Mail historian Bill Myers takes a step back in history to reflect on a disaster that claimed the lives of three Furness men and Barrow Shipyard worker 80 years ago...

IT is now 80 years since three Furness men and a former Barrow shipyard worker died when trials at Liverpool on a new submarine went badly wrong.

Barrie Downer, vice-chairman and branch historian of the Barrow Submariners’ Association, looks a look at the circumstances of an accident which hit the national newspaper headlines.

On Thursday, June 1 in 1939, HMS Thetis, with Lieutenant Commander Guy H. Bolus in charge, sailed from the Birkenhead yard of Cammell Laird into Liverpool Bay to carry out diving trials.

In addition to the normal crew of 55 there were a large number of passengers, including civilian workers, on board for Trials purposes – taking the total number to 103.

During the dive difficulties were encountered with the trim of the submarine.

To help find out why, the rear doors of all torpedo tubes were opened but the crew didn’t know that the bow cap of one of them was already open and full of water.

The submarine inevitably ended up on the bottom and was unable to resurface.

Eventually four men escaped but, despite all the desperate efforts of both those remaining in the submarine and all those on the surface in ships, aircraft and rescue vessels, the remaining 99 died in the accident.

There were four passengers on the submarine that day with links to Barrow and the Vickers Armstrong shipyard and the commanding officer’s wife Sybil (nee Poole) was from Bankfield House, Urswick.

Thomas Ankers was born in Crewe in 1883 and by the time of the 1911 census was a shipyard marine fitter living at 24, Kent Street, Barrow, with his wife, Martha, 28, and two- year-old son, Hubert.

He is buried in the Churchyard at Rampside, near Barrow.

Horace Cragg was born on Walney Island in 1893 and at the time of the 1911 census was listed as an apprentice marine fitter lodging with his uncle, Albert Thompson, at the Cottage, Abbey Road, Barrow.

He married to Sarah Florence Cragg (nee Macklin) in Ulverston in July 1918.

Mr Cragg’s body was recovered and he was buried in Ulverston on October 2 in 1939.

James Young was born in Riccarton, Ayrshire, in 1898 and at the time of the 1911 census was living at 7A, Schooner Street, on Barrow Island.

The Vickers worker married Barrovian Florence Sparrow at the Baptist Chapel in Abbey Road in March 1928 and they had two children, Joan and Hugh.

By 1939, the family was living at Falmouth Street, Walney.

Stanley Jackson was a senior engineering officer and until 1935 had been the engineering overseer for the Admiralty at the Vickers Armstrong works at Barrow

The Mail, on June 8 in 1939, noted: ‘Yesterday was a day of national mourning for the men who died on the submarine Thetis.

“Relatives were conveyed to the scene of the disaster in Liverpool Bay to take part in a memorial service that will never be erased from their minds.

“Taking part in that sorrowful, poignant service were included the wives, mothers, and other relatives of the three local men who were victims of this greatest submarine tragedy in history.

“By the sympathetic gesture of Vickers Armstrong, the bereaved relatives from Barrow and Ulverston were conveyed to Liverpool by motorcars.”

The company also gave £5,000 to an appeal fund and said that the dependants of their employees who lost their lives would be provided for.

A memorial service was held at St John’s Church, Barrow Island, which was filled to overflowing.

There was also a ceremony at Barrow war memorial in the town’s public park.

Thetis was eventually salvaged and refitted to serve as HMS Thunderbolt.

It was lost in the Mediterranean on 14th March 1943 and one of the casualties was Petty Officer Charles Stanley Elliott - the husband of a Robina from Walney Island.

The petty officer had been born in Newport in Monmouthshire in August 1917.

His body was not recovered and he is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval War Memorial and on Barrow war memorial.