Share

The Mariner's Mirror Podcast

The world's No.1 podcast dedicated to all of maritime and naval history. With one foot in the present and one in the past we bring you the most exciting and interesting current maritime projects worldwide: including excavations of shipwrecks, the ...

The world's No.1 podcast dedicated to all of maritime and naval history. With one foot in the present and one in the past we bring you the most exciting and interesting current maritime projects worldwide: including exca
Latest Episode3/20/2023

Maritime Special Forces 2: Combat Divers

This is the second episode of a two-part mini-series on the history of maritime special forces. In this episode we explore the history of combat divers - an elite within an elite.Combat divers must pass selection twice – firstly into their chosen elite military unit before passing a specialist combat diving qualification. Units are extremely small; they use specialist kit and vehicles; their work is dangerous and lonely; and their operations are cloaked in secrecy. Their history is rich and fascinating and runs from the Second World War to the present day, as so powerfully shown in the recent attack on the Russian Nordstream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. As their kit and equipment has constantly evolved, so has the nature of their work and their capabilities. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with former Royal Marines Commando Michael G. Welham, a man with extensive military and commercial diving experience and author of the recent ‘Combat Divers: An illustrated history of special forces divers’. Sam and Mike discuss the Second World War roots of combat divers working in Grand Harbour, Malta to protect allied shipping; managing risk underwater; navigation underwater; equipment and weapons; the use of marine mammals in underwater warfare; and a variety of operations that highlight the changing challenges of special forces divers over time including the actions of Soviet Spetsnaz divers in Swedish territorial waters during the Cold War.
3/20/2023

Maritime Special Forces 2: Combat Divers

This is the second episode of a two-part mini-series on the history of maritime special forces. In this episode we explore the history of combat divers - an elite within an elite.Combat divers must pass selection twice – firstly into their chosen elite military unit before passing a specialist combat diving qualification. Units are extremely small; they use specialist kit and vehicles; their work is dangerous and lonely; and their operations are cloaked in secrecy. Their history is rich and fascinating and runs from the Second World War to the present day, as so powerfully shown in the recent attack on the Russian Nordstream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. As their kit and equipment has constantly evolved, so has the nature of their work and their capabilities. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with former Royal Marines Commando Michael G. Welham, a man with extensive military and commercial diving experience and author of the recent ‘Combat Divers: An illustrated history of special forces divers’. Sam and Mike discuss the Second World War roots of combat divers working in Grand Harbour, Malta to protect allied shipping; managing risk underwater; navigation underwater; equipment and weapons; the use of marine mammals in underwater warfare; and a variety of operations that highlight the changing challenges of special forces divers over time including the actions of Soviet Spetsnaz divers in Swedish territorial waters during the Cold War.
2/11/2023

Maritime Disasters: HMS Gloucester

We continue our mini series on maritime disasters with HMS Gloucester a British warship lost in the spring of 1682 off the Norfolk coast. It’s quite a story: here is a ship with an impressive career that takes us from her end on that sandbar in Norfolk all the way to the British presence in the Caribbean during the Cromwellian Commonwealth – a key moment in global history. Her later career was intricately linked with the troubled history of the Stuart monarchy and when she sank one of those on board was none other than James Stuart, the future James II. The wreck was recently discovered off Norfolk and to find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Dr Benjamin Redding - Senior Research Associate on the Gloucester Project at the University of East Anglia. Together with Professor Claire Jowitt, he is writing a cradle-to-grave history of this most historically and culturally significant seventeenth century warship.This episode continues our mini series on maritime disasters: if you haven’t heard any of these so far do please check them out – we have covered so many extraordinary stories including the shocking wreck of the mighty Vasa in the seventeenth century, that magnificent ship that sank on its maiden voyage within sight of shore; the ss Waratah, a huge passenger liner that simply vanished in 1909; Preussen, the enormous and only five-masted full-rigged merchant ship ever built which sank in the English channel in 1910; the early submarine the HL Hunley which holds the record for the vessel being sunk the most times….and so much more! I should add here that we are also working on a future episode on the wreck of the Batavia – a dutch vessel which ran aground off western Australia in the summer of 1629 leading to one of the most appalling horror stories in all of history let alone all of maritime history…