The MAREANO project, conducted by the Institute of Marine Research (IMR), the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU), and the Norwegian Mapping Authority, has been mapping the seascape of the Norwegian continental shelf since 2005.
Their most recent Spring expedition on board research vessel G.O. Sars found an aircraft engine and no less than seven wrecks. One appears to be the long-lost T-class submarine HMS Thistle (N 24), located at 160 meters depth outside Rogaland in southwestern Norway.
Built by Vickers pre-war, she was commissioned in July 1939, just less than eight weeks before Hitler sent his legions into Poland and sparked WWII. She conducted six war patrols off the German/Jutland coast and vanished during her seventh with skipper LCDR W.F. Haselfoot, RN, and all 52 hands while off the coast of Norway.
Post-war analysis shows her to be lost on 10 April 1940 during the initial phases of the German invasion of that country, sent to the bottom by two torpedos from the school boat U-4 (Oblt. Hans-Peter Hinsch).
HMS Keith
HMS Keith
In related news, the B-class destroyer flotilla leader HMS Keith (D 06), lost during the Dynamo evacuations from Dunkirk on 1 June 1940, sunk by German Stuka dive bombers in just 23 meters of water, has been located and mapped via multibeam sonar from the French DRASSM agency.
