WWI Surviving Ships Just Increased By Two!

Ok, they are wrecks, but still…

Two long-lost First World War German warships have been rediscovered – forgotten for decades in Portsmouth Harbour.

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Forgotten for eight decades: the remains of the German destroyers protruding above the water in Portsmouth harbour Maritime Archaeology Trust

Archaeologists found them by examining aerial photographs from the 1940s – and by then searching through local newspaper reports from the 1920s .

Researchers say that the two destroyers are among the very few surviving vessels from the Imperial German Navy that can still intermittently be seen above water anywhere in the world.

Archaeologists believe that the vessels are the V44 and the V82 (both launched in the German port of Kiel – in February 1915 and July 1916, respectively). The V44 is particularly significant from an historical perspective – because it played a crucial role in the strategically important escape of the German fleet after the key phase of the Battle of Jutland at the end of May 1916. It was one of the vessels which successfully used torpedoes to prevent the British pursuing and destroying the 93 ships that remained of Imperial Germany’s High Seas Fleet.

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An early 1920s painting by the local Portsmouth artist William Wyllie of the former German V82 Destroyer after it had been run aground by the Royal Navy on mudflats in Portsmouth harbour. (National Maritime Museum, London)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/german-imperial-navy-wwi-world-war-one-battleships-warships-portsmouth-harbour-archaeology-a6951241.html?google_editors_picks=true

But…how can they be ‘rediscovered’ if they are visible every extreme low tide? Are we talking identities being rediscovered, maybe?