The Anglo Dane was an impressive wreck to dive. She sits on the seabed 60m from the surface having been blown in half. We dived on the stern section of the wreck the video can be seen below.
The Anglo Dane was an iron cargo ship launched on the 12th July 1866 by A.Leslie & Co., Newcastle as yard number 77 (official number 54754) for the Anglo-Danish and Baltic Steam Navigation Co. and completed on the 18th September that year. She was 209.4 x 28.1 x 14.9 feet and 646 grt as built and powered by a single screw with a 2 cylinder (2 x 38”) compound engine from Thompson, Boyd & Co, Newcastle generating 90 hp. She was the first of four similarly sized vessels for the Anglo Danish S.N Co, intended to travel between London, Hull and Danish and Prussian ports however due to financial issues she was owned by the builder until officially taken over by Det Forenede Dampskibs Selsk (DFDS), Copenhagen on 1st January 1867 who paid £16,000 for her and put her into service from Hull and Antwerp to Copenhagen and the Baltic, and Copenhagen to Iceland.
In 1874 she was rebuilt by A/S Burmeister & Wain, Copenhagen and a new single-ended scotch boiler with 3 furnaces installed and her engine rebuilt into a tandem 4 cylinder (2 x 19.75”, 2 x 38”) compound engine. In 1895 another new single-ended scotch boiler was installed, again with 3 furnaces and by A/S Burmeister & Wain, Copenhagen. Following this work she is listed as 804 grt.
As a side note, in June 1883 four men from the Anglo Dane (a lamp trimmer, two firemen and a donkeyman) were charged with smuggling 61 lbs of tobacco found by an officer in the lining of the ship. The men admitted the charge. In January 1885 she was put into quarantine having arrived into Copenhagen with eight of her crew with small-pox.
On the 22nd November 1914 whilst voyaging from Stettin to Copenhagen she rammed the 420 ton German torpedo boat S-124 amidships off Falsterbo. The S-124 was steaming at full speed and without lights. Two other German destroyers came to her aid and saved most of S-124’s 60 officers and crew. Two stokers who were very badly burned were taken onboard the Anglo Dane to be taken to the Royal Hospital in Copenhagen (the Anglo Dane’s captain had refused to take the men to Warenmunde as he was closer to the Danish port), but one died en route whilst the other died on arrival. The S-124 was towed to Sweden and disarmed.
From the 12th May 1916 through to the start of 1921 the Danish State introduced “Fragtnaevnet” – Danish ship owners were forced to charter their ships at 1/3 of current rates in order to secure tonnage for vital supplies to Denmark. The Anglo Dane was chartered under this scheme from the 2nd August 1917 and on the 19th October 1917 she left South Shields under Captain H. Lemmeke in convoy bound for Helsingor with her cargo of 632 tons of coal. At 11:30 am on the 21st October 1917 she stuck a mine 3/4 of a mile SSW of the Kirkabister Lighthouse and the violent explosion broke the ship in two. The bow section sank almost immediately with the remainder of the ship remaining afloat for just 4 minutes. All bar one of the crew managed to take to the lifeboats to be saved by the British torpedo boat ARAB and landed in Lerwick later that day. Sadly stoker Niels Viggo Jonsberg lost his life, presumed to have drowned.
UC 40 commanded by Hermann Menzel had laid mines around the Orkneys and Shetland Islands during her 8th and 9th patrols between the 5th September and 31st October 1917. The minefields laid around the approaches to Lerwick on the 9th patrol were based on Menzel’s observations of steamers in the area and the third minefield consisting of 7 mines laid between 10:53 and 11:09 on the 21st validated his decision by claiming the Anglo Dane less than 30 minutes after having ben laid. (UC 40 was also responsible for torpedoing the Leonatus).
