SS Thistlegorm

Built by Joseph Thompson & Sons of Sunderland for the Albyn Line, Thistlegorm made only a handful of voyages before the war claimed her. In the autumn of 1941 she lay at Safe Anchorage F off Sha'ab Ali, waiting for clearance through the Suez Canal with supplies for the Eighth Army in North Africa: Bedford trucks, BSA and Norton motorcycles, Bren carriers, rifles, aircraft parts, Wellington boots, and two steam locomotives chained to her deck. In the early hours of 6 October 1941, two Heinkel He 111 bombers hunting a troopship found her instead. Bombs detonated the ammunition in her aft holds, tearing the stern open and sending her down with nine of her crew. Jacques Cousteau located the wreck in the mid-1950s; after recreational divers relocated it in the early 1990s it became the most dived wreck in the world, a cargo hold time capsule of the desert war.

How she sank: German air attack while at anchor, 6 October 1941.

Condition: Largely intact but visibly tired: decades of mooring lines, exhaust bubbles, and souvenir hunters have stripped bells, motorcycles, and fittings, and sections of plating have sagged. Conservation projects now map and monitor the hull.

Penetration: Full With Training. The forward holds are open-sided and routinely toured with a guide; deeper interior spaces and the stern demand wreck training and good buoyancy over silt. Entering any overhead environment requires specific training — a wreck certification at minimum, technical wreck training for full penetration.

Recommended certification: Advanced Open Water

Current: Moderate · Visibility: 15–30 m

Marine life: Batfish hang under the bow, trevally and barracuda hunt over the deck, lionfish and crocodilefish stake out the cargo, and turtles pass along the rails.

Hazards: Current can run hard over the deck; heavy day-boat traffic overhead; silt and sharp steel inside; live ordnance remains in the stern debris.

Managed Egyptian heritage site with installed mooring systems.

Artifact removal is illegal under Egyptian law.

Take nothing — decades of pilfering have already stripped this wreck; everything that remains is protected.