The Submarine HMS Perseus (N36)

The Perseus Memorial The Collegiate Church of St Mary Stafford

On the night of 6 December, 1941, H.M.S. PERSEUS was patrolling the surface of the Ionian Sea between the Greek islands of Kefalonia and Zante. On board the ship apart from its permanent crew, were the British Sailor (stoker) John Capes and the Greek Lieutenant Nicolaos Merlin. It was a dark and windy night. Suddenly a tremendous explosion shattered the submarine from stem to stern. The submarine had hit something, probably a mine. From the crack that was caused by the collision οn the port fore side and the opened hatch of the conning tower tons of water surged into the vessel. . A few seconds later the submarine is going down in a nosedive along with sixty officers and sailors that are drifted in the cold waters of the Ionian Sea. .

From the sixty men that were drifted along with the submarine on the seabed of the Ionian Sea, an English rating managed to do something unique in the Navy History. The stoker John Capes was resting at the aft compartment just before the explosion occurred. He was going through some letters, drinking rum. When H.M.S PERSEUS began to sink, the aft compartment did not flood until the submarine touched the bottom of the Ionian Sea.

Although injured, Capes started to search for other survivors and found three other badly injured stokers, alive in the debris. Without wasting any time, Capes found the Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus and helped his wounded companions to put them on. Then he had to find a way to open the hatch of the aft compartment and that could only be done by balancing the pressure in the compartment with that in the sea. First he lowered the collapsible canvas escape trunk and secured it by lashings to the deck.

Unfortunately when he found the valve he had to use in order to flood the compartment he saw that its spindle was bent and immovable. So he had to find another way to do it otherwise they would be trapped. And he did. He flooded the compartment using the underwater gun, which is under normal circumstances used for sending smoke signals to the surface. Immediately he helped his shipmates to duck down under the water, come up inside the trunk and get out to the sea through the escape hatch. Then he followed the same procedure and began his own ascent from 52 meters depth. Straining through his painful ascent he managed to surface and started looking around for his companions, in vain. No one else had survived the sinking of H.M.S. PERSEUS that became an underwater grave for fifty-nine men.

Despite being badly worn out, Capes summoned up all the energy he had left and started swimming towards the dark mass he could discern in the horizon. After a struggle of many hours with the cold sea he reached to a rocky beach. With great effort he crawled over the rocks to finally get to one of the impressive beaches of Kefalonia Island. Exhausted as he was he lapsed into unconsciousness.

There he was found by the island inhabitants (Miltiades Xareras and Xaralabos Valianos, two fishermen from the nearest area, Mavrata village, found him) who medically treated and took him into shelter. Having been in good hands for more than 18 months he was helped to escape to safety in Smyrna. John Capes extraordinary survival adventure was difficult to be taken seriously. No one believed his stories as they seemed too far fetched. As such no one ever understood what this man had really gone through, this was more like a journey from hell to paradise. It had never happened before, for someone to escape from such a depth.  The story of his dramatic escape included that just before he left the hatch he took a swig of rum for courage and sure enough when the wreck was found in 1996 not only was the open hatch found but there also nearby was the rum bottle which confirmed the amazing story of his escape.

A Video of a dive around the actual wreck which shows the open escape hatch.

HMS Perseus Mascot A carved wooden figure of the Hydra with a sword piercing its mouth. It was used as the mascot of the submarine, HMS Perseus, and originally belonged to Petty Officer Perkins who served on Perseus. The Hydra was a creature slain by Perseus in ancient Greek myth. The mascot would have originally sat on top of a flagpole. The post war practice is to decorate the tops of flagpoles in submarines with a naval crown, but it was common in World War Two to have a version of the ship’s badge.