JAMES EAGAN LAYNE
7176-ton US Liberty ship, built 1944. 441ft x 57ft. (134m x  17m) 2500hp triple-expansion engines. Armed: Bow and stern guns, plus 5 AA. Cargo: 4500 tons war supplies, tank parts, lorries, jeeps, railway rolling stock, US Army engineers' stores, New York for Ghent, via Barry. Position: 50 19.53N; 04 14.70W. Depth: 24m.
Sunk: 21 March, 1945, after hit in starboard side by torpedo from U-1195. Beached after being towed by Admiralty tugs into Whitsand Bay.
Diving: Upright, starboard side collapsing. Easy entry to Nos 1 and 2 holds, which hold many railway rolling stock wheels. Ribs intact. Main engine now covered by fallen decking. Port side a vast sheet of white anemones. Stern broken off by No 5 hold and linked by rope ÒbridgeÓ to main wreckage. This wreck is so popular that local boats run shuttle service!

Launch: Plymouth Sound

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The wreck today:

Upright, starboard side collapsing. Easy entry to Nos 1 and 2 holds, which hold many railway rolling stock wheels. Ribs intact. Main engine now covered by fallen decking. Port side a vast sheet of white anemones. Stern broken off by No 5 hold and linked by rope ÒbridgeÓ to main wreckage. This wreck is so popular that local boats run shuttle service!

"And about time!" you cry. Why has it taken Diver so long to get round to one of Britain"s most popular wrecks? John Liddiard explains our tortured thinking in a specially extended springtime Wreck Tour Illustration by Max Ellis

READERS HAVE BEEN REQUESTING a Wreck Tour of the James Eagan Layne for years, and I have deliberately been putting it off. One reason was that Diver ran quite a detailed article about diving the wreck in May 1997 and I felt that it needed to wait its turn before I could cover it in this series of tours.   Anyway, seven years on I have dived it afresh to make sure that I am as up to date as possible with the tour and sketch. To compensate for the wait, I begged the boss for an extra page so that I could do the wreck justice.    A dive on the James Eagan Layne nearly always begins on the buoy tied to the bow (1), which, depending on the tide, rises to about 8m. It"s what makes the James Eagan Layne such a great wreck to dive. Beginning this shallow, anyone can do it.  Rather than continuing straight back inside the holds, I suggest dropping over the point of the bow and descending just a few metres, not all the way to the seabed, but just far enough to be able to look back along both sides of the hull and the masses of anemones. There is also the possibility of sighting one of the big shoals of fish that sometimes loiter in the current just off the bow.     Swimming along the port side, the first navigation checkpoint is the anchor hawse pipe (2). Neither anchor nor chain are any longer there, but it is full of anemones, and wrasse seem to have fun chasing each other up and down it. Stay at about the same depth and cruise further back along the hull, which is soon broken down to the main deck, providing a route back inside (3) without having to ascend. It"s easy to swim the length of the main body of the wreck from hold to hold, inside the wreck with no risk and a simple exit upwards, so that is how our tour will continue for now.
Liberty ships such as the James Eagan Layne were of a shelter-deck design, meaning that there was an additional deck built above the main deck, enclosing the main deck and providing additional sheltered space for cargo. Crossing the ribs to the first cargo hatch (4), you are actually crossing the main deck, the shelter deck having long since collapsed, eroded and been cleared by explosives at various stages of the wreck"s evolution.   Dropping into the number 1 hold, the hatch and a fair amount of debris from the deck can be seen to have fallen in. At the forward end, the anchor winch is sloped against the bulkhead. Ribs and hull from the starboard side have fallen in along most of the hold. On the port side, fish swim in and out where hull plating has decayed, leaving ragged holes blocked to any but the skinniest of divers by upright hull ribs.  Among the remnants of cargo are pickaxe heads, vehicle batteries and piles of things that I am at a complete loss to identify, as was everyone I asked.   At the back of the hold, the bulkhead is just a frame (5) with gaps big enough to swim through, some of the uprights having collapsed to make room for even the most heavily equipped diver.  Immediately on entering number 2 hold, you"ll see a pair of cargo winches that have fallen upside-down beneath their mounting plates on either side of the hold (6). The corresponding mast and deckhouse have also fallen into the hold, a little off-centre to the port side of the hold.
This is the most broken of the forward holds, the starboard side being almost completely open (7). There are some big steel bowls at the back of this hold, which are actually cauldrons for a field kitchen.    Access to number 3 hold is again through the broken skeleton of the separating bulkhead (8). The most interesting cargo here is a pile of spoked wheels just by a break in the starboard side (9). These are the sort of wheels used for agricultural machinery and should not be confused with the railway wheels that the James Eagan Layne was also carrying. There are quite a few piles of similar wheels further aft. Liberty ships were configured with three holds forward and two aft, so the next bulkhead (10) separates the number 3 hold from the engine-room.
The boilers were fired by oil, and the rectangular tanks can be found tight against either side of the hull (11). Between the tanks, the two Babcock water-tube boilers are rectangular in section and mounted across the ship. Between the boilers and the fuel tanks on either side are steel canyons wide enough to swim through.
Back in 1997, when I last reported on the James Eagan Layne, the conventional triple-expansion steam engine (12) was largely obscured by debris from above. But now this has mostly collapsed further to leave the top of the engine nicely exposed. Off to the starboard side, a single-cylinder auxiliary engine looks as if it drives a pump.
Aft of the engine the wreck is split along the centre line by a pair of fuel oil tanks, both accessible through the bulkhead at the rear of the engine-room or from above. Close to the bottom of the port-side compartment (13), an irregular hole towards the centre of the wreck provides access to the propeller-shaft tunnel. For a properly equipped and experienced diver, the tunnel can be swum through all the way beneath number 4 hold, but be warned, it is a very tight squeeze in places. For those not so inclined, the aft bulkhead from the port tank is a bit too intact for most divers to wriggle through. The way aft is back into the engine room to the starboard fuel tank, where the bulkhead to number 4 hold has completely collapsed (14). Number 4 hold (15) contains more of the neatly piled rows of steel beams and a scattering of the usual cargo. This is the last of the intact holds, with the bulkhead at the rear (16) leading to the pile of debris that used to be number 5. The torpedo hit the James Eagan Layne on the starboard side just aft of this bulkhead. At the centre line of the hold and tight against the bulkhead, the propshaft tunnel can just be found emerging from the debris, the exit of the advanced swim-through I mentioned earlier. Next comes part of the James Eagan Layne that many divers have trouble finding, the last bit of the stern, so I will go into detail on my method of getting there. To the port side of number 5 hold lies the remains of the deckhouse and mast-foot that would have spanned the deck between numbers 4 and 5 holds (17). Dropping over the broken side of the wreck as close to the bulkhead as possible, the first waypoint is a pair of spoked wheels from the cargo. Just out and aft of these is a ribbed section of hull stretching further out from the wreck (18). Crossing this and a few metres of seabed, another section of hull is usually visible without having to swim out blindly (19). Right at the outer and aft end of this are some ribs pointing aft, partly buried in the seabed. These point to the stern, which should either just be visible, or at least show as a shadow in the distance. Depth is about 26m depending on the tide. The first recognisable item of wreckage is the rudder (20), which lies across the route. To the right is forward, and to the left aft. Turning forward along the starboard side, the hull soon comes to a clean break across a bulkhead. At the lower corner, it is possible to get inside and ascend. There used to be an air pocket here, collected from diver"s bubbles, though I didn"t check that it still existed last time I dived the James Eagan Layne. Fed by stale diver"s air at 20m, this is definitely not the sort of pocket from which you should ever risk breathing.  Back outside and continuing across the stern, the ribs of the bulkhead are a mass of plumose anemones. A few scraps of wreckage lead in a "forward" direction, including the spindle of a cargo winch, though this is obviously not the way back to the main body of the wreck. Rounding the next corner to the port side of the stern, the boat derricks are broken slightly outward to almost touch the seabed (21). Then, right at the stern, a rounded and toothed ring on the seabed (22) is part of the traverse mechanism for the stern gun-mount, visible as a corresponding ring on the stern deck. On the upper starboard edge of the stern deck, the shallowest point of the stern is marked by the boat derricks at 16m (23). So how did the stern get to be this far from the wreck? Some claim it is the result of clearing the wreck with explosives but I think otherwise. The James Eagan Layne sank by the stern, across a mild current. The propshaft had already been broken by the torpedo explosion.   The rudder and propeller would have dug in, dragging and causing the wreck to break forward of the rudder. The already damaged number 5 hold would then have broken up completely, the rest of the wreck settling more gently away from the broken-off part of the stern.  To get this far is a long dive, so this could be the point to surface on a delayed SMB, though make sure this is agreed with the boat skipper beforehand, as he could be expecting divers to surface back at the bow. For a marathon dive, there is still plenty of wreck to see. The main body lies roughly to the north-east, though I advise against using a compass. The reliable way to get back to it is to retrace the route out to the closest section of hull (24), then follow the inside edge of the debris back to the side of number 5 hold.  Cargo spread among the remains of the hold includes just about everything already encountered, with the addition of well-concreted bales of wire to the starboard side. Right at the tail end of the debris is the last part of the propeller shaft and tunnel and stern recess (25). This is much easier to swim through than the earlier section below number 4 hold. It is also bent somewhere between 20 and 30¡ from the line of the wreck. To my mind this is further evidence of the stern digging in as it sank, causing the wreck to break as it has.   On the way back to the bow there is still plenty to see along either side of the wreck or along the deck. I prefer the port side along the seabed. Various sections of hull and deck lead to a large section amidships that it is possible to swim below (26), then another boxed section just back from the bow (27) with a bent girder across it through which it is also possible to swim. We then come to why I like this route back to the bow - the chance to ascend along its edge (28), looking up past masses of anemones and, on the right day, shoals of fish. Level with the hawse pipes, duck back round and inside (29), out of the current and shallow enough for a slightly deeper than usual safety stop, hanging onto the railing. There is just so much to explore, and you can understand why this is such a long Wreck Tour, and why most divers take several dives to see even half of the James Eagan Layne.

THE MAKING OF YOUR FAVOURITE WRECK

The USA built 2700 Liberty ships for World War Two. But in most diving logbooks there is only one - the James Eagan Layne, the most dived ship in British waters, writes Kendall McDonald. She was one of 120 Liberty ships named after men of the American Merchant Marine killed by enemy action during the war. James Eagan Layne earned his Liberty ship when, as Second Engineer Layne, he was killed in the engine-room of the Esso Baton Rouge tanker, torpedoed off the east coast of the USA in 1942.

The keel of the Layne was laid down in October 1944, one of the 188 Liberty ships to be built by the Delta Shipbuilding Company of New Orleans.

Just 40 days later, on 2 December, widow Marjorie Layne cried out: "I name this ship James Eagan Layne, and may God bless all who sail in her!" as she swung the champagne bottle to shatter on her bow. Liberty Ship 157, bearing her late husband's name, slid sideways into the Mississippi.

James Eagan Layne had needed 43 miles of welding to put her together. She was 7176 tons gross, 441ft long with a beam of 57ft and had two oil-fired boilers. Her standard triple-expansion engines had been built at the Joshua Hendy Ironworks of Sunnyvale, California. Fitting her out after her launch took another 16 days.
At the beginning of March, 1945, her maiden voyage began. She steamed across the Atlantic, holds crammed with war supplies, lorries, jeeps, railway rolling stock and tank parts, to Barry Roads, where she was joined to Convoy BTC 103 for the rest of her voyage to Ghent. But, like 50 other Liberty ships, her maiden voyage was to be her last.

Kapitänleutnant Ernst Cordes in U1195 found the James Eagan Layne in a break in the fog on 21 March, as she was passing close to South Devon"s West Rutts. She was the lead ship in the second column of the convoy and, shortly before 4pm, Cordes sent a single torpedo into her. It struck just aft of her engine-room and she lost all power immediately, swishing to a halt on the calm sea. She was badly holed in two of her rear holds and water was rising fast. She sat there, with nobody making any noise for fear of attracting a second torpedo, until two Admiralty tugs arrived and took off her crew of 42 and the 27 gunners who manned her six AA gun emplacements. Then they took her in tow. They aimed to beach her, but the inrush of water was too great and the tugs had to cast off as she sank to the sandy bottom a mile from Rame Head at 10.30pm. Some salvage started at once. Her guns were taken out and any easy-to-reach army equipment was lifted out of her holds.
The war ended soon after, and no more work was done until some minor salvage by an Icelandic firm in 1953. In 1967, a British firm salved the prop, condenser and propshaft. More recently, 60 brass shellcases were salved from under a 5.5in gun which had been mounted on the stern. Amateur divers first visited the James Eagan Layne in 1954, when it was possible to tie up to one of the masts which still showed. They haven"t stopped diving this particular wreck since.

Spoked agricultural wheels, piles of which can be found throughout the wreck


Cargo winch upside-down in the second hold, showing a small steam engine driving the winch

Connecting rod below the low-pressure cylinder of the triple-expansion engine


Cauldrons destined for a field kitchen in hold 2


Cable reel

James Eagan Layne

The Eagan Layne is a well known wreck. Many people have dived her over the last 35 years so that she is now virtually a diver's national monument! This is largely because she lies upright on the sea bed at little more than 22 metres to the bottom. She is easily accessed by dive boats from Plymouth and is usually no problem to find owing to the dive boats that congregate over her. If, however, your boat is the first to arrive then a large marker buoy moored permanently near her makes location a fairly easy matter.

The Eagan Layne was an American Liberty ship charged with the task of relaying supplies to Britain during World War 2. Hundreds of these ships were built in the early 1940's and they transported many men and supplies from America to Britain. They were built rapidly and followed a rather ugly prefabricated design. No awards were won for their elegance. But they did the job, and Britain's war effort benefited immensely from their contribution. The Laine was built in December 1944 and by March 1945 she was engaged in convoying US Army engineering stores, motor boats and timber from Barry in South Wales to Ghent. As she passed near to Plymouth she was torpedoed by a German U boat (U-1195) between holds 4 and 5 on the starboard side. Her steering gear failed and she began to flood. She was taken in tow to shallower water in Whitsand Bay where she gently sank upright on a sandy bottom. There were no casualties and much of her cargo was salvaged.

For many years the wreck was easy to find since one of her masts remained above the surface until the late 1970's. She was in an excellent condition and apparently the torpedo damage was easy to see. She is at 50:19:32; 04:04:42 (DMS). She is 440 ft long and was over 7000 tons gross weight. She lies in 22 metres with about 11 metres to her deck. The stern section of the wreck is separate from the main hull and lies about 25 m to the south.

Although the Layne is deteriorating she is an excellent dive. Usually, the diver will land on the deck and navigate over to the guard-rails. Peering over, one is confronted with a nice drop off' down to the sea bed. The sides of the Layne are covered with white dead man's fingers. The bows are intact and to swim around them on the sea bed and peer upwards at the curve is memorable. Shoals of pollack and pouting congregate around the wreckage and there is much to examine on the sea bed. Inside the wreck, the holds are very accessible although there is now a risk of falling metal. In the summer the holds are full of fish. Each hold seems to contain a different set of fish. There are masses of wreckage and fitments strewn around. The engine room, pistons and boilers are very obvious and there are still a couple of bits of brass to be found. Don't forget the stern section which is separated from the main wreck by about 50m to the southish. There may be a line from the midsection that takes you there - otherwise follow the curving line of the prop shaft. It is possible to dive the wreck by descending down the bows, going through the holds, turning off to the stern by the midships port break, swim around the stern and returning to the bows by the same way.

The Eagan Layne is a superb night dive - it is very quiet when you are down below the engine room in the dark.

The James Egan Layne

In 1940 Britain was fighting alone against an all conquering German war machine. Europe was completely crushed, and in the Atlantic more than one hundred and fifty ships, totalling more than a million tons had been destroyed. It soon became obvious that the U boats were sinking ships faster than we could build them. In desperation a British Merchant Ship Building Mission went to the USA to try and order the ships which were so urgently needed if the battle of the Atlantic was to be won.

Launching the James Egan Layne Filming inside the hull

Although America was still neutral, they were well aware of the problems facing us, and after some initial wrangling with the ship builders it was decided to prefabricate ships to a British design as this would speed up their building and ultimate delivery. Unfortunately the ships were not very pretty to look at, and there were many critics including President Roosevelt who called them 'dreadful looking objects'. However you cannot go about giving ships a bad name, and soon somebody hit on the idea of calling the ships a Liberty Fleet.

The idea rapidly caught on and soon the ships themselves were being called Liberty Ships. They could not have picked a better name because Liberty Ships is exactly what they turned out to be. In their hundreds these ships ferried men and materials all over the world. Without them the war could have been lost simply because the Allied supply lines would have been stretched beyond breaking point through lack of sufficient ships. In 1945 the tide had started to turn for the Allies, but still the Liberty ships kept transporting those vital war supplies.

One of the ships involved in these trans shipments was the James Egan Layne. Built in By the Delta Shipbuilding Company of New Orleans she was 400 feet long and weighed just over 7000 tons, and during March 1945 she was engaged on a voyage from Barry in Wales to Ghent, loaded with United States Army engineering stores. By the afternoon of 21 March the Layne was about seven miles from the Plymouth Breakwater, just on the edge of one of the most profitable of all the U boat hunting grounds. She must have been spotted very quickly, because at 2.35 that same afternoon U-boat 1195 hit the Layne with a torpedo, which sliced a great hole in her side.

Gun mounting found Looking through a hole in the hull The bow is still in good shape

in bottom hold. Check out the gear, circa 1970

Her holds quickly flooded as did her engine room, but the Layne was not going to sink without a fight. For nearly eight hours the crew kept the vessel afloat, but the Captain realising that she was finished set course as best he could for the shore hoping to beach her. He very nearly made it.

By now the Layne was taking in water faster than the crew could get rid of it. So at half past ten that night the ship gently went aground in seventy feet of water, snugly held firm on the sandy bottom of Whitsands Bay. Thankfully there were no casualties, and eventually most of the cargo was salvaged. In the end the loss to the war effort was minimal, but the gain to the future generations of sports divers was to prove considerable.

In the early sixties diving in England was just starting to take off. Even so it was an expensive business, and not many wrecks had been discovered that were suitable for the amateur diver. It is hardly surprising then that the James Egan Layne, situated in relatively shallow and clear water should become so popular. Here was a wreck within easy reach of the shore by small boat.

Her masts and part of her superstructure still showed above water, making her exact location childsplay. The wreck was on an even keel and virtually intact. You could swim through the holds and down into the engine spaces. The gash where the torpedo struck was plain to see, and the whole wreck looked like something from a Hollywood film set. No one who dived on the Layne could forget it, and over the years it became the most famous and dived on wreck in all England.

Today the James Egan Layne still lies upright on her sandy bed, but her superstructure and masts have long been swept away by the winter storms to lie scattered around her on the sandy bottom. The wreck after some thirty-five years is starting to break up, but still it is possible to see what she was once like. The bows are still intact and their flair is still well defined, as are the sides of her hull which loom out of the sand like black cliffs.

Ironically the storm damage over the last few years has actually made the inside of the wreck more accessible. The holds are jammed with twisted iron plates, pipes, old ladders and all the other paraphernalia of a wrecked ship. Even so there is little danger of getting lost, as you can easily see an exit hole either from the hold that you are entering, or in the side of the ship itself.

Liberty ship layout

All wrecks have an abundance of marine life, but the Layne seems to have more than its fair share. The holds are often full of silver bass, whilst the bows are patrolled by watchful shoals of pollack. Pouting make up most of the bottom cover, weaving over all the debris like a brown zebra crossing, and lurking almost underneath the keel are some very large ling. Wrasse in all shapes and colours, large green and pink plumrose anemones, small starfish with colourful coats, the list is endless. On a summers day this wreck is better than a tropical reef and almost as colourful. Visibility is often forty to fifty feet, and one of my most enduring memories is of vaulting over the guardrails on the main deck, and slowly descending sixty feet down the side of the ship watching my exhaust bubbles rising to the surface, after being trapped by the light coating of dead mans fingers that now cover the rusting plates. It was a magical experience, but only one of many that can be had on this fantastic wreck.

Since the sixties many other wrecks have been discovered all over the U.K. But not withstanding their popularity, the Layne has become almost a national dive site, and very many divers have a special regard for her. So much so that recently when Trinity House thought to disperse the wreck with explosives, there was such a howl of protest that they were forced to reconsider. Time however will soon do the job for Trinity House. So if you want to dive on a piece of history do it now, because soon only the legend will remain.

One of the masts lies across the hull

If you want souvenirs, one of the holds contains hundreds of pickaxe heads all neatly lined up in rows. If that doesn't appeal you can take your pick of various locomotive wheels or pulley wheels. Near the stern the ship is virtually cut in half where the torpedo hit it, and again there is a mountain of metal debris with one of the masts hanging out from the ships deck and supported by the rest of the wreckage. Once more there are lots of holes and caverns to explore, but here some care should be taken as quite frequently pieces of metal fall from above into the holds and could cause a nasty accident. This whole area is littered with bollards, winches, coils of wire hawser, and many other deck fittings, and over all this preside the fish.

Liberty ship plan

Wreck of the James Egan Layne This wreck needs no introduction, as it must be one of the most dived wrecks on the south coast. It has all the upright ribs along the length of the ship making hundreds of swim-throughs. There is plenty of fish life on the JEL as well, including Conger Eels.

The JEL also went down during 1945, by German torpedo from a submarine. Although she was holed below the water line there was time for another ship, the HMS Flaunt, to tow her into Whitsand bay where she sunk in a maximum of 24m. Whitsand Bay must have very weak tide because the ship is surprisingly intact given the fact that she went down almost 60years ago. The cargo is still visible in places, is more or less still in the holds showing she had a fairly painless sinking, and been sheltered by the worst of the south coast winter storms.