One of the most enduring tragic mysteries of wartime will be remembered in September at the submarine memorial in Dundee harbour.
The annual service to commemorate the crews of the six British, Dutch, Norwegian and Russian submarines lost while on patrol from Dundee during the Second World War will be filmed by a Dutch crew investigating the mystery of a tragic piece of their country’s naval history.
The last Dutch submarine to be lost during the war was the O-13, which sailed from HMS Ambrose at Dundee on June 12 1940 with 31 Dutch and three British crew on board.
She was never seen again, her fate thought to have been caused by a collision with a Polish submarine, a German minefield or enemy action.
Recent research of British, Dutch, German and Polish archives point to the Danish coast as the O-13’s final resting place and efforts are to be made to pinpoint the wreckage.
Dr Andrew Jeffrey, naval historian and a prominent figure in establishing the memorial at Victoria Dock, said interest in the fate of the O-13 is strong in Holland, where a documentary is being made about her plight.
”British and Dutch relatives of the lost crew will be attending the memorial service and we are honoured they are coming here,” he said.
”The O-13 is the last Dutch submarine lost during the Second World War.
”She has still to be located and given protection as a war grave and the Dutch Navy will be mounting a search for the wreck this autumn.
”It is a fascinating story and is one set to run as the search for the wreck by the Dutch Navy gets under way towards the end of September.”
The Dundee submarine memorial was unveiled in September 2009 and is dedicated to the 296 sailors and commandos lost on operations from the base.
Dundee was the home port of the Royal Navy’s 9th Submarine Flotilla.
This was a unique international force composed of British units along with Free French, Dutch, Norwegian and Polish crews after the countries had been overrun by the Nazis.
Russian submarine crews were also based in Dundee in the summer of 1944.
The Dundee submarines played a role in some of the most daring naval operations of the war.
Patrols were maintained perilously close to the enemy-held coastline and enemy warships were attacked, one Dundee submarine heavily damaging the battlecruiser Gneisenau and another blowing the stern off the cruiser Prinz Eugen.
The fleet also patrolled far inside the Arctic Circle to protect convoys carrying war supplies to the Soviet Union, even challenging the mighty German battleship Tirpitz.
The submarine memorial was designed by artists Paul Grime and Jeremy Cunningham at the behest of Dundee City Council and the Unicorn Property Group, which owns the land at City Quay and converted the adjacent Clocktower building into an award-winning residential development.