It is early afternoon when suddenly five or six British Mosquito bombers appear and start to attack the freighter Gudrun and the two anti-submarine vessels UJ 1706 and UJ 1767 which are escorting the German steamship. Empty shells of the 20mm guns fall from the sky and the attack is over only moments after it had begun. It is the 10. of december 1944.
The crew on board is absolutely surprised and unprepared when the inferno starts
and many of the sailors jump into the life-boats and row to the coast
immediately. But some people stay on the freighter and try to find some protection behind the steering-house until the attack
is over. When the aircrafts are
gone the ship is burning and starts to sink but the seamen manage to strand the
vessel on the shore. Here the SS Gudrun rests half sunken until the end of war.
One and a half year after the war a private person from Oslo buys the wreck and
plans to bring it to a ship-yard at Flekkeford for repair. He hires many local
men for the works. First they salvage the cargo of concrete and ammunition from
the wreck and sink it in deeper water in the fjord. Then four big floating
pontoons are brought from Stavanger and it is planned to used them to hold the
wreck swimming while towing it to the dock.
The plan was to tow the Gudrun with some ships (small fishing vessels) slowly to Flekkefjord where a dry-dock is situated. But it seems that the vessels were not strong enough and so the workers asked a ship of the Norwegian navy nearby for assistance (some former vessels of the German Kriegsmarine, including a tug-boat, were in the area at this time to clean the fjord from minefields). Quickly a rope was connected from the military ship to the old freighter and the the tug used immediately the full power of its engine - this leaded to hectic activities on board to cut of the connection to the sinking Gudrun only moments later.
So the wreck of the 1.485 BRT big German steamer Gudrun (built 1923 in Stettin,
Oderwerke AG. 70,5 x 11,1 x 4,6 m. 650 PSI steam engine) sunk at the site where
it is today situated: resting upright and in one piece on a slope in a depth
around 30 to 45 metres, with a mast still looming up to 15 metres under the
surface. The impressive propeller can be seen in around 35 metres depth. Five metres higher at the stern a huge steering-wheel is located – a
great and popular motive for a photo. Usually a buoy marks the wreck and is
connected to the mast. So it is possible to dive at the wreck and see much of it
without having more than a maximun of around 35 metres on the diving-computer!
Even old diving-reports from the eighties say that the wrecks position was used
as popular site to dump garbage for many years. It is said that old engines,
parts of cars and other scarp can be found on and beside the wreck and since
that time it is getting more and more. When we visited the Gudrun we found for
example some car batteries, a shopping trolley and a cement mixer on the
superstructures. This fact really leads to a destruction of the feeling to dive
at a old and untouched steamship and it is reason enough for me to call the
Gudrun a second class wreck for Norwegian standards!
Another negative fact for me is missing of big anemones and soft corals growing on the wreck (except the masts which are grown with plumose anemones, sea squirts and sponges) as it is common on many other wrecks exposed to current and located further in the north of Norway. These colourful spots on a rusty wreck are not only nice for a good photo but also beautiful to watch.
This is one of the best known and most dived wrecks in Norwegian waters. Both,
good and negative is the fact that it is very easy to reach the dive-site (and
it is possible to dive here even without a boat). The Gudrun is situated only
about 150 metres away from the shore and not much more from the next harbour. If
the wreck was located further offshore it would not have been used as a
dumping-site for scrap and also some of the small pieces
divers take as a souvenir when visiting a wreck were left on this old German
steamship, maybe!
N 58.14,345 E 006.39,085. Marked with a grey buoy (march 2008)
