Royal Navy officer 'solves' 90-year mystery of 'submarine in the park'
A Royal Navy officer believes he is one step closer to solving a nautical mystery that has intrigued a town in Devon for nearly a century.
Since the 1930s, residents of Dartmouth – home of the Royal Navy officer training college for more than 150 years – have been convinced there is a wreck of a submarine buried under the town's park.
But now, Lieutenant Tom Kemp, an officer from Britannia Royal Naval College, thinks he may have 'solved' the mystery.
Lt Kemp, who teaches navigation to future generations of naval leaders at the college, has pored over contemporary documents and photographs and thinks he has identified the submarine unceremoniously buried alongside rubble and other landfill beneath Coronation Park, which overlooks the River Dart.
The five-acre park at the foot of the hill is occupied by the naval college and was once mud flats.
After the end of the First World War, Britain had a surplus of ships and submarines plus dozens of vessels seized from the defeated Germans.
Many were driven ashore, left up creeks and anchorages and eventually forgotten about as they decayed over decades.
Two German destroyers beached on Whale Island in Portsmouth were forgotten for a century until historians formally identified them.
Coombe Mud and Sandquay in Dartmouth became a similar breaker's yard for unwanted WW1 warships, including at least two submarines.
The site was purchased by the local authority in the late 1920s and was filled in to create the park which was opened in 1937 in time for the coronation of George VI, hence the name – and surrounding road network local drivers would recognise today.
And ever since, in oral and written histories of the Devon town, Dartmouth folk have referred to the 'submarine under the park' – some claim it's a British boat while others are convinced it is a German U-boat.
Lt Kemp said: "The story of 'the submarine under the park' has fascinated and intrigued visitors to Dartmouth for years and I count myself among them.
"This has been a case of following a very cold trail of breadcrumbs.
"I had been desperately hoping to find a bill of sale or something along those lines with a name on it, but I had to go a little further off-piste to find my answers."
After trawling through contemporary documents and records, Lt Kemp came up with two names as likely candidates – HMS A8 and HMS E52.
The smaller A8 was largely broken up by 1923, whereas the larger E52 proved a greater challenge to dismantle.
She was one of 58 boats in her class built for the fledgling Silent Service.
The E-Class was the mainstay of the submarine force.
They scored the first 'kill' by a British boat in the opening month of the First World War and Victoria Crosses were earned during the Dardanelles Campaign.
As for HMS E52 herself, she sank the German U-Boat UC-63 when surfaced, catching her crew off guard and torpedoing her at point-blank range, killing all but one of the men aboard and earning her skipper, Lieutenant Commander Philip Esmonde Phillips, the Distinguished Service Order for "services in action with enemy submarines".
Without excavating the park and formally identifying parts of the boat, Lt Kemp believes this is as far as he can go with contemporary documents and records.
He said: "The 'submarine under the park' has a name and a story worth telling.
"It's another unseen-but-enduring bond between BRNC, Dartmouth and the Royal Navy's Submarine Service," he added.
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