PHOTOS: 50th anniversary of historic Mary Rose discovery

John Towse and Alexander McKee of the Portsmouth-based Southsea Sub-Aqua Club accurately identified the whereabouts of Britain’s most famous battleship, in a historic dive on May 14, 1966.

Expert navigator John Towse was the Diving Officer at the British Sub-Aqua Club’s (BSAC) Southsea Branch, which conceived the Solent Ships Project. Fellow club member Alexander McKee adopted the search for the Mary Rose as one of his contributions to this project.

In a document which has lain hidden for twenty years, Mr Towse describes the emotional moment when in almost zero visibility, he thrust his hand into soft mud above the wreck, on an adventure that was to change history.

The Mary Rose warship, one of King Henry XIII’s Tudor navy, had lain undisturbed in the freezing waters of the Solent, north of the Isle of Wight, since she sank after leading an attack on a French invasion fleet in 1545.

It wasn’t until four years after McKee and Towse’s pioneering May 1966 dive that the Mary Rose was formally identified in 1971, following several underwater explorations using sonar to map the wreck, led by McKee.

Mr McKee who is widely credited with having found the Mary Rose, sadly died in 1992, but Mr Towse still lives in the Portsmouth area.

This month Mr Towse’s achievements as the expert navigator guiding McKee to that first dive to the wreck site are being celebrated by BSAC members who are keen to gain wider recognition for his role.

They have released a personal account he wrote detailing his role in the search to find the Mary Rose. It describes how Mr McKee and Mr Towse together visited the Hydrographic Office, to look at historic charts which showed the charted location of the Mary Rose.

It was Mr Towse who cross referenced these maps with modern charts, and accurately triangulated the position of the warship. Using a horizontal sextant, a device used to measure angles, he was able to navigate his boat Miranda to the actual site of the wreck.

The account, entitled: Portchester, The Mary Rose & Alexander McKee by E John Towse, was first published in 1996 to mark the 30th anniversary of the historic dive.

In it Mr Towse describes how the Southsea diving club’s Solent Ships project to find the Mary Rose had been the catalyst for several exploratory dives, in the face of much scepticism that she could ever be found.

Mr Towse describes his and McKee’s visit to the Hydrographic Office in Cricklewood in May 1966, saying: “There, laid before Alex and myself was a magnificent hand drawn chart of the approaches to Portsmouth Harbour.

“In a very short time, prompted by one of the hydrographic staff, the actual charted site of the Mary Rose was clearly shown.”

He adds that according to an account later written by McKee about the early days of the Solent Ships project in his book, History Under the Sea: “I gave a loud audible gasp.

“While I transferred the position of the site to the then current chart, using the excellent instruments for triangulation from their office, Mac paced around the very large chart like a caged animal in a state of great excitement.

“Both of us, for different reasons, could not wait for the chance to dive on the site.

On 14 May, 1966, the pair made the dive from the boat Gina-Ann to visit the penultimate resting place of the Mary Rose.

“The first modern dive, in near zero underwater visibility and 50F water (10C) with no apparent water/mud interference on the bottom, left us both again with vastly different emotions” explained Mr Towse.

“The mud was very soft and I could thrust my arm deep into the sea bed up to the shoulder with no difficulty.

“In future this soft concealing mud was to prove very important: a visit to our club by the famous American archaeologist. Peter Throckmorten, led him to prophesy that if there was anything there it would be well preserved.”

The account has been released by Mr Towse’s friend and former work colleague, Doctor John Bevan, who is still an active member of Southsea Sub Aqua Club after joining the club in 1964 when the group were involved in the Solent Ships project, which was looking at ship wrecks in the Solent, including the search for the wreck of the Mary Rose.

It goes on to describe how eventually McKee, on a return trip to the site in 1968, made the major breakthrough of finding the Mary Rose’s distinctive and now famous “W” feature with a sonar, providing the first tangible evidence the wreck was at the site.

Mad Mac’s Marauders, as his band of divers and supporters became affectionately known, continued their dives and excavations until the Mary Rose was finally formally identified, in 1971.

Dr Bevan, 72, who worked at the Royal Navy’s Dive Physiology Laboratory wants recognition for John Towse for the work he did on identifying the exact resting point of the Mary Rose.

Dr Bevan added: “John, who is 82 now, is still living at home and has carers due to the fact he is living with dementia. Sadly, Alexander McKee died in 1992.”

He added: “They are about to name a street after McKee on Hayling Island, where he was from, yet Towse, and the role he played, is largely forgotten.

"I believe the report he wrote about the search for the Mary Rose, which has surfaced twenty years after he wrote it, needs to be seen and appreciated.

“And the work he did in finding the wreck of the Mary Rose, and we should remember that it needs to be recognised that it may never have been discovered without his efforts and accurate measurements, .”

Dr Bevan’s sentiments have also been echoed by leading figures in the scuba diving fraternity.

Jane Maddocks, BSAC’s Wrecks and Underwater Cultural Heritage advisor and a national diving instructor, said: “This was the start of a momentous series of discoveries on the site that transformed our understanding of Tudor shipbuilding, and gave spectacular insights into the lives of personnel on board the vessel.

“It also made a massive impact on so many ordinary divers who had the chance to contribute to something totally extraordinary when they volunteered to help with the excavation in later years.”

The pioneering efforts of Mr Towse and Mr Mckee have also received praise from Alison Mayor, membership secretary for Southsea Sub-Aqua Club and also BSAC’s Southern region project and expedition advisor.

“Members of Southsea Sub-Aqua Club are enormously proud of our Branch history and the enormous efforts of pioneering members such as John Towse and Alexander McKee in discovering and sharing our maritime heritage” Alison Mayor explained.

“Their passion for solving the hidden mysteries of the underwater world survives today as our branch continues to investigate wrecks in our local waters and beyond."