The
majestic 1,382 tons schooner-rigged single-screw steamship Bretagne was built in
1903 in Norway. For the first ten years of her life she served as a general
workhorse, ferrying cargoes around European ports. The Great War however
would eventually catch up with her - she was requisitioned for war service in
1916 and fitted out with a stern defensive 12-pound gun.In August 1918, just three months before the Armistice would halt the carnage on land and at sea, the Bretagne set off from Barry, in Wales, bound for Rouen in France. Her progress up the English Channel was slowed by thick fog on Saturday 10 August. Suddenly at about 10.30am the bows of the French steamship Renee Marthe loomed out of the fog and sliced into her hull around the aftmost Hold. The Renee Marthe pulled back, unplugging the gap and allowing tons of cold water to flood into her hull. Fatally wound she slipped beneath the waves into 30 metres of water.
Today
her wreck rests a few miles offshore from Teignmouth on an even keel and is
widely regarded as one of East Devon's most popular wrecks. The history,
sinking and dive details for the SS Bretagne are given in the book
Dive England's
Greatest Shipwrecks.