Dieppe – 4 Day WII Wreck Diving Trip
Monday 6th August - Thursday 9th August 2012
1 day (2 boat dives)
£399 - per person*
Dieppe
During WW2 Dieppe saw its fair share of the action, In 1942 during the build up for the liberation of Europe and as a possible trial run for the D Day landings there was the now infamous and disasterous Dieppe Raid as portrayed in Robin Neillands book of the same name “The Dieppe Raid”. Made up from a force of mainly Canadian Highlanders and British Commando’s these troops made an assault on the Beaches of Dieppe, the result was carnage, the beaches turned into killing grounds, with whole regiments decimated. Off shore ships were lost, landing crafts were sunk and the destroyer HMS Berkely destroyed with great loss of life.
Diving Dieppe
Its amazing, you travel all that way across the channel to Dieppe and the depth doesn’t get deeper than 40mtrs, your 25 miles offshore and its 33mtrs and as you head for harbour the depth stays between 25 – 30mtrs, close in you can be diving in the 15mtr range, fantastic. If you have never dived from Dieppe before, then seriously think about it!
Here are a few of the wrecks that we dive, some are known and some are unidentified but every year we are looking for new ones and there are a lot of targets out there to research.
AF13 – German Coastal Patrol Boat
There are 2 of these German patrol boats sunk between Dieppe and Fe’Camp, AF13 located in just 20mtrs of water, One is upside down and very broken, the other is on its side, her armaments buried in the sand and depth charges scattered around. They make interesting second dives.
HMS Berkeley – The Royal Navy escort destroyer
HMS Berkeley formed part of the attack force for the raid on Dieppe on the 19th August 1942 she was 272x28x8 and had 4x4”guns & 8 smaller guns. At approx 12.50pm HMS Berkeley received a direct hit from German aircraft bombs which broke her back and she sank with the loss of 15 lives. Today she rests in 20mtrs of water and she is broken into 2 main sections which stand 4mtrs high in places.
During World War Two, three train ferry ships (TF1, TF2 & TF3) which had been built during World War One were requisitioned by the Royal Navy. In 1940 TF1 and TF3 were renamed HMS Princess Iris & HMS Daffodil. They were renamed and named after the ex-Mersey ferries which were used in the famous World War One Zeebrugge raid.
HMS Princess Iris & HMS Daffodil
In 1941 HMS Princess Iris and HMS Daffodil were converted into Landing Ship Sternchute (LSS) and used as locomotive transports. HMS Daffodil (ex- TF3) was lost off Dieppe on March 17th 1945 after striking a mine. HMS Princess Iris survived the war only to be broken up for scrap. The fait of TF2 was not so lucky, she was also sunk near Dieppe after coming under fire from German shore batteries and sank close to shore in only 15mtrs of water, today the wreck off TF2 is quite broken up.
HMS Daffodil is a big old wreck she was 107m long with a beam of 18m, she was powered by 2 6 cylinder triple expansion engines giving her a speed of 13knots. Today the wreck of HMS Daffodil wrests in only 24mtrs of water, she sits upright and is pretty intact giving good swim throughs wreck penetration. The marine life on her is superb with large shoals of Bass and Black Bream in the wreckage.
Minimum Experience Required
- PADI Deep Diver Certification (or equivalent)
- 50 Logged Dives
Price Includes
- Dive Boat Fees (6 dives)
- All Air Fills
Not Included
- Kit Hire
- Accommodation (3 nights at approx 40 euros per night)
Please note you will need diving medical insurance for this trip.
* We need a full boat for this trip to run. If we fail to fill the boat or if the weather conditions do not allow for this trip then we will revert to a 4 day wreck diving trip out of Eastbourne finishing with watching the Eastbourne Air Show whilst having a BBQ aboard Channel Diver. This 4 Day wreck trip will be £239 so you will receive a £150 discount from the Dieppe trip. Please note that neither of these trip costs include accommodation. Air fills are included in the Dieppe trip but not included in the UK backup trip.
