Do you imagine yourself living underwater in a submarine?
What do you think it feels like?
Well, while we think that living inside a submarine is exciting, the truth is: it isn’t
that pleasant, especially since submarines are typically small in size.
It's also possible that the inside will stink.
There is a high possibility that you can’t see the sun or feel its heat for about some
weeks or even months.
Have you ever felt as if you're trapped in a little box and that you can’t move freely?
Well, submarines can be like that.
They can be extremely claustrophobic, feeling like your every move must be calculated.
You might be thinking by now that living inside a submarine is the worst thing you could do,
but there's something even worse: it’s being inside a broken submarine that's sinking to
the ocean's bottom.
Let's go back to World War II and the Mediterranean region in particular.
This was a period when the British Navy was fighting the Italian Navy for control of the
sea, but the often crystal-clear waters contain disaster that is waiting to happen for the
submarines.
Some were attacked by bombing from the air, others were destroyed by ships armed with
depth charges, and there are submarines that simply collided with mines.
As a result of these various occupational risks, two out of five British submarines
that entered the Mediterranean during the war sank.
What happens now that the submarine has sunk?
Unfortunately, the submarine will now serve as a mass iron coffin for all of the crew
that was on board during that time.
That’s the only thing it could do.
The British Navy lost 79 submarines during the war, with only four that managed to escape.
This means that there is only a five-percent chance of surviving if you were in one of
those submarines.
It's also worth noting that the most spectacular of the four successful escapes is the not-so-familiar
story of the HMS Perseus submarine and its only one survivor.
HMS Perseus was a British submarine stationed in Alexandria, in British Egypt.
Their main task was to secretly move supplies to the island of Malta.
The island of Malta means a lot to the British Navy for it is their strategic outpost in
the Mediterranean.
It was on the twenty-sixth of November in 1941 when the submarine left Malta and returned
back to Alexandria for additional supplies.
While on the way, happens their second task, which is to monitor the waters of the southern
Aegean surrounding the Greek islands.
However, on the night of December 6, the submarine Perseus collided with a mine off the coast
of Kefalonia, and there, it began sinking.
There were sixty-one people inside the mentioned submarine, with fifty-nine of them crew members,
while the other two were passengers.
One of those two passengers was a man named John Capes, who is also considered as the
submarine's sole survivor.
How does Capes manage to survive in the sunken submarine?
Well, his story goes like this: He was relaxing in a makeshift bunk in the torpedo tube when
the submarine hit the mine.
He was shocked by the loud explosion.
After the explosion, the lights in the entire submarine went out.
He was thrown across the room as the submarine twisted, and later on, the submarine then
sank into the cold sea's dark depths before crashing to the bottom, which was 170 feet
from sea level.
Capes noticed that despite the darkness, he could still stand up, and after some searching,
he luckily found a flashlight.
Even though Capes couldn't see anything due to the darkness, he managed to find his way
into the submarine's engine room.
The other things that he needed to endure aside from darkness is the growing foul air
and the rising water level inside.
He saw mangled bodies of at least a dozen dead people while finding the engine’s room.
However, he couldn’t get any farther since the room on the other side was already totally
filled with water.
He promptly began looking for anyone else who could still be alive.
He was able to find three more men, whom he brought together in the engine room.
They then proceeded to the escape chamber located just above the room, where they discovered
two sets of escape suits.
However, finding these suits does not guarantee that they will be saved, especially since
these escape suits can only be used to a maximum of 100 feet and only have adequate oxygen
for that distance.
Their gauges indicated that they were 270 feet below the surface, but their gauges were
broken, which they were unaware of.
The truth is that they were 171 feet below the surface of the ocean.
That means they have to swim 71 feet without any oxygen.
They all assumed, however, that they had to swim 171 feet without oxygen.
Whatever the case, it’s going to be difficult.
Nobody had ever done anything like it before, so they knew they would be breaking the world
record for the deepest ever escape, of course, it is only if they were successful in doing
so.
Oxygen within the submarine was continuously decreasing as time passed.
Capes had no choice but to take one more sip from a bottle of rum that had flooded the
escape compartment.
Exerting so much force, he then managed to loosen the damaged bolts on the escape compartment.
He pushed the other three men out first before he went out himself.
However, even if they were able to move out, there was another major issue, which all of
them are aware of.
If they were to swim to the surface of the ocean from a depth of hundreds of feet where
they were positioned, there would be a sudden change in pressure on all of their bodies.
This sudden pressure would certainly cause the bends, a condition in which gases inside
the body begin to rise.
In severe situations, this can result in excruciating pain, paralysis, and even death.
With this, they have two choices: it was either they die because of the bends or from drowning
in the submarine.
As a result, they all took the first choice.
However, on a cold December night, though, it was only Capes who managed to reach the
surface of the ocean.
He was suffering from the bends, and the pain in his lungs was terrible, but it didn't stop
there.
The fact that he was now alone because none of the other three men survived and reached
the surface is even more painful.
After a while, he did see a set of white cliffs off in the distance that belonged to the Greek
island of Kefalonia.
He then began urgently swimming towards them.
The shore was five miles away, but Capes made it.
He was found washed up on the beach the next morning, unconscious, by a couple of local
Greek fishermen.
However, the island was occupied by the Italian army at that time, so he was forced to hide
and stay in the basement of his rescuer’s home.
Capes survived the next 18 months of his life by moving from one house to another on the
island in an attempt to avoid capture by the Italians.
During this time, he lost 70 pounds.
He even dyed his hair black in order to blend in better with the locals.
The Royal Navy arranged a rescue operation 18 months later, in May 1943.
Capes was the only survivor of his submarine that sank to the ocean's bottom and became
a washed-up refugee.
He was discreetly transported from Kefalonia to Smyrna through a small fishing boat.
Capes never expected that it would take him 18 months to be able to go back to Alexandria.
Capes received a medal from the British Empire for his heroism.
Despite this, the majority of people will not trust his story due to the following reasons:
First, when the Perseus submarine departed Malta, Capes' name wasn’t written on the
crew list.
Second, all British submarine’s escape doors were locked from the outside in the hopes
to avoid being blasted off during a depth charge attack, told as an order to the commanders.
Third, he had no witnesses to back up his claims.
Fourth, he had a reputation for being a brilliant and natural storyteller.
Additionally, his version of events would change every time, following the war's end.
Furthermore, his claim of escaping from a depth of 270 feet made things much more difficult
for most people to accept.
By the time he died in 1985, John Capes was widely thought to be a liar and a fake.
It was only in 1997, 12 years after his death, that his miraculous survival story could be
authenticated and proven.
That year, the HMS Perseus was finally discovered at the bottom of the Mediterranean.
After a series of dives into the Perseus submarine, researchers were able to find the empty torpedo
tube that Capes had built his bunk.
Also, the escape hatch compartment opened just as he had described.
They also saw the bottle of rum from which Capes claimed that he had taken a final gulp
before leaving the compartment.
The depth at which Capes was located was proven to be 171 feet, and gauges reading 270 feet
were discovered and were proven broken.
The wreck of the Perseus was discovered exactly as Capes had narrated it.
This makes his claim as the submarine's only survivor to be true.
However, it’s sad that he already died before he could receive the recognition he deserved.
The discovery of the Perseus wreck in the bottom of the Mediterranean has provided historians
with all the evidence they needed to confirm John Capes' extraordinary survival story.
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