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[mellow orchestral music]
- [Patrick] "Hello, Pat.
I hope this comes as a pleasant surprise to you.
Well I believed you killed, as Jack has been.
I hope you are in good health.
Pleased when this lot is all over and finished
so we can all get home again,
what say.
Well if you could tell me what happened out there,
I sure would be grateful to you,
as mum still hopes that it will turn out for the best.
So please write when you can,
and spare a few moments, if it's just a few lines.
So until next time I'll say cheerio,
and keep smiling.
Your pal,
Les."
[mellow orchestral music]
- [John] I'm gonna press record on this,
and we can start from when you heard that the war broke out.
- [Patrick] In 1939 on the 3rd of September,
war was declared.
In the Royal Navy I was a telegraphist,
and my number was PJX 454 846.
Never forgotten it, you never do.
[light orchestral music]
[door knocking]
- Patrick! - Hey, John.
- How are you? - Yeah, all right.
- Good to see you again! - Good to see you again.
- My name is John Henry Phillips,
and I'm a 25 year old archeologist, writer and historian.
I love 20th century conflict history,
Second World War, First World War.
In 2015, I was in Normandy,
and I met a really gentle and sweet man
called Patrick Thomas.
Enjoying the sun? - I have been.
- Your fish doing all right, they're healthy?
- Ah, it's in a mess.
- It looks great, Patrick.
I volunteered on a
charity project that takes veterans back to Normandy.
I have a bad habit of signing up to things
without really thinking about what that means,
so I said, "Yeah, I'll come with you."
Hadn't met anyone,
so I turned up in Portsmouth with a suitcase,
and they said, "Okay, you're in the Range Rover."
So I opened the door and there's an old man there,
sat there with his carer.
And I was like,
"Oh, you all right?
How are you?
I'm John" and whatever.
And he didn't respond.
And his carer said, "Oh, he's really deaf.
You have to speak up."
So I was like, "You all right, Patrick!" [laughs]
And so, I went up to the people that organized it,
and I said, "Oh, what's this all about?
I'm not on the thing, where the hell am I sleeping?"
And they were like, "Oh, well Patrick's got a spare room."
So I like, sheepishly knocked on his door.
I was like, "Oh yeah, sorry. Can I sleep in here?"
He did take me in,
and we got on really well.
- Now, look here.
What about having a drink of some sort,
or what have you?
Because- - What shall we get?
What shall we have?
- Whatever you like.
- What do you fancy, do you want a cup of tea?
Shall I make you a cup of tea?
- I don't mind,
I'm still drinking- - Or are you on the wine?
You've started early. - I'm still drinking
that wine.
Now you're driving,
so I wouldn't offer you an alcoholic drink.
You can have one if you want one.
[John laughs]
- Everyone's like, "Oh, he's talking about the war again."
But obviously I'd never lived with a D Day veteran,
so I was like, "This is amazing!
Tell me about Sword again.
Tell me about you know, being on the landing craft."
People said to me, "Why did you join the Royal Navy?"
I said, "Well otherwise, I'd have gone into the PBI.
Poor bloody infantry.
And they were always up at the sharp end!"
- My grandfather was in the RAF during the Second World War,
and then when got to the end of his life,
we'd had a few conversations
about what did you do during the war?
And then suddenly he went like,
really bad, really downhill.
After my grandpa died,
I started
wanted to hear these stories,
because I just wanted to like, learn from these guys,
and kind of make up for what I didn't get out my grandpa.
- Good afternoon, Mr. Thomas.
What can we do for you today?
- What can you do for me?
- Bunch of flowers?
- Bunch of- - I think you wanted to
chat to the women,
didn't he? - Well, I suppose so.
What would you recommend for my girlfriend?
[all laughing]
- Everywhere we go the women flirt with you, don't they?
- Well there you are, you see.
[John laughs]
- And I think when we went back to Normandy the second time,
and people were saying, "Oh, I read your stuff online.
You should print it into a book."
And he came up to me and said,
"You know, we should do my memoirs."
- [Patrick] I was sent back into Invergordon,
where I joined LCH185.
It was a landing craft headquarters.
- [John] So this photograph?
- [Patrick] I was a sprog in those days.
- [John] A sprog.
- [Patrick] Be 18.
- I remember when I was 18, I thought I was really old.
And I'm 25 now, that's not even old.
Like, 25's young, but 18 is so young.
We take for granted how strange that was,
being told "Okay, you're going to fly a plane now,
so go and drop some bombs over Berlin."
You said that to an 18 year old now,
you said it to me now, I'd be like,
"No way, [laughs] I'm not doing that."
But they didn't have a choice, you know.
- [Patrick] For about three months,
we practiced landing troops.
It was repetitive.
We knew that we were practicing
for the invasion of Normandy.
- [John] So, it's the night of D Day.
It's pitch black and you're heading towards Normandy.
How do you feel?
- [Patrick] I know I had certain qualms in my stomach,
but they quickly dismissed that, because you're busy.
But when we arrived there initially,
I knew we were there with them,
because we didn't get a very friendly welcome.
[guns firing]
There was a rattle of machine gun bullets on the hull.
All the capital ships opened up,
and the shore line disappeared.
I saw the infantry, those champs.
Ah, you certainly handed it to them.
Just running up the beach,
or sometimes they'd be shot and go down.
The German's used to fly over the top of us.
On one occasion this bomber came over,
and I saw the object come down.
What I didn't realize at the time,
it must have been an acoustic mine.
On the
24th of June
I was on the upper deck,
I chose not to go down below.
And it was a lovely sunny day,
I took my shirt off and lay on this camp bed.
We were following our sister craft, LCH269.
There was a blinding flash and a column of water.
The next thing I knew, we were underwater.
[siren wailing]
I was picked up after about 10 or 15 minutes I think,
an LCG came by.
It was the only time ever I couldn't stop myself trembling.
I absolutely trembled, it must have been shock I think.
I think there was a total of nearly 40 who were, who died.
[mellow orchestral music]
Do you know what?
I was so full of emotion and so confused,
I always felt there was an outside influence
somewhere there.
I don't know what it was, I don't know.
I'm not a religious man, but there was something there.
It wasn't my time to go, I suppose.
- LCH185 is seemingly a mystery,
because it went down to the bottom of the English Channel,
and just seems to be forgotten about.
No one knows where it is.
No one knows where it went down.
It's very hard to find anything about it in the records.
It's very hard to find any personal accounts of it,
because most of the crew went down.
- [Patrick] But when I was eventually demobbed,
it took me a long time to settle down,
because I'd done so much
in that short period of time in the Royal Navy.
I'd done so much.
- This is the easiest anyone has ever had it.
It really is amazing,
and that's because of people like Patrick
and Patrick's generation,
who fought to make this for us.
- [Patrick] The thing to remember is this.
That when I was demobbed,
there were thousands of others who'd been demobbed,
and they'd all got a tale to tell.
- There's no memorial to LCH185.
There's only four graves from the crew.
There's a general memorial in Arromanches
for the Landing Craft Association,
which has now disbanded through lack of veterans.
They don't, it doesn't exist any more.
So there's no specific place to say this is what 185 is,
this is what 185 did,
this is who lost their lives on it.
And I think that's a shame,
because it's just been lost to history.
[mellow orchestral music]
It's like we're on a road trip together!
- Yes.
[John laughs]
- Patrick is so full of like, so happy.
I don't know if that's the fact
that he's been through these traumas,
and he knows just how different it could have been.
He knows that if he had have gone below deck that night
instead of sleeping up top,
then he could have been one of the men
that went to the bottom of the ocean.
And that's such a heavy burden to hold for 73 years,
and to have not talked about it for 70 of those.
- [Patrick] That's the pub we used to drink in!
- [John] Really?
- [Patrick] I'm sure of it.
- [John] Oh, wow.
So this is the dock yard, Patrick.
- [Patrick] Yes, part of it.
- [John] Yeah, starting to remember any of it?
- I think we're going in the right direction.
- It was so clear when I took Patrick up to the dockyard,
and wheeled him past HMS Victory,
just how many memories that brought back.
- I can't be precise where we were.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause there was ships everywhere,
as far as the eye could see.
- [John] And which way's Normandy?
- Ooh. [laughs]
[John and Patrick laughing]
I've lost my Boy Scout thing on that one.
I never thought after 73 years I'd be here again,
looking down at this
dry dock.
And when you look at it, I forget how big it was.
- So you knew when you were here for the 24 hours,
that the invasion was very, very close?
- It wasn't far off, we knew that.
- [John] Yeah.
- We must have set sail in the very early hours
of the 6th, or even the 5th.
And then, then we set off for Normandy.
- [John] What was the sea like that night?
- It was a bit bumpy.
Got my sea legs by then John, you see.
[John laughs]
- [John] So, 185 is out there somewhere.
- Out there somewhere.
We change as we get older,
and I maybe gave it a thought all those years,
but I never spoke about it to anybody.
Didn't tell anybody, you know.
It's very difficult to recall, to recall feelings
about yours ships mates
of all those years,
70-odd years ago.
When I think back,
and I knew what had happened to those young men.
[mellow orchestral music]
- If I could find the ship, would that...
Would that matter to you?
Would that make a difference to you know,
your friends that you lost and that sort of stuff?
If we could pinpoint where the ship is,
would you then know that they, you knew where they were,
and there was a sense of kind of closure to it?
- I would love to know.
I'd love to be able to find out where it is.
But I get the feeling
there wouldn't be a lot of it left,
I get that feeling.
Could be wrong, I don't know.
- [John] Well that's what we're gonna have to
try and find out together, isn't it?
- If you...
If ever you could find
LCH185,
I would be delighted.
I would absolutely love that, and I think it would be great.
- It sounds strange because I've not known him that long,
but I feel like maybe I owe it to him.
If I can find that place where Patrick's friends went,
then that is closure to a 73 year old mystery
that deserves to be solved.
That's the end goal, that's what I'm striving for,
to see you know, that happiness of a man.
And then after that you know, what else can you ask for?
I made the promise
and I'm gonna try my absolute hardest.
And you know, even if it kills me,
I'm gonna find that ship.
[light guitar music]
So this is a photo that Patrick sent me,
and it's actually of LCH185 on D day,
speeding towards Sword Beach.
This was the kinda first lead that I had,
when I asked Patrick where he thought the ship went down.
And he said, "I can't be sure where we sunk,
but we were following our sister ship LCH269.
More by instinct,
I'm sure we weren't far from gooseberry,
west of Lion-sur-Mer,
and a witness I met confirmed this.
And the "gooseberries" were five break waters
that they put in along the beaches of Normandy.
So, Lion-sur-Mer is there on the map.
I mean, it shouldn't be too far away from about there.
Has got me wondering now though,
now that I'm looking at this.
'Cause Lion-sur-Mer is there,
and you can see it's not actually on the gooseberry maps.
There's Lion,
and then Lion-sur-Mer would be just cut off here,
so I'm wondering if it could actually be
a little bit further down the beach.
[light orchestral music]
I'm gonna meet an old friend Mike Perrin,
who is a maritime archeologist and a diving instructor.
So he's got a lot of experience diving wrecks,
and teaching people how to dive,
and hopefully he'll be able to fill me in
on some of the challenges
that I will face if I find the ship and try and dive on it.
- And are those- - Room for one more?
You all right guys?
- Hi, how are you? - You all right, Mike?
- How's it going? - Good to see you again.
- Long time no see.
- John. - Hi, hello.
- Nice to meet you.
- Yeah, what's happening? - Might be a little bit crazy,
but I wanna find my friend's sunken landing craft.
And hoping to find it
and build a memorial for Patrick and his crew mates
whilst he's still with us,
so it's a bit of a race against time.
- Do you know where the boat is?
- Not exactly.
I mean, I've got some ideas where it might be.
I've spoken to Patrick extensively
about where he thinks it could be.
- Well we've got a charter of the area here,
let's have a look.
- Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I'll see what I can point out.
Okay, well that's Lion-sur-Mer
where we went in. - Okay.
- He couldn't have sunk any further really,
than the gooseberry that he was was at Lion-sur-Mer again,
and close to it.
- The gooseberries were sunk outside
the two Mulberry Harbors.
One was the Arromanches,
and one was further west off Omaha Beach.
- Oh right, so there wasn't one at Lion?
- No, there wasn't, no.
What was the name of the town again?
- [John] Lion-sur-Mer.
- Very, very similar sounding name,
right beside the Arromanches Mulberry Harbor.
Longues-sur-Mer, Lion-sur-Mer.
- Perhaps Patrick's got a bit confused,
because he 100% went in at Lion-sur-Mer at Sword Beach.
Maybe he went back in at Longues-sur-Mer,
and just assumed they were the same thing.
So Mike, if you were looking at this,
and you had to find a small landing craft
in the middle of the English Channel.
- Um...
Do you dive?
- No. - Ah, okay.
Right.
Step one.
[both laughing]
Well, my supervisor back at Oxford
said it's easier for an archeologist to become a diver,
than for a diver to become
an archeologist. - Well, that gives me hope.
'Cause I am an archeologist.
- There was incredible hope there.
- It has brought it home
that it's a lot more technically difficult,
and I didn't really plan on that.
It was just, I'm gonna find this thing.
I'll come home like, "Patrick look, I found the boat.
Let's have some champagne."
You know, I'm gonna have to put a team together.
[light guitar music]
The next step on my journey is to meet Stephen Fisher,
who is a really amazing historian
who really cares about the history of landing craft.
Stephen. - John.
- How are you?
Nice to meet you.
- My name's Stephen Fisher,
and I'm a freelance historical researcher and archeologist.
- When I called Stephen asking for help on this journey,
I didn't have that much to offer him,
so it's gonna be really interesting to see
what he's managed to drag up.
- Now it's kind of difficult
to find out about individual ships on D Day,
because they gave them new numbers
which are called landing index table numbers.
- So, 185 for D Day wasn't 185?
- No. - Oh, right.
- It still had its identity painted onto the hull,
but it also had a second number
which wasn't even called a landing index table number,
on Sword Beach they called them fleet numbers,
and that's the number that you need.
- It was absolutely mind blowing
when Stephen told me that LCH185
had a different name just for D Day.
That explains why it's been so hard
to find information about the ship.
That explains why no one seems to have heard about it,
and that explains why this has been such a struggle.
- By comparing information in different documents,
we can start to work out that puzzle,
and come up with the other identity for 185.
So we now know the fleet number of the vessel
that 185 was assigned.
So these are all of the other different vessels
in the support squadron,
basically carrying the DD tanks
that were being launched just off shore.
Now this might almost sound like it's slightly implausible,
that no vessel would get that close
just before the invasion started,
but in fact that was the role of the headquarters vessel.
They needed to go and ascertain the conditions on the beach,
and how safe it was to launch the DD tanks.
- Suddenly all these other archives
have the name on D Day of LCH185,
and this wealth of information
has come through that discovery.
- I emphasize that these are orders,
so this is what was supposed to happen.
There's never any guarantee
that it's actually what happened.
- The fact that LCH185 was in the first wave,
the very first wave on Sword Beach,
I mean that is carving your name
in the history of the world.
- [Patrick] As we were approaching the beach,
I saw to me, they looked like beautiful houses.
And they looked marvelous.
- We also have an account of what LCH185 was doing,
by this gentleman.
And it's Dennis Musket, who was actually posted to LCH185.
- No way, I didn't know this existed.
- "On Tuesday the 6th of June,
LCH185 proceeded close in shore.
I could clearly see the color of the houses on the front,
all in tact."
- That's what Patrick told me, as well.
He says he remembers the beauty of these houses.
- "In view of the sea conditions
and the need to conserve the tanks fuel,
the decision was made to hold on 5,000 yards
before launching the DD tanks."
- In the places like Omaha Beach,
where they put the Duplex Drive tanks in too far away,
they were overwhelmed by the rough seas and the distance,
and they sank to the bottom of the English Channel.
At Sword Beach, because of the decision that 185 made,
the tanks were able to go onto the beach
and really hit the Germans hard.
It's absolutely amazing, you've blown my mind.
Thank you so much for- - No problem at all.
- It's incredible.
I knew that LCH185 was there on D Day,
and I knew that you know, it had its role,
but Stephen said it was actually
one of the most important crafts at Sword Beach on that day,
and I don't think Patrick realizes that.
[light orchestral music]
- I've been living here in Normandy for 12 years,
working as a battlefield guide for that time.
And I must admit, when I first arrived,
it was kind of just accepted that the veterans were here.
You could communicate and learn their stories.
Certainly in the last decade, we're losing so many of them.
Very soon this history will be beyond living memory,
and the veterans will no longer be around
to tell us their own stories in their own words.
- [John] So I'm in Normandy on this kind of crazy journey
to try and find LCH185,
which was the craft of my friend Patrick Thomas.
- [Stuart] Yeah, I know Patrick.
- [John] Yeah, yeah?
- From the very first moment I met him,
I could tell he was a real character,
such an incredible man.
And he told me about his role on D Day,
and I had to go straight home,
get on Google you know, to search and to find out more,
because it's something that I wasn't familiar with.
- Yeah, no.
I wasn't at all.
So I made Patrick this crazy promise that
you know, I would find his boat,
and he said, "Absolutely, go for it."
So I mean, what do you think about that?
Do you think that's doable?
- You've got your work cut out I think, very much so.
- Patrick's ship went down on the 25th of June,
and he remembers after he got rescued by an LCG,
almost immediately after, or a few hours after,
being shelled heavily by Le Havre.
So was that still active,
was that still occupied at the time?
- Very much so.
If you imagine of course,
Sword Beach is very much the eastern most
out of the five landing beaches,
where the allies came ashore on D Day.
We had the huge artillery batteries
around the port of Le Havre,
were actually within range
and were shelling the Allied Armada,
which was occupying a position of Sword Beach.
- To be shelled by Le Havre,
it must have to have gone down in the Sword Beach area.
- That would have to be the case,
if it was a victim of that artillery fire
from the Le Havre battery,
that would have to be the case, yeah.
- Brilliant.
- I think to find 185, to find the location,
it's gonna be difficult.
If it was easy, it would have been done before.
- [Patrick] I didn't hear the explosion,
but the explosion must have lifted the stern up
and drove the bows under.
The next thing I knew we were under water,
and that's when I saw Jack Barringer's life boat.
It was like a customized boat, I knew it was Jack's.
And I saw Jack a few yards away throwing up his arms,
he was badly injured.
And this fellow, I remember him.
He saw me with Jack's life belt floating about in the water.
I couldn't get it to Jack, and so I let him have it.
And poor Jack had disappeared beneath the waves by then,
and he must have been very badly injured.
Poor old Jack, nothing I could do.
[mellow orchestral music]
- It's kind of the one name that he associates with 185,
and in a way I suppose now because of that,
it's the one name that I associate with 185,
other than Patrick.
That day that the ship went down,
he could easily have been bellow deck.
And if it had have been that way,
then Patrick would have died at 19,
and he would have been here.
But it's so far away from,
from where LCH185 went down, you know.
We're in land, we're not that close to the beach,
and I think Patrick would love to be able to go there
to remember 185.
[mellow orchestral music]
Bonjour, good to see you.
I'm John.
I'm so glad that you could see me at such short notice,
I'm really, really grateful for that.
I know you've gone out of your way to do everything and...
[translator speaks in French]
Basically, I'm on this sort of journey
to get this promise that I made to a friend.
[translator speaks in French]
So I was here recently for the D Day commemorations,
and I take back veterans each year,
and one in particular is a man called Patrick Thomas.
So, this is Patrick.
[translator speaks in French]
He was on board a landing craft.
This is Patrick's actual craft.
[translator speaks in French]
That is a photograph of him heading in Sword Beach here,
and it's called LCH185.
And so, on the 25th of June,
Patrick was asleep on the deck of the boat,
and it was hit by one of the mines,
and most of the crew died and went down with the ship.
So I made this promise to Patrick,
that I was gonna do two things.
If I could, I was gonna try and find his shipwreck,
because he doesn't know where it is.
And then two, build him a memorial in Lion-sur-Mer,
because his story so definitively
features Lion-sur-Mer.
In his mind, his spiritual home is here.
So I was just hoping I could get an idea from the Mayor,
what he'd think about putting a memorial in this town.
- It's a very good idea. - Yeah?
- Yeah, yeah.
- That's amazing, that means a lot.
[Mayor speaks in French]
- For the memory of Patrick, it's an amazing idea.
[Mayor speaks in French]
- And for Lion-sur-Mer it's really an honor.
- Yes.
- That's so nice, I'm so pleased with that.
It's such an honor, thank you so much.
[Mayor speaks in French]
- Can Patrick come in Lion-sur-Mer and maybe meet the Mayor?
- Oh, that would mean so much to him.
He'd be honored.
- Okay. - Yeah?
- Yes, yes, of course. - Okay.
Thank you so, so much Dominique, I really appreciate that.
Patrick, I went for a meeting
with the Mayor of Lion-sur-Mer.
- [Patrick] Yes?
- And he said he'd absolutely love you to get a memorial.
He said it would be an honor for him.
- Oh.
- [John] Even better he said normally it takes a few years,
but he wants to try and get it there
for the D Day commemorations.
- [Patrick] Crumbs, I think it's great.
- [John] Not only that, he wants you to come and visit him,
so he can meet you.
- Wants me to visit him?
- [John] Yeah, he wants to meet you.
- [Patrick] Does he?
Well, that's marvelous.
- The fact that the Mayor cared about Patrick
is a huge deal,
because it's one thing to build an object,
you know, put the bricks and mortar there,
but to have the town embrace Patrick,
and the man who runs the town embrace Patrick,
I think meant more to him than anything.
That was what got the biggest reaction when I called him.
- [Patrick] Oh, that's good.
- I wish you were here, Patrick.
- [Patrick] Okay, I'll hear from you again.
- Yep.
And Patrick is gonna have his story told forever.
Now I'm gonna have to put this team together,
and see if I can get some people who wanna tell the story,
who are passionate about bringing this story home.
[phone ringing]
Hi Chris, nice to finally talk to you properly.
Throughout this whole journey
of trying to find this boat,
I've always kind of had you in the back of my mind,
knowing that you've done this stuff in the past
with the surveying and all that sort of thing.
So it's brilliant to finally get you on here,
and have a chat.
- Most of the ships are still there in some form or another.
Not very good condition,
because Normandy had a high tidal range,
it had a strong tidal current,
and it does erode steel.
- But gooseberry five is a real kind of key clue
in this search for 185. - Yeah.
- Is any of that there at all, still?
- Well funnily enough,
that's been a question that's been bugging me
for quite a while.
The idea behind the survey
was to cover as far as they could,
and they found about 650 things on the bottom
that were identifiable.
I think I know where it is.
- Really? - I think we did cover it
in the 2013 survey.
- You think you know where it is?
- I think there is a record of it, of...
Well not a record,
I think there is the remains of it on the sea floor,
off shore from gooseberry five.
Here are the ships within gooseberry five.
The Corvette is here.
This one here is my candidate
for
LCH185.
- I just can't believe it.
It's just, it's absolutely mind blowing.
That gives me confidence,
'cause I don't know if I've told you before,
but I'm gonna have to learn to dive to do this.
So. [laughs] - Right.
I have come across a group of divers,
and they are willing to come over and dive with you.
- We heard that a young archeologist had made a promise,
and he sort of said he was learning to dive,
or wanted to learn to dive in order to fulfill this promise.
- Because we'd already been over to Normandy last year,
yeah, we were up for it.
[light guitar music]
I think if anyone comes to you with a story
of the nature of Patrick's,
finding where their last resting place is
and having that
closure for people
is a big puzzle,
and we try to
solve puzzles.
We had to pull together a team
of a minimum of six divers, really.
So we've got Martin as expedition leader,
he's responsible for everything. [laughs]
And then we've got other people
who are qualified in survey techniques.
We've worked together before.
Well I say work, but it isn't is it?
It's recreation diving but with a real purpose,
so we're not employed to do any of this,
this is just
something that's driven in us
just to do that extra bit, and find out what we can.
- I'm in France, I got the overnight ferry last night.
I'm trying to find these two houses
that Patrick's craft would have been aiming to reach
at Sword Beach,
and I got the coordinates off of Stephen yesterday.
And it's taking me,
not to Lion-sur-Mer, but to Hermonville,
which is different to what I've heard.
So it's gonna be quite interesting
to see if I can find them.
It's confusing,
because if this is where those two houses are.
If I can find the houses that I've been sent to look for,
and it's not in Lion-sur-Mer,
then Patrick's story has completely changed,
and then does that change
where the ship might have gone down?
In fact, I think these might be the houses.
[Phone ringing]
- [Stephen] Hello, Stephen Fisher?
- You all right Stephen, it's John.
- [Stephen] Hello, John.
- How you doing?
- [Stephen] Yeah, I'm good.
How are you? - Yeah?
I'm all right, yeah.
A bit confused.
We're in Normandy,
and I've just tracked down these houses.
- [Stephen] Yep.
- And they're not in Lion-sur-Mer at all,
they're in Hermonville-sur-Mer,
which is about two miles further down the beach.
- [Stephen] Was it definitely the right houses, yeah?
- Definitely, yeah.
It's really great work with that.
They haven't changed at all, yeah.
It's amazing.
So Patrick's always told me this story
that his craft was heading towards Lion-sur-Mer on D Day,
but he remembers vividly when landing at Sword Beach,
these houses shining in the French sunlight,
these beautiful French houses.
And I follow the coordinates that Stephen gave me,
and it took me to a town
called Hermonville-sur-Mer, not Lion-sur-Mer,
which was really confusing.
But I've just got off the phone with Stephen,
and it seems as if Hermonville-sur-Mer is a newer edition.
In the war, all of this was just countryside.
And so, once they've put all these new houses in,
it needed a new name,
and that seems to be what's happened.
When I said to Patrick,
I'll find your ship, I'll build your memorial,
it seemed like a pretty simple task.
Go to France, find where the ship went down,
put a plaque up. You know, this is harder than I thought,
just to find out where the ship was on top of the water,
let alone underneath it.
What next, yeah. [laughs]
What is this gonna throw up next?
[divers chattering]
[engine revving]
- Hello, you!
- Hello. - How you doing?
- How are you? - Long time.
- Hey. - Nice to finally meet you.
- Thank you.
- Good journey?
- Oh yeah, it was all right. Not too bad.
- Yeah, we're good. - Nice to see you.
- So, we're all here.
- We are, at last. - Finally.
- At last.
- So, how was this morning?
All good?
- Could have been better. - Yeah?
- Yeah.
We've had a little incident this morning.
- Okay.
- You'll notice the engine cover is off.
- Okay.
- So we had a little problem with the engine.
It's been making very funny noises, quite concerning.
It sounded like a bag of stones.
Yeah, just it was really rattling along.
We're gonna have to go to the marina tomorrow,
to see if we can get that fixed.
- Okay, so you managed to get the buoy out?
- No, we didn't. - You didn't?
- No, no, no. - Oh, okay.
- So, we've still got that job to do.
[sighs] Yes. - It happens.
- Welcome to the world of diving.
- Yeah, right.
A nice welcome.
- Disappointing, 'cause we're all set,
ready to go. - Well, I can imagine.
You must be so pumped up and ready to do it.
- Well, and you too. - Yeah.
Splutter your way to the shore.
- So, then we'll set up our headquarters.
- And Stephen, you've got some LCH plans.
- Yeah, got some useful documents.
Hopefully, it'll give us a little more of an insight
into the diagnostic features to look for.
- You'll remember that we went to Marseilles,
to meet the people at Drassom.
And she showed us the multi-beam sonar images
from their survey last year.
They believe it's a different wreck.
- Yeah, yeah. - So, our money's on
the LCH. - Yeah.
I mean, having looked at it myself,
I'm not convinced that it's another boat on its side.
That seems- - No.
- I couldn't work out how that could be-
- No.
There should be some key features,
assuming that they're left there on the seabed for us,
to help nail it once and for all.
- Yeah.
Archeology always goes wrong,
that's pretty much 90% of the time.
I mean, I'm very much used to this feeling.
- So we're heading down to Ouistreham,
where we can check out our engine.
- Quiet day in France,
a lot of shops and businesses are closed.
[team chattering]
- We've been granted permission
for me to dive the wreck at the end of the survey,
to help Patrick say goodbye to those guys.
Patrick can't go down there and see it after 74 years,
but as his friend,
it's almost as if I'm kind of the vessel
for Patrick to go down there.
I'm like, I'm Patrick submarine I suppose,
that can go down there and see it for him.
And to be able to come back and say like,
"We did it, Patrick.
We went down there."
- So they've got no time to have a look at anything,
but he suggested their competitors,
or colleagues next door.
- Right. - Right, okay.
- We realized we had to abandon the boat,
so plan B.
So, here we are. - Yeah.
And what's the plan, then?
- Unfortunately, none of the mechanics
could look at the boat.
They didn't have time,
they're very busy. - Okay.
- I've completed the paperwork online for renting a boat
tomorrow,
so let's just hope.
- Is it two dives tomorrow?
- The first pair is gonna go in and establish
what we call a "shot-line",
where we'll shot the wreck with the shot-line,
and then we'll establish what we can,
what we're gonna call a permanent buoy.
- The wreck is how deep, roughly?
About...
- I think ultimately it's around 21 meters,
but I think tomorrow,
we'll be looking about 19, 20 meters.
- Cecille at Drassom,
have actually recorded this as a landing craft gun,
which was based on a landing craft tank platform,
so it had a bow door which opened to let the tanks out.
The difference between a tank door
and obviously a pointed bow,
is gonna be one of the main features.
So here we have the multi-beam image
taken from the UK Hydrographic Office.
Chris Howlett has overlaid
this plan
onto
that image.
This particular piece here, looks a fairly good match.
- Yeah. - In theory.
But actually it'll be eyes underwater
that are looking at that,
and measuring with a tape measure.
This is the area we like to measure particularly.
This is what we think is the stern.
We'll also make our way up to what appears to be the bow,
the yellow dot right at the end there.
Landing crafts headquarters had a special modification,
which was a special mast with a radar on the top.
So this piece, this piece, and maybe at the stern as well,
will be some of the key areas for us to look at.
- The schedule is you know, written to every minute,
and there was no doubt that we were gonna
locate that wreck and try and identify it.
That was gonna be the hard part.
Identifying it and doing the survey,
and we were worried about visibility,
we were worried about the current, the cold.
Now we've has to worry about not having a boat,
so we've not even gotten to the point
where we were supposed to be worried.
[laughs] This is like the pre-worry, I suppose.
- Okay, this is the main structure we're gonna aim for.
So we think the stern's lump is sort of here, as well.
[phone beeps]
What's that?
- Yay, we got the boat! - Wahey!
- We got the boat. - Fantastic, fantastic.
- Hey, guys!
We got a boat!
Brilliant.
As soon as the whale bag's in the car.
[team chattering]
[light orchestral music]
[engine revving]
[light orchestral music]
- [groans] There we go.
[light orchestral music]
- Sadly, the boat isn't really geared up for diving.
It's a smaller boat,
this other boat was a good meter shorter,
and was more pleasure boat or fishing boat.
- Our expectation of it was much,
much more than actually it's capabilities were.
- We've left you mark,
mark way points where you are,
but I've struggled to find
where to actually input them in the system.
- We had some interesting experience
with trying to work out the electronics.
- Press down. - There isn't one.
Boat basically took on a lot of water,
it was probably overloaded.
- It's good, it's good.
It'll get us there, that's the important thing.
[engine revving]
- We'd probably, ideally look at a five day window
for this type of project.
- We're limited to this window of
no tide, no current,
where we can do that activity.
And then the tide starts to change and the current picks up,
and you can't work in those conditions.
[waves crashing]
- Not being a commercial diver,
essentially means that I've had to lead the survey
topside for five days,
which has been incredibly frustrating.
To be at this point now
where I'm actually going into the water, is a huge thing.
And at this point I've only shore dived,
and that's totally different.
We'll see what it's like when we get out there.
I mean, I'm always up for a challenge.
There's no way I'm not doing it.
[engine revving]
- We searched for two hours
and just found effectively a flat seabed,
not helped by a very lumpy sea going up and down.
[engine revving]
[waves crashing]
After being out there for two hours,
I think we'd all had enough and we called it a day.
[engine revving]
- Hey, John. - Yeah?
How are you going?
- We didn't find it. - You didn't find it?
- We spent two hours- - Geez.
- On the sonar trying to find it,
and we can't find it.
- So, what's the plan now?
- Try again. - Yeah?
- As ever.
- Get warm. - Yep.
We don't give in. - Oh well.
- Oh yeah, we need to warm up! - Better go and get warm.
Yeah, totally. - Okay, get the kettle on.
- This is so
painful
to be a day and a half in,
no one has found the wreck yet.
You know, there's a whole team here,
there's seven or eight people.
We've all had to come together,
we've all had to get time off work.
Everyone's you know, descended on this one point,
in this one week of the year where we can do it.
You know, they're an amazing team,
and they're so capable of doing these things.
But I wanna get involved and I wanna help find it,
but then there's not much point me just sitting on a boat
and getting seasick with the rest of them.
But I'm confident it will figure itself out, you know.
You've just gotta keep going out there,
and keep looking for it. Which is easy for me to say,
'cause I'm sat in a warm house [laughs]
waiting for them to tell me.
Sounds like everything's set up, ready to go.
- Yeah, problem is- - Everyone's geared up.
- It's a bit lumpy out there.
So looks fine here, but when you get out to the open water-
- Do you suffer from seasickness?
- We'll find out, I suppose. [laughs]
[engine revving]
Good luck!
And there's a lot more pressure this time round,
I feel like.
Everyone's a bit on edge, but they're optimistic.
It's not just the location that we've gotta do,
we've gotta actually survey it.
And we've got a day and a half now,
to try and identify the wreck, which is pretty scary.
Patrick gets here tomorrow night.
Tomorrow night, Patrick gets here.
He's here to see a dive trip.
No one's been in the water yet, they've been on the water.
I don't make it out to the dive team that much,
but I'm pretty stressed about it.
[engine revving]
- We're good.
[light guitar music]
- So yeah, I'm in Lion-sur-Mer right now Patrick,
on the seafront. - Yeah.
- I've just had a meeting with the Mayor again,
he's picked a spot for the memorial to go.
On the 6th of June this year,
we're gonna unveil the memorial here.
So there's gonna be a band,
there's gonna be the Mayor, all of the town.
- Crumbs! - Crumbs, yeah. [laughs]
We've got a date and we've got a time,
and it's all going ahead now.
[Patrick laughs]
Yeah, I know, I know.
It's great, isn't it? [laughs]
- Along side a mooring.
- If you keep an eye on the sonar here,
as they come into the buoy and use the wind as a break,
you'll see that the rise up
represents
the target.
It's just jumped up from...
That's the highest point we've seen so far.
- We were desperate to get in the water,
and go down and dive it, see what we could see.
It was gonna be a disaster if we hadn't have found anything.
- Ready?
Go!
[water splashing]
[light orchestral music]
- We descended below the murk of what is the
warm river,
coming down towards the sea bed.
And then you see this dark shape,
and then you start to see some features of the wreck.
[light orchestral music]
[water gurgling]
[light orchestral music]
It was
a large lattice area,
which looks to be sort of the hull of the ship,
all covered in fish, marine life, starfish, scallops.
Just really beautiful, actually.
In another world, it is another world.
The wreck itself was quite shocking.
Quite shocking to see the degree of destruction.
There is a lot of very mangled,
contorted metal.
It was clear that it had been quite badly damaged.
[water bubbling]
[light orchestral music]
- Diver on the surface,
it's Jim. - Okay.
[Jim laughing]
[water trickling]
- Good to get us back together,
you must be pretty knackered.
So, does someone wanna run me through the dive?
What happened [laughs]
after that?
- Oh, we just love to tease you.
[both laughing]
- Jaz went in first and established a line.
- I had the privilege of being the first one down.
We went along, there was a lot of debris,
and at about the distance we expected to find the bow,
we found a massive
winch.
- Okay, that's good right?
- Yeah, yeah. - Yeah?
- This is the ditch, and here's the center.
- So, this is the turret, the gun turret?
- We think so, yeah. - And that's the pedestal
that it's sitting on, but upside down.
- The bow seems to have disappeared,
so that major clue which we were looking for isn't there.
This is part of the capstan,
so you can see the sort of capstan area here,
so that- - And that bit is the winch.
When I saw the video of the wreck for the first time,
it was really, just surreal,
because a year ago
I didn't even know if the wreck still existed.
So, what was the deal with the bow then?
It just wasn't there at all
when you got there, or- - Well, we didn't-
- Oh sorry, the stern.
I meant the stern.
This is the flat bit- - So this is the-
- You were talking about. - Just a flat, smooth-
- Yeah. - Smooth area.
- Would you think would be the actual, the back?
- Yeah, its an angle. - The very back of it?
- But I don't know, maybe that's worth measuring,
if you've got the exact- - Yeah.
- 'Cause it is, it's got corners to it,
so you would be able to measure
the width of the transom area you will have,
the exact stern.
You could measure that.
- You know, it's a sad sight.
It's in worse condition than I could have pictured.
The sonar doesn't give you that imagery,
it doesn't give you the actual footage of the wreck,
and I suppose I was naive in thinking
that it probably still was at least metal.
Well, it's not really a ship anymore.
- I called it the ultimate sort of puzzle to find,
it's real detective stuff, it's real you know,
trying to work things out.
Something that was 70 odd years ago and you're trying to,
what does this bent bit of metal mean?
[laughs] It's quite a challenge.
- I mean, I'm probably...
Really what's going through my head,
is what Patrick would think seeing this, I think.
- [Alison] Are you concerned how he'd feel, or?
- I mean, not concerned really, just...
Well you don't you how he'll react
just seeing it, I guess.
'Cause it is such a mangled mess.
- There doesn't look to be
a lot of material- - No, there doesn't.
- Left on that picture.
- We might get lucky, it might just say LCH185 right there.
[all laughing]
[light orchestral music]
[water splashing]
[water gurgling]
[light orchestral music]
How did the measuring go, then?
- We went down the stern today and it was,
it's definitely upside down, the ship.
So- - Okay, yeah.
- You can see
the shape of the stern itself.
Some of the plating's gone,
but you can definitely still see the outline of the shape.
We went up to the winch
and did a bit of photogrammetry around there today,
so- - Brilliant.
- [Martin] I'll run the pictures quickly while we're out,
and just see whether there's any chance
that those are lining up.
It's all these little clues- - Yeah, yeah.
It's exciting- - That come together-
- For you guys to come back- - You know.
- And tell me these things, it's really cool.
- There's no real big stuff,
but some of the smaller stuff
when we actually of piece it together,
sometimes that'll be the final,
"Well, it could only be this."
- Yeah.
[light orchestral music]
- We've got an effective width here of 7.9 meters.
- It does seem to be too narrow to be an LCT4,
which was the landing craft gun.
So those three there,
match those three in the middle,
match there three here, which are the engine room.
The puzzle is here.
I'm nervous about meeting Patrick.
I know he's got a great burning desire
to find the ship where his friends were lost,
and I want to give him that.
I do.
I don't know if I can.
And we've tried so hard over the last few days,
and
some things line up,
some things don't.
And I can't give him that answer just now,
and
I hope he's not disappointed.
- Do you wanna come in? Was the ferry good?
- Oh yes, it was all right.
- Good. - Very smooth crossing.
- Watch the step. - Yes, I'll watch that.
- There he is, the man of the hour.
- Hello. - Hello.
- These are all the gentlemen? - This is Patrick Thomas.
- Hello, Patrick. - Our friend, Pat.
- Hello. - Hello.
- So, this is Jim. - I don't remember, Jim is it?
- Alison.
Two.
- Hello.
- You could see he had the glint in his eye,
that John had warned me about.
He's lovely, absolutely lovely.
- Martin. - Pardon?
- Martin! - Martin.
- And I'm Doug.
- He's quite a character, I have to say.
He is quite a character.
- [laughs] Jolly, it's nice this wine, isn't it?
[all laughing]
- These are all the sonar images.
- Oh!
- That's you, yeah. - Crumbs!
- We've been here about three days.
We've found something. - You did?
- Yeah, but it's a bit more complicated
than we thought it would be. - Oh.
- We think
the ship is upside down.
- Oh.
- [Alison] Which lines up with
what you were saying. - When she was turning
like that. - Yeah.
- We've also found some
particular
parts of the ship that we think
match 185,
but then there are other bits that maybe don't fit.
But we're very willing to share with you
what we have found. - Ooh, I'm bloody pleased,
nevertheless.
I'm grateful!
- This is something I've been creating
from the wreckage. - Is it?
- We think this is an engine.
We think this is a generator.
And this is the winch that was at the front.
- [Patrick] Ah, yes.
- These three items
are very similar
to the three items on the plans of the ship,
but we're still looking at it yet.
We need a bit more information, yet.
So we think this is part of the stern area,
so this is the stern of the ship.
- That's right, that's what I would have said, yes.
- [Martin] So it's quite narrow,
but you can still see some shape.
[light orchestral music]
I'm afraid the engines have disappeared.
[light orchestral music]
- Where's...
It's been so badly destroyed,
you can hardly recognize what it is.
[light orchestral music]
But I think it's so kind of you
that you've all done this you know, for me.
Well, I feel it's for me
and my shipmates. - And your colleagues,
that's right.
- So you remember Patrick,
tomorrow I'm going to dive down on that.
- [Patrick] Yes.
- You gonna get up nice and early,
and come see me down at the marina tomorrow?
- Yes.
Now you good folk wanna go to bed surely, don't you?
- We do. - You wanna go off to bed.
I'm gonna let you go.
[John laughs]
And I'll see you all again. - Yes.
Just meeting Patrick and hearing his stories first hand,
seeing how he still feels that pain of what happened,
still very vivid in his mind.
- Right, okay chaps.
- See you in the morning. - See you!
- Just helps reinforce why it's important to do this.
[engine revving]
- Oh, lord.
- So, how are you Patrick?
- I'm fine, thanks. - Yeah?
So this is it, this is the big moment.
- At last we've made it.
- It's not too late to get you suited up,
and come down.
- Pardon? - It's not too late!
[both laughing]
- You betcha.
Oh my lord.
[Patrick laughing]
Crumbs.
All success!
[engine revving]
- You'd take a lady by the hand?
[all laughing]
- I'm sure he would.
- You know I'm on Facebook?
[engine revving]
[waves crashing]
[waves splashing]
[water gurgling]
- The second I threw myself into the sea,
I think a wave just smashed me straight in the face.
And then suddenly, I mean three miles out, right?
So to go from going 10 meters off the shore
to three miles out,
and I'm suddenly at the mercy of the English Channel.
[light orchestral music]
It was surreal, it was intense,
and it was so much to take in.
[light orchestral music]
When we came back up,
and I went up the ascent line maybe five meters,
and I look back thinking the wreck would be gone,
so I look back as if to be like, "Okay, this is it.
I've done it."
And it was still there, so that threw me off.
So I went up another meter,
turned back thinking it would still be there,
and then it was gone.
So then, that took me by surprise.
[water bubbling]
- Richard will grab hold of you.
[light orchestral music]
- John. - I did it!
- You've done well to get on with it.
- Yeah, good, good. - Good-o, good-o.
- I was quite taken aback
by how much like a boat it actually is, you know.
You can still travel down it.
It's big.
The images don't really do justice to how big it is,
it is big down there.
It's peaceful, it's peaceful down there.
- Never...
I never thought this sort of thing would ever happen,
not to me.
- Do you feel like us being here,
finding the target and diving it,
and you being here,
is that any sense of a full circle?
- It is in that sense.
I never thought I would react like this.
- [John] It's a lot to take in, eh?
- Ah, well.
[Patrick sobs]
- Go and sit down? - Yeah, okay.
- Just, I dunno.
Was it the right thing to do?
I dunno.
I think it's close,
I think he's happy about it, but...
- After all these years.
What, 74.
Very nearly.
And they've brought it all to the surface now I think,
oh fiddle-de-dee.
[light orchestral music]
And,
oh dear.
Anyway, I'm so pleased you've done this.
And it's great to think that all you people
have taken such an interest.
I never thought they would.
- There's moments along this journey
where Patrick has gotten quite upset,
which is understandable.
It's a lot of memories that you're churning up,
and I've always been aware of that.
And there's moments where he's quiet and contemplative,
and I'm a worrier, so I always think,
"Oh god, should I have done any of this?"
Is kind of the thing I always think,
because Patrick's very quiet in the moment,
but then I know he thinks about it and he appreciates it.
[light orchestral music]
- He was aged 29
and I was 19,
but I remember him well.
And I think now I should lay this wreath.
- Well, I wanna give you this first.
I managed to track down Jack's family.
- You have done? - Yeah.
- Crumbs!
- [John] I managed to track down Les Barringer's children.
- Have you?
Les is dead, is he?
- [John] He is, but his children are still alive,
and they're very interested in what you've been doing.
- Yes.
- And they gave me this, it's a letter.
You don't have to read it now,
you can read it in your own time,
but it's a letter written from LCH185
from Jack to Les,
about 10 days before the sinking.
And it talks about D Day,
and it talks about their family back at home,
so I wanted you to have it and read it in your own time.
- Crumbs. - Yeah.
- Thank you. - That's okay.
They wanted you- - Marvelous.
- [John] The family wanted you to have it.
- They did? - Yeah.
- Shall we go and place this-
- Yes, I think we ought to.
- Yeah. - Yes.
[light orchestral music]
Get your feet right.
[John laughing]
Up right! - Up right.
- [Patrick] Chest out and not bending your blasting back.
[John and Patrick laughing]
[bagpipes blaring]
[footsteps marching]
[bagpipes blaring]
- The first time I ever learnt about Patrick's story
was stood at the grave of Jack Barringer,
and that's the name that's always been told by Patrick,
that's the big part of the story.
And I remember saying to him once you know,
"What if I could find them?"
Patrick, I've got some people you might like to meet.
- Yes, okay. - I'll bring them in.
- I'll meet them.
- John?
- This is Jack Barringer's family.
- You remember Les- - Is it?
- You remember Les Barringer?
- Yes! - I'm his son.
- Are you?
- Yes, and I'm very pleased to meet you.
Also, John was Jack's- - Hello, John.
- Jack's brother.
- Oh, and Jack's brother? - Yep.
- What did you serve on?
- Tiptoe.
- Oh, I remember Tiptoe!
[all laughing]
- Buckingham Palace, they used to call it.
- Sorry, have we been introduced?
- No, I'm Jeff's wife.
- Oh, I see. - Nice to meet you.
It's a pleasure to meet you.
- Has an eye for the ladies, you see.
- Yes, he does.
[all laughing]
- Well, this is a pleasant surprise.
- Jack's bro...
- Yep. - Brother?
- Jack was the eldest. - Oh, Jack was the eldest.
- George was next. - George.
- Les, Keith. - Yes.
And then me.
- And then you.
I always went to Ranville. - Yes.
- And I always laid something on Jack's grave.
- We saw, we were there this morning,
and we saw your tribute-
- That's right. - This morning, at the grave.
Yes, thank you.
- So how old were you at the time?
- 19.
- Wow, yes.
19, so young.
- Green as they come.
I tell you what, I grew up very quickly.
- [laughs] I bet you did.
- After that.
- There was a moment where Patrick turned to me in Ranville,
at the end of the dive trip.
And he said to me,
185 for him has always been a sad story.
He said, and now it's a happy thing,
because I know that people know
that I'm here telling the story, as in Patrick.
And Patrick knows that these families haven't forgotten,
and he never knew that.
And so, if one good thing's come out of this
other than the memorial,
it's been Patrick knowing that these families never forgot.
Which I think had been lost,
and would never have been found
if we hadn't have promised him we'd find it.
[bagpipes blaring]
[crowd chattering]
[bagpipes blaring]
[Mayor speaks in French]
- Bonjour, le Maire.
My thanks to you for your moving words,
and for hosting this special event today.
The list of casualties totals 34,
but it is likely much higher.
Just a handful, less than 10, survived that day,
and now 74 years later, only one remains.
My friend, Patrick Thomas.
Of all the men that lost their lives that day,
only four were ever given a burial.
The rest were lost to the sea.
Now with this memorial,
the crew will be remembered forever.
- Bonjour, le Maire.
My grateful thanks for your help
in providing locating the prints at Lion-sur-Mer
for the the memorial dedicated to those lost on LCH185,
on the 25th of June, 1944.
I was fortunate to have survived.
185 was my home,
and my shipmates my family.
I am proud and honored to unveil the monument
commemorating
the tragic loss of 185,
and all who lost their lives aboard her.
My grateful thanks to all who are here
to witness the dedication.
My shipmates will be remembered for all time
by the memorial.
"There are no roses on sailor's graves,
nor wreaths upon the storm tossed waves.
No heartbroken words carved in stone,
just shipmates lying there alone.
The only tributes are the seagulls sweeps,
and the teardrops when a loved one weeps."
Rest in peace
all those shipmates who have no other grave,
than the sea off Normandy.
Rest quietly.
You are not forgotten.
[crowd applauds]
- [Soldier] Right, right, attention!
[audience applauds]
♪ Eternal Father
♪ Strong to save
♪ Whose arm doth bind
♪ The restless wave
♪ Who bids the mighty
♪ Oceans deep
♪ Its own appointed
♪ Limits keep
[audience applauds]
[bagpipes blaring]
[audience applauds]
- Thank you all, thank you.
Thank you for coming, thank you.
Lovely, thank you.
My lord.
To think that my name is now in France,
safely in the hands Monsieur le Maire.
It was that way, was it?
- Just off, slightly off. - Just off that way.
- There. - That way.
Oh, I see.
And people can see it when I'm long gone,
and the memorial will be there when I'm long gone.
That's marvelous.
[uplifting orchestral music]
- [Alison] Lovely to see you again.
- It's flown by,
the last few weeks. - It has!
- Good to see you again.
- Yeah, nice to see you again.
- Good to see you. - Good to see you again.
We're all back together, eh?
Isn't this great.
- So the details measurements
that Doug and Jim
took of the framework in particular,
are probably one of the one things
that's going to give us the answer.
- [John] Yeah.
- The width was 7.95.
And
from that
video,
we saw that there was evidence of an extra width to it,
so it could have been even wider than the 7.95.
The rest of what we are gonna look at now,
is
reinforcing the fact
that this is probably not Patrick's ship.
[light orchestral music]
- The second they told me the measurements, I thought...
I mean, it was obvious it wasn't gonna be 185,
'cause when we were in France on the expedition,
it started to seem like the measurements weren't adding up.
And you know, an archeology measurements are everything.
And the width of it was wider
than 185
was,
and things can be smaller on the bottom of the ocean,
because they can degrade and fall apart,
but things can't be bigger.
- A landing craft 4
had four sections in the middle,
and then two on the outside.
The measurement across here, these four,
is
pretty much
7.95.
- I have to say, I was quite 50/50 in Normandy.
I thought that the winch arrangements
could well have been part of it,
but in real conclusion,
you know, the measurements on the frame just don't add up.
- You don't really get surprised,
until you know the entire picture.
Working in maritime archeology,
you have to appreciate the chances
of identifying a wreck conclusively,
are always going to be slim.
And just because a wreck matches the details that you know
from the historical record,
doesn't meant that it's definitely it.
Normandy was a very busy place in the summer of 1944,
numerous vessels were lost.
- And the other thing we noticed
was that landing craft infantry,
or landing craft headquarters,
didn't have ladders into that bottom area.
They did have them on the landing craft guns.
It could be one of three landing craft guns,
but we have at least got some photographs of it.
- Oh yeah, that's amazing.
That was amazing, and you guys have worked so hard.
I mean, I'm totally blow away by the level of detail
you've put into proving that it's not.
And like I said,
it's one more rock you've looked under, right?
I mean, so it's one more thing to knock off
that it's not LCH.
We've identified a landing craft,
and it was someone's home,
and it was someone's boat,
and it was someone's story.
And there's people out there
who's family members served on it.
There's probably people out there
who's family members died on it.
And it's another part of bring closure
to these forgotten stories, you know?
- There is still another wreck here to identify,
and that's another interesting piece of research in itself.
This is has its own story, this had its own crew,
and this is another story just as valuable,
and equally worth telling.
- Well there is a ray of hope,
in that we're out to Normandy again in July.
We have permission to dive a number of wrecks,
but one of the sites we have asked to look at,
is labeled as the Lord Austin,
which was
a trawler.
But the multi-beam looks like it's a landing craft,
so it may well be wrongly identified.
And who knows, it may well be that.
- You'll have to let me know. - We just keep going.
- [laughs] Keep climbing on.
- We just keep going.
You can't argue with the facts,
and you're in danger of coming away disappointed,
when actually you have succeeded.
We've succeeded in identifying this as a landing craft gun.
Yes, it's not LCH185,
but at least now it is known,
and we can move onto the next one,
and find the next one, and the next one.
- I think Patrick probably should know,
right or wrong,
whether we've done it or not,
but
I don't know.
Having gone through the process of you know,
paying your respects to your comrades fallen
that have already been there, then...
I don't know, it's difficult.
- I think I probably would
want to know,
but
it's a tough call, I think.
- Here we are again.
I've gotta tell you something, basically.
I've got some news for you. - Yes?
- When we did the dive on the wreck,
we thought, we weren't sure what wreck it was.
And there was always a possibility that it might not be 185,
or that we wouldn't be able to tell.
And when the dive team did all the measurements,
and all that sort of stuff. - Yes.
- It turns out that it was actually a landing craft gun,
rather than an LCH,
and it came as a big surprise.
We still discovered this landing craft gun
which had its own story,
and that had sailors lose their lives on it as well.
So it was someone's wreck, it was someone's story,
but it wasn't 185's.
We don't know where it is.
- Oh!
- And that probably means that 185 hasn't been disturbed.
- The sea is never still.
And of course,
everything's shifting all the time,
and the sand drifts over things.
And so eventually you know,
it'll be a war grave and they're undisturbed.
That ship at that particular time is your home, was my home.
And of course, the crew are part of your family.
- Yeah.
- But I always thought that people are not interested,
it's in the past, it's ancient history to a lot of people.
But it's still very vivid to me.
Never, ever thought it would happen to me,
but it's through your efforts.
It's through meeting you.
- Just 'cause I had nowhere to stay in France, did I?
- Oh, that's right.
- It wasn't just me that pulled all this off,
there was obviously you know, the dive team.
There was the lifeboat crew. - Yes.
- There was the historians.
There was the Mayor.
There was all the people of Lion.
I just feel really grateful
that you've given me the chance to tell this story
to so many people,
because I think it's touched a lot of people.
And it's really brought to light you know,
what you did, and what your friends did.
And without you allowing me to tell that story,
but I couldn't have done it without you, Pat.
- And I couldn't have done it without you!
[John laughing]
'Cause you know my last words were,
rest in peace
all those that have no other grave
but the sea in Normandy.
Somebody said to me, I'm living history.
See I'm not old, I'm ancient.
[John laughing]
So, there you are.
Over all these years of course,
I've never given a thought
about 185.
It wasn't until
I came to Normandy in 2013,
to see Jack Barringer's grave.
And having visited that, it resurrected memories.
You can't live in the past,
but I like history
because it's quite simple.
People learn from history.
There are other stories to be told
on land, sea and air,
and probably many that will never be told.
Well, this memorial
is a memorial
for a particular ship,
not generalizing.
It was one
for LCH185,
one ship
and its crew.
And as I said
in my speech,
that the crew were my family.
I mean, I've gazed on memorials before.
I can only say it's an emotional moment.
Once in a while,
your thoughts can go back,
and mine went back all those years.
I saw the sea,
an empty sea.
But when I was here,
that sea
was full of ships
and landing craft.
[waves splashing]
[mellow orchestral music]