Martin Woodward on Diving
Lisa: Some wreck sites are protected aren’t they?
Yes.
Lisa: At what point is that decided that that is a protected wreck site?
If it’s archeologically important, or at threat. I mean like the ‘Mendi’ that’s a classic one. When I found out the story of the ‘Mendi’ which is the one with 646 South African troops, when I unravelled the story, I tried to buy the wreck. I’ve bought quite a few wrecks.
You could buy the wrecks in those days. Modern wrecks, not old wrecks, but anything that was within the insurance age like wartime, 1st World War, 2nd World War you tracked down the insurers and say, “I’d like to buy the rights of this wreck” and they’d say, “Oh yeah fine, give us £200 or whatever and it’s yours” so I bought quite a few. So, I tried to buy the ‘Mendi’ to afford it that protection because it was pre-1986 when the Military Remains Act came in which protects even Merchant ships.
War Graves are War graves, you know. Royal Navy ships like the ‘Swordfish’ and the ‘Acheron’, that’s another one I found, a big destroyer with loss of life. If it’s had loss of life then it’s automatically considered a War Grave in the Royal Navy, but the Merchant Navy ships didn’t have that same protection, so I tried to buy the ‘Mendi’ to afford it that protection.
It’s nowadays English Heritage, they’ve got ways and means of protecting wrecks that you mentioned like if they are historically important or archeologically important, you can get a Protection Order on them, but that now extends to all the wrecks.
I bought a German submarine off there which I agreed to have protected because the hoards, you know the sport divers were getting out there and ripping everything off it , which they did with the ‘Mendi’ as well.
Unfortunately I never tracked down the insurance people on the ‘Mendi’ so I couldn’t do anything about it but when the Military Remains Act came in in 1986, it should have stopped people but it didn’t so people were, you know, going out there after I’d left … when I discovered the story I left the wreck alone.
Now there was a lot of lovely stuff on there that I could have taken off quite legally, but I didn’t want to do it because it’s almost like a poignant War Grave to me. Other people didn’t have that feeling and so a lot of wrecks do get protected, quite rightfully so, to stop people going there and it’s a hard one.
You can’t police it really, you can police it to a certain extent, people know they will be prosecuted. There’s been a few prosecutions in recent years where people that haven’t declared stuff have been prosecuted and they’ve been fined very heavily.
It’s like the ‘Mendi’ bell, for instance. The ‘Mendi’ bell was taken off after I’d found the wreck, so it was several years after. I didn’t go and look for the bell, and it was hidden away in Dorset by the recreational diver that found it and he didn’t declare it so no one could see it. You know, the significant bell like that and it’s only just now that Steve Humphries, the ‘South Today’ reporter who chased the story for years, he was just interested … and the guy eventually got to his ‘80s, the guy that had found it and sent Steve Humphries a message saying ‘if you’re at the gates of Swanage Pier at seven o’clock on Friday morning, then you’ll find the bell but I’ve got to remain anonymous’.
So even though we know vaguely who is, that had it, he would have been prosecuted for taking it and not declaring it but at least it’s back in the public domain now.
Sadly, well not sadly, hopefully it will go on proper display in South Africa. Theresa May has given it to the President.
We had it in the Museum for a couple of weeks on loan with our ‘Mendi’ stuff and we were hoping that it would come to us but I don’t feel bad about it going to South Africa as long as it’s put on display in a proper place there.
