NEW York, Jan. 3 – The Albanian underwater archeology was for the first time introduced in New York’s Explorers Club, an international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research. Albania’s archeology was presented by Auron Tare, one of the founders of Butrint National Park, a World Heritage Site of UNESCO, and the current executive director of the Albanian Center of Marine Research. Tare also elaborated on the Corfu Channel Incident in 1946, when a British destroyer struck a mine off the Albanian port of Sarande.
Rewriting History: Coastal Exploration
The first large-scale coastal survey of Albania began in July 2007. The US R/V Hercules began the survey at Albania’s southern border with Greece with the goal of completing the entire coast over several successive seasons. During four successive seasons a number of discoveries were made, including the remains of the Bow of HMS Volage, a British destroyer which struck a mine off the Albanian port of Sarande on October 22, 1946. The incident brought Communist Albania and Great Britain into diplomatic conflict and it was the first major issue to be debated by the Great Powers at the Security Council after the WWII.
HMS Volage struck a mine on October 22, 1946 while assisting another British destroyer, HMS Saumarez, which had itself struck a mine. While neither ship sank, 44 lives were lost and another 42 British seamen were injured. This tragic episode was one of the first naval incidents of the Cold War.
A lengthy legal argument before the International Court of Justice at The Hague ultimately led to a ruling in favor of Britain. Albania disputed the findings, and the two nations severed diplomatic relations for nearly 50 years.
The investigation of the site by Dr. Delgado was conducted via three cameras attached to the ROV. Visibility was poor due to suspended sediment and low light degraded the imagery, but the team made a number of provisional identifications of many of the principal features.
The wreckage is that of a section of an explosion-damaged steel vessel and lies in proximity to the Albanian shore near the port of Sarande clearly inside the Albanian territorial waters. This discovery has now raised many questions and has put to the test the Verdict of the International Court of Hague.
Auron Tare took the audience through archival material and rare footage of this unsolved mystery which is one of the great cases where underwater archaeology is helping to rewrite history.
