Lost WWII submarine discovered in Aegean after 81 years

The lost British submarine “H.M.S. Triumph,” whose true fate had been shrouded in mystery ever since the vessel and its entire crew disappeared in 1942, has finally been discovered on the bed of the Aegean Sea by Greek researcher Kostas Thoktaridis and his team after a 25 year search.

According to amna.gr, the submarine had disappeared without a trace with all 64 crew members on board, some 81 years earlier, in the midst of World War II.

Various attempts to find it had been mounted at various times by teams from the United Kingdom, Malta and Russia, all without success.

It finally fell to Thoktaridis and his team to solve the mystery of its disappearance, after a search that first started in 1998.

“It was the hardest and most expensive mission I have ever carried out in my life,” Thoktaridis told amna.gr.

First launched in 1938, the “Triumph” joined the war in May 1939 and carried out 20 military missions in total. It first sailed to the Aegean at the end of March 1941 to scout the shores of the Dodecanese islands and land officers on Greek shores.

The last time the submarine was sighted in motion was by an Italian pilot flying in the area, about four nautical miles southeast of Sounion.

This lost piece of information helped Thoktaridis complete the “puzzle” of the submarine’s history.

Source: amna.gr