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Joyce Bentley, 76, whose brother, 24-year-old Able Seaman John Turner, died inside the Thetis, said yesterday: ?I am still angry at the cover-up over my brother?s death. It?s a disgrace that the true cause was hushed up. The Navy has blood on its hands.?
The T-class submarine had been launched a year before the tragedy from Cammell Laird?s shipyard in Birkenhead. It was a rushed job with much cost-cutting by the Admiralty.
Final sea trials began almost a year later, and on the morning of June 1, 1939, she sailed with her complement of 51 regular crew doubled by Admiralty overseers, extra training officers and civilian technicians.
Out at sea, she submerged and instantly sank 130ft to the seabed. Seawater had burst through a rear torpedo tube and flooded half of the vessel.
It took 17 hours before the skipper, Lieutenant Commander Guy Bolus, and the other most senior officer, Captain Harry Oram, devised a way to rework the air pumps and lighten the aft section.
The stern of the 275ft-long submarine broke surface, her rudder sticking 18ft into the air. With an escape hatch now only 20ft below the waves, four crewmen, led by Captain Oram, donned breathing apparatus and, in pairs, rose to the surface. Then the hatch cover jammed.
The four escapees, hauled aboard the destroyer HMS Brazen, begged for an urgent rescue. Some 26 vessels were circling the submarine, crammed with Navy personnel, salvage experts and heavy cutting equipment. But they were ordered to wait, and eventually the knocking from inside the submarine faded away.
One of the oldest of the 99 was Cammell Laird?s chief engineer, Arthur Robinson, 45. His daughter, Barbara Moore, now 80, of Bebington, Wirral, was ten at the time.
She said yesterday: ?I am still deeply bitter about how I lost my father and I firmly blame the Navy top brass for his death. Cammell Laird?s divers and rescuers were desperate to act but the Navy insisted the submarine had been officially handed over to them. The naval authorities forbade the rescuers from cutting into it.?
Mrs Bentley, of Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, campaigned with other relatives to force a judicial review of the tribunal findings, forming a group, the Thetis Families Association, ten years ago ?because those guilty were never named?.
She said: ?I hope new information can help reopen the case.?
One verdict of the tribunal particularly inflamed one of the four survivors, leading stoker Walter Arnold. His son Derek, now 69, of Bebington, said yesterday: ?The inquiry reported the great loss of life was due to ?the failure of those inside to escape?. They made it sound like suicide.
?It?s like being shot and being found guilty of not dodging the bullet.?
Thetis Down: The Slow Death Of A Submarine, by Tony Booth, is published by Pen & Sword at ?19.99.
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