Читать книгу Deeper into the Darkness онлайн

85 страница из 184

Some 100 feet of the bow section is missing – blown off in the magazine explosion that sank her as she hung upside down on the surface. The hull has been blown open, and the massively strong 12-inch thick vertical armour belt on either beam, is peeled back like a banana skin. The stem, the very tip of the bow, still with its two starboard anchors held snug in their hawses, now lies almost halfway down the wreck on the starboard side. It is staggering to think how seemingly effortlessly the 12-inch thick plates of her Krupp cemented armour have been blown apart.

I spotted what appeared to be the upside-down cylindrical base of the conning tower. On top lay a 4-inch barrel of one of her secondary guns, the barrel itself smoothly and apparently easily bent over the armoured base of the conning tower.

Further out forward of the conning tower, lying upside down and almost alone on the seabed, is a 13.5-inch gun turret with its massive twin barrels flat on the seabed. It is believed that this is B turret – and perhaps 30 feet away out to starboard and almost separate from the wreck itself, lies an upturned barbette for one of the main twin 13.5-inch gun turrets, most probably B turret barbette.