SS Empire Heritage (Malin Head — 225 fsw)

Introduction

The Empire Heritage began life as a South African whale factory ship completed in July 1930 and named Tafelberg. The name translates to “Table Mountain” and is a reference to a famous mountain overlooking South Africa. She had a reinforced hull for navigating the Antarctic waters (which would be ideal for wartime service) and massive storage tanks for whale oil (which could also eventually store fuel oil).

Sometime around 1940, she was converted into a wartime transport vessel and started carrying fuel oil from the US to Britain.

She hit a mine in 1941 in the Bristol Channel and was damaged and beach but she was re-floated, repaired and rebuilt as a steam tanker Empire Heritage by the Ministry of War Transport and returned to service in February 1943. There were hundreds (1,300 according to Rod Macdonald in Great British Warships) of “Empire” ships either built or requisitioned by the Ministry of War Transport for war service.

Sinking

The Empire Heritage is a massive ship at over 500 feet long, 72 feet wide, and weighing almost 16k grt. She is one of the largest Allied merchant ships ever sank during wartime by a German submarine.

In early September, after her crew had spend a late night / early morning eating & drinking, she left the port in Hoboken, NJ loaded with fuel, dump trucks, supplies, and Sherman tanks destined for the UK as part of Convoy HX 305.

On September 8, 1944 the Empire Heritage was nearing the coast of Ireland when she was struck at 4am by two torpedoes from the German submarine, U-482. She went down very quickly and sank in less than 5 minutes with a loss of 113 crew and passengers. The nearby Pinto was dispatched to help those in the water as the periscope from a nearby German submarine passed through them. The Pinto was then hit by a torpedo and the survivors had yet another dunk in the water. The Pinto sank in less than two minutes and is nearby.

The Empire Heritage lies about 20 miles northwest of Malin Head in about 70m (230 feet) of water and sits mainly upright. She is a massive wreck and we had no time to explore the main part of the wreck. She was carrying over 2,000 tons of war supplies at the time of sinking. The main attraction for the site are a lot of M4A1 76W Sherman tanks that lay scattered about (amongst other trucks and vehicles). In the scan show below, you can see them extending out from the wreck:

Diving the Wreck

We spent almost no time on the ship itself.

Instead, we had plans to take pictures of the epic M4 Sherman tanks that are strewed about the sand like Tonka toys. If I return to the wreck, I’d like to explore other parts of the wreck since I’m sure there is a ton to see. Below is a diagram of the wreck from Rod Macdonald’s excellent book, Great British Shipwrecks. The thanks and other vehicles can clearly be seen scattered about.

Below is a picture of a M4 Sherman Tank at Normandy and a picture of Shermans on the assembly plant line in Detroit in 1942.

This first photo is as I’m leaving the downline and headed out to the tanks. You can see the treads of an upside down tank in the foreground left and then Ben and another diver in the distance with their lights.

This photo shows the bottom of a transport vehicle coming into the foreground with a tank at the left. Ben is setting up some “off board” lights for taking photos (his camera is on the seabed with lights pointing up onto the tank).

Greg is hovering above the tank in this photo.

This shows Ben floating above the same tank with his camera and powerful Keldan lights.

Dean joined us on the dive and is above one of the tanks in this photo.

Another with Dean above the tanks:

Below is probably my favorite photo of the dive and has Ben over one of the tanks lighting them up. It is really crazy how they are scattered about like a kid threw them on the ocean floor.

References

The Sherman Tank

Great British Shipwrecks

Uboat.net

Wikipedia Sherman Tank