fated voyage , Churchill ( head of the British Admiralty at the time) had a secret room ( Room 40) that was tracking the German U-boat that was heading towards the Lusitania. Somehow with all this knowledge about the German U-boat little was done to get the Lusitania to avoid it. Rumour has it that Churchill knew there would probably be some American passenger s onboard ( there were) and their loss of life would hopefully lure the U.S. into the war...So l'm not surprised he would sacrifice innocent lives for his agenda.

Glad you enjoyed it

Our pleasure Mystical!

Love you guys!

I knew this was going to be a septic programme as soon as I heard the over-dramatic intro. They're such wankers.

@@bnipmnaa Also they refer to the Thetis as a " ship " !!

@@bnipmnaa you have laws against freedom of speech and we're the wanker's?

@@michaeldundee8300 you yanks have similar laws, so it might be prudent for you to wind your neck in.

@@cplcabs we have the constution mate

cappnzak I know right like really mate

Thetis was a British ship, thus the "HMS" which means His/Her Majesty's Ship.

Entertaining but completely amateurish.

Same guy who made the title card also forgot to close the tube outer door.

Mary Ann Redfern Submarine in this case.

I'm embarrassed to admit that you've just answered a question I've had for a long time---"Why do they sometimes use England, and sometimes Great Britain?" Ignorant Yank. :)

Found this interesting, but so sad. I have a special interest--my son-in-law was just promoted to commander in the US Navy and will soon be taking his boat out to sea. I hope it's well-inspected first--not much room for error in a sub. :)

Nancy Galloway Scalar weapons= inoperative sub. www.cheniere.org weapons slides

Thumbs up from an Englishman

As an Englishman, I could not agree with you more.

Me too. I take tours around Courageous my old boat in Plymouth, and never refer to the safety swing bolt as a Thetis clip. Were you also told to never use green paint and dare I say it members of the fairer sex were considered unlucky to be onboard. Its strange how superstitions stay with the service.

+beertrain It's easy to be wise after the event, and the procedures that are in place now largely are the result of HMS Thetis. At that time what the Lt. did was standard practice as he had followed all set procedures. It wasn't only Thetis, I understand similar events befell at least two German submarines during the war and there is evidence that accidents of a similar nature have affected boats long after the war was done and over...

You have to know all the concerning the torpedo tubes details to even realise the nature of this potential problem. They didn't...The civilians maybe did, but they probably stayed in the background until disaster struck.

beertrain - My Dad served on a sub. He hated the new LTs with a passion - called 'em "90-day wonders". They didn't listen to the enlisted men, and tended to be know it alls. Come to think of it, some stuff doesn't change much...

Lt Woods checked the tube using the pencil Rimmer. The bow cap indicator was indicating shut. He was not to know that (a) the indicator wiring had not been checked (b) the rimmer failed to pentrate the undried bitumastic enamel sprayed insude tbe tube such that although the rimmer was inserted all of the way into the bore the enamel was still in an elastic state and expanded over the reamed surfaces of the rimmer. The tube had not been examined following spraying before the boat went to sea on trials. There was absolutely no indication that the tube was flooded when Woods opened tbe tube.

@@brianaicheler7084 Interesting detail, Brian. I have been reading up on this in preparation of making a little video on it and am surprised at the variations in detail that I am coming across. In relation to your comment from what I found (in Thetis - Submarine Disaster by David Paul, Page173, Report of Public Inquiry) Woods testified that he didn't use the 'rimer' (yours is the 3rd version of the spelling I have come across) because it was not his normal procedure to do so prior to opening a tube, there was no set RN rules, rather it was done on a 'regular and frequent' basis as part of normal housekeeping. (I guess it would slow things down in action if part of tube-opening procedure). Presumably he didnt think the usual mud or sea-weed would be an issue on a brand-new submarine, that (presumably) had been inspected and passed as seaworthy. Regarding the indicators I have not come across a wiring issue referred to elsewhere. In the inquiry summary referred to above indicators are referred to as mechanical. Also in the above book and also Tony Booth's they say the indicator was found to indicate 'Open' when Thetis was finally salvaged, suggesting there was indicator error. (Apparently a horizontal bar before No. 5 indicator and the counter-intuitive nature of the dials might have contributed). Not for a minute am I asserting that you are wrong, because I have found inconsistencies and errors in both books and two documentaries on Youtbe, but I am curious as to your source for your info, especially as it has such detail, as I try to distill the various sources into one version if possible. PS just read more comments and I see your career mentioned, makes your take on it all the more interesting. (The twill trunk though...not on Thetis surely, was that not a later development in response to Thetis? -Tony Booth, Page197) I hope you take these comments in the spirit in which they are intended.

What they used was standard in those days I.e bitumastic enamel. The mistake that they made was not checking it had dried correctly before the sea trials took place. They also failed to check that the bow cap indicating circuits had been wired correctly. I suppose the aim was to get tbe boat to sea asap with a world war looming.

Indeed. HMS Thetis was renamed to HMS Thunderbolt. It was depth charged and sunk again, with the loss of her entire crew.

I noticed that - perhaps there was a sixth submarine squadron or flotilla.

+Lorna Ginette Harrison I went to school in the 70's and it wasn't mentioned then. I was aware of it because I'm from Liverpool and my parents remembered it. Yes, a lot of wartime losses weren't reported at the time. There was the HMS Untamed, a sub that sank with all hands on a training dive just after it had been commissioned. It was salvaged and put back into service. There was Slapton Sands, where a large numbers of American troops training for D-Day were killed when German E-Boats got among the landing ships. There was HMS Dasher, an aircraft carrier that exploded in the Firth of Clyde in 1943. There were others in WWI, for example, HMS Vanguard, a battleship that exploded at Scapa Flow in 1917 with the loss of 843 out of 845 aboard (this was an accident, not battle casualty). After WWII, the RN lost two submarines, HMS Affray and HMS Truculent. In the Truculent disaster, most of the crew escaped from the sunken sub but then died from exposure because nobody was looking for them.

Sadly While the Royal navy had a good reputation for making ships, their submarines had a TERRIBLE track record at this time. HMS Thetis was the 14th Royal navy submarine sunk in peace time between the end of world war 1 and the beginning of world war 2. HMS G11 - 22/11/1918 HMS L55 - 04/06/1919 HMS H41 - 18/10/1919 HMS K5 - 20/01/1921 HMS K15 - 25/06/1921 HMS H42 - 23/03/1922 HMS L9 - 18/01/1923 HMS L24 - 10/01/1924 HMS M1 - 12/11/1925 HMS H29 - 09/08/1926 HMS H47 - 09/07/1929 HMS Poseidon - 09/06/1931 HMS M2 - 26/01/1932 and then HMS Thetis in 01/06/1939

Lorna Ginette Harrison. Between the wars there were several sub disasters....M2, the "K" class boats (steam powered) and after the war in the 50's there were 2 very big sub disasters....HMS Affray and HMS Truculent.

History education in the USA also sucks. I learned more history, both USA and World History, after I left school.

Lorna Ginette Harrison watch nazis missing UBoat we have a u boat right off the coast of NJ. John chatterton and a few other found it yrs ago very good to watch . Took yrs and a few deaths later they finally figured it out.

@SuperAncientmariner: Good call. Pay no attention to EFEZZE6280. Clearly not clued in.

@EFEZZE6280 So they weighed anchor to mark the spot. Glad you're not in charge of anything.

@EFEZZE6280 Ha! I just figured out you don't even know what the OC is referring to. You must be a flat-earther.

@EFEZZE6280 Just to give you a clue...to "weigh anchor" means to lift the anchor from the sea floor and onto the ship. This is the final step before moving on. To help you to understand...the song with the title "Anchors Aweigh" is about lifting the anchors up and onto the ships...to go forward into battle. Dropping the anchor is the term for lowering the anchor, to hold a position.

They did. Divers went down and attached large cables, however the weather turned bad and they only had a few hours in which to haul the boat to shallower water before the tide turned. At one point tbe stern of the boat was out of the water so the wreck- master, a chap called Brock, climbed on tbe stern to see whether they could remove a stern plate. He however on getting into position heard the sound of escaping air and mistook it as an escape attempt so abandoned the idea of re oving tbe plate. He was actually 2 inches away from communicating with the crew when he rebolted the stern plate back but that was unbeknown to him. They had everything against them with the weather turning bad. The cable snapped and Thetis slipped below the depths. I believe a diver also lost his life in the operation.

Interesting!

There are no gods but one, I AM THAT I AM.

Yeah, can't even make a comment on some ship names without one of the monotheists showing up, pushing their religious beliefs on others... By the way, from your comment I can't even tell to which of the monotheistic religions you belong to, so it's absolutely useless saying that your god is the only one because no one knows which one you are talking about.

TheBaconHunter ?

There is only one "I AM".

Nicosixth Robin except there was no god called Olympic.

David Rodgers i comment on your comment. ..lol

David Rodgers i comment on your comment. ..lol

David Rodgers America fuck yea!

Yep, somebody made a boo-boo.

Just because a submarine fucks up and sinks doesn't automatically mean it's a US boat. Very occasionally other countries navies subs sink also.

but....the video title says 'U.S.S......."

English royal navy?

HMS...sub was British.

It doesn't help that Americans like to point out their superiority often, it could just have been that Christie was a prick :)

Tee Jay - I noticed that, too. I guess an oops in 2002 or whenever this was made.

It was a re-enactment. They obviously would have used a standard wrench in real life. Sometimes you have to cut video producers a little slack and not be so picayune.

Thanks for dding to the story.

Dreez76 thats what you call acting

They couldnt, that whats makes the escape by Oram and Arnold so amazing. It woukd have taken some considerable effort and impossible to rig a twill trunk around the lower lid of the escape hatch.

+David Hunter They were only in 150 feet of water. Had the escape equipment worked correctly and had the crew been trained how to use it correctly there would not have been a problem, other than the sinking. I understand that this wasn't the boat's first ever dive, it had been tested for leaks and so on during fitting out, this was, however, the boat's first dive to pressured depths, something which can't be done in most harbours or anchorages...

That's not what it says ! See 4.00. An initial dive, then surface, then dive again to periscope depth, then fire a smoke candle.

@Nobody Knows How do you know the documentary is wrong? What is your source for that claim? Were you there? If you don't have one, you're wasting my time.

Nobody Knows Thought so. Claims asserted without evidence can be rejected without evidence.

@Nobody Knows Since you've admitted defeat and resorted to personal attacks, I'll take that as a win :)

British, therefore HMS.

@@maryannredfern5954 Yeah, you keep saying that and I think everyone is smart enough to realize that. What people are commenting on is the fact that at the beginning of the documentary it is entitled "USS Thetis". Commentors are pointing out that error.