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The Sister Throughout the Poseidon research, there was something missing from the process: Despite the sinking having taken place in the twentieth century, there was no personal connection to the incident. Not only had all the survivors passed away but, in many instances, so had their children. The submarine had been salvaged and, therefore, diving on the wreck, the genesis of the search, would not be possible. World War II historians can stand on the ground or float above the places their subjects once battled, sometimes even with men or women who fought there. But neither the Poseidon nor its former crew remained to give a first-hand account. Because of this, when I would see things like Galpin’s original signature on a document, I was tempted to run my finger across it. I initially held out hope that I might find a survivor, in his nineties perhaps, but the last of the crew died before I had ever heard the name HMS Poseidon. I saw that Poseidon’s sister boat, HMS Perseus, had been discovered off Greece in 1997. Like four of the five Parthian-class boats that remained after Poseidon was lost, it was sunk in the Mediterranean, but only Perseus’s location was known. However, the Greek Navy divers who found her kept the coordinates secret in order to preserve the site as a war grave. I accepted their decision for what it was although I was sad that not only would I not be able to dive Poseidon but I also would not be getting near the only known wreck of one of her sister boats. In early 2009, I returned to YouTube, where I had seen footage from the first dives on Perseus, shot by a team led by diver Kostas Thoctarides. However, this time there was more video, some filmed within the last two years. I clicked on the link. A dive shop on an island I had never heard of and could not pronounce Chapter 17 On Eternal Patrol 170 Poseidon organized dives to Perseus. Within forty-eight hours, I had booked a ticket to Greece. Zakinthos is eclipsed by other Greek islands for renown, even by its northern neighbor, Kefallonia. Both are surpassed by Crete and Mikonos in popularity with tourists. However, these two islands in the Ionian Sea have something that cannot be found near their larger, better-known neighbors: the only known wreck of a Parthian-class submarine, lying in the channel between them. Following the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939, the submarines of the Fourth Submarine Flotilla and their support ships were reassigned to the Mediterranean. When they had passed through the Mediterranean in late 1930, they were among the most powerful naval vessels in the world. However, eight years later, these submarines that were essentially built for peacetime patrol were about to face German U-boats that had been designed specifically for war. That war was not kind to the China Station veterans. Only one, HMS Proteus, survived long enough to be scrapped. The other four— Pandora, Parthian, Perseus, and Phoenix—were all sunk by German or Italian forces. Among those who served aboard Perseus was Walter Jeffery, who returned to the China Station on her, two years after Poseidon’s sinking. Later, Lieutenant Commander Peter Bartlett sailed HMS Perseus from Asia back to Europe in 1939,1 with a junior officer named Alistair Mars under his command. Mars would distinguish himself first as a submariner and then as an author, writing both fictional and factual accounts of submarine life, such as Unbroken: The True Story of a Submarine. Bartlett was reassigned to the UK, and after a refit on Malta in 1941, Perseus returned to service in April 1941, its patrol area the eastern Mediterranean under a new skipper, Lieutenant Commander Edward C. F. Nicolay. Under Nicolay, Perseus sank three ships, including the 3,800-ton Italian tanker Maya and the 3,500-ton Italian merchant ship Eridano. They may not have been the Axis equivalent of Medusa, but the sinkings earned the commander a Distinguished Service Order. In late November,2 Perseus slipped Malta for the west coast of Greece, then occupied by Italian Axis forces, later heading south, its ultimate destination Alexandria.3 Axis forces had occupied Greece for about six months at that point. On board was a naval ne’er-do-well named John Capes, known as a smart man with a flair for storytelling but perhaps given to...

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