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| film of Lukkos |
The SS Lukkos was a Dutch steamship built in 1921 by Van Duyvendijk at Gouderak, in the south of Holland. Her engines were supplied by A. Kuyper & Van der Rees Machinefabriek of Rotterdam. She measured just under 77 metres and was powered by a three‑cylinder triple‑expansion engine and two boilers.
In February 1923, she vanished without a trace off Beachy Head.
THE SHIP AND HER FINAL VOYAGE
At the time of her loss, Lukkos was under the command of a German captain, E. Gieseke — a licensed officer holding a Dutch maritime diploma, as many foreign captains did on Dutch ships at the time. Very little is known about him beyond his name and nationality. Some Dutch reports claimed his wife was aboard, though this remains unconfirmed. No official biography or personnel file survives, and no body identified as the captain was ever recovered. Like the rest of his crew — bar one — he vanished with the ship.
Lukkos had only just returned to service after repairs at Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, following an earlier grounding on the Guadiana River in Spain in December 1922. Her final journey was meant to be a simple one: from Antwerp to Tangier.
On the evening of 13 February 1923, she left Antwerp and arrived at Flushing the next day to be piloted out to the Wandelaar lightship. Conditions were good — no storms, no fog. Later that same day she passed Dungeness signal station.
And that was the last confirmed sighting of the SS Lukkos.
THE SIGNAL STATIONS
Beachy Head’s original signal station closed in 1904, with duties transferred to naval signal stations. The wreck lies about five miles southeast of the Head.
Only one ship was reported passing Beachy Head on the 14th: the SS Crosby Hall. Lloyds signalling was a paid service, so if Lukkos had already paid at Dungeness, she likely wouldn’t have signalled again at Beachy Head anyway.
No distress signals were ever seen.
No wireless messages were ever sent — because Lukkos had no wireless and no operator.
One of the most shocking details in the Lukkos story is that the ship sailed without a wireless telegraphy installation. In 1923, wireless wasn’t yet mandatory, but it was already considered essential for safety — especially in the busy English Channel.
The inquiry revealed exactly why Lukkos had none.
The shipping company, Atlas, had decided it didn’t want to pay for a wireless operator. They tried to hire a mate with a wireless diploma instead, which would have satisfied regulations, but they couldn’t find one. Rather than delay the voyage or spend more money, the company simply removed the wireless equipment before departure.
The pilot who took Lukkos out to the Wandelaar lightship later said:
“They found it unpleasant that the wireless telegraphy installation had been removed on this particular trip. Distress signals could therefore not be given.”
The Director‑General of Post and Telegraphy confirmed that the removal was done with the full knowledge and approval of the ship’s owners. It was a cost‑cutting decision.
After the disaster, investigators pushed for wireless telegraphy to be made mandatory on all merchant ships. The proposal was rejected on financial grounds.
So when Lukkos vanished, she did so silently.
No SOS.
THE WRECKAGE
On 16 February, a flag locker — a wooden box containing international code flags — was found five miles SSW of Beachy Head. Soon after, large quantities of wreckage and cargo washed ashore: hatch covers, deck planks, casks of oil, a rocket machine box, and a lifebuoy marked Lukkos – Amsterdam.
The Belfast Telegraph reported barrels of oil marked “Droguert Louis – Casablanca” washing ashore, and initially speculated the wreckage belonged to a Danish or Norwegian ship.
Local boatmen thought the ship must have collided in fog — but the weather had been fine.
THE ONLY BODY
Only one body was ever recovered: a German crewman named Fritz Friedrich. His father wrote to the owners saying Fritz’s papers had been returned to him by Hamburg police, and that his son had been buried near Dungeness.
e tried to trace Fritz’s burial but found nothing. At first we assumed he was buried in unconsecrated ground, but English law — the Burial of Drowned Persons Acts of 1808 and 1886 — required bodies washed ashore to be buried in the nearest churchyard. So Fritz is almost certainly in a local churchyard, though the grave may be unmarked.
THE CREW
Dutch press archives suggest between 20 and 27 men were lost — numbers varied because men signed on and off at ports.
The Rotterdam muster roll recorded six Dutch crewmen aboard:
1st Mate D. van der Veer (Schiermonnikoog)
2nd Mate J. Stelleman (Rijswijk)
1st Machinist P. Middelhart (Rotterdam)
2nd Machinist W. Plooy (Rotterdam)
3rd Machinist H. Halfhide (Amsterdam)
Captain Gieseke
THE INQUIRY
The official inquiry concluded:
Bad weather was not the cause.
No dangerous cargo was listed — although reports also say no manifest could be found. It may still exist in a Dutch archive.
Steering issues reported by the captain were not considered fatal.
The ship had no wireless, because the owners refused to pay for an operator.
The most probable cause was a collision — though no ship reported one.
Other possibilities included a forgotten mine or an accident with the machinist, but there was no evidence for either.
The investigator later pushed for mandatory wireless telegraphy on merchant ships. The proposal was rejected on financial grounds.
OUR INVESTIGATION
I first found Lukkos in Lloyds’ Missing Vessels book in January 2023.
We had the ship’s plans from Lloyds, and a sketch of the Pot Wreck drawn by John Liddiard of Diver Magazine. John thought the steel rods on the wreck pointed to SS Cap Juby, but that ship was too small.
Magnum produced scale drawings. Everything matched except the stern hold — which wasn’t a hold at all, but the crew’s quarters. John Liddiard’s drawing was good, but not exactly to scale. Once we realised the layout, it became a strong match.
The stern contains:
The auxiliary steering helm
Toilets
A hatchway and skylight into the crew’s quarters
We found beer bottles, shoes, personal items — and a mug with a German shipping company logo, which briefly sent us down the wrong path toward SS Okahandja. Once cleaned and caught in the right light, the logo became visible: a flag on a staff, with a circular emblem containing the date 1896 — the house‑flag of Rhederei‑Gesellschaft von 1896, a Hamburg shipping company.
Finding this mug in the crew’s quarters strongly suggested it belonged to a German sailor, which fits perfectly with the mixed Dutch–German crew list for Lukkos. It was a red herring at first, but ultimately helped confirm that German crew were aboard.
MEASURING THE WRECK
Trying to measure the wreck turned into its own saga. On paper it should’ve been simple: drop down, run a tape, get a number. In reality… not so much.
Our first attempt was a disaster. Jamie paced out the string he’d measured underwater, proud as anything, and announced: “30 metres!”
I just stared at him.
“Mate… you must’ve swum in a circle.”
To be fair, the viz had been absolute pitch black.
Next attempt, we tried to be clever. We aimed to land the shotline right on the stern so we could start measuring from a fixed point. Conditions were rubbish above and below the water, the shot missed, and once more we dropped into total darkness. No chance of getting a clean measurement that day either.
It took another year — and more dives in zero viz — before Jamie finally got a proper run along the wreck. This time he managed to follow the hull from stern to where the bow section had broken away. When we paced out the tape back at the yard, we finally had a sensible number: 84 metres.
Given the missing bow and the collapsing structure, 84 metres is a solid ballpark figure for Lukkos. After all the false starts, circles, missed shots, and black‑water dives, we finally had a measurement that made sense — and another piece of evidence pointing straight at her identity.
CARGO CLUES
The wreck’s cargo includes pottery, cement, steel bars and other goods still buried under the sand. Among the pottery are small Belgian bowls stamped “Made in Belgium” — export ware produced by Nimy in Wallonia during the interwar period.
These bowls carry the Nimy crown mark, used by Manufacture Impériale et Royale de Nimy, a major faience producer near Mons. The mark — a crown with bilingual French and English text — dates from around 1910 to 1935, most commonly 1920–1930, and was used on domestic tableware exported across Europe.
Finding this pottery fits perfectly with the ship’s 1923 loss and helps confirm the wreck’s identity.
We also found a small glass bottle in the crew’s quarters marked “Dr. Dralle Birken” — a German hair tonic produced between the 1920s and early 1930s. Dralle was a Hamburg‑based perfumery whose Birken tonic was widely sold across Germany during that period.
The date range fits perfectly with the ship’s loss, and the fact it was found inside the crew’s quarters supports the presence of German crew members aboard Lukkos. Alongside electrical fittings and the overall layout — right down to the four‑bladed prop — the clues kept stacking up.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LUKKOS?
No storm.
No wireless.
No collision reported.
No dangerous cargo.
No survivors.
The inquiry suggested three possibilities: collision, forgotten mine, or machinist accident. The last two seem unlikely.
But there’s one more detail.
On the same day Lukkos vanished, divers were working on the wreck of HMS Ariadne, a cruiser loaded with 400 sea mines. Explosives were used to destroy the mines. Our wreck lies 2.5 miles from Ariadne.
If even a handful of mines were dislodged and floated away… could one have sunk the Lukkos?
THE PROOF
In September 2026, Jamie found the engine maker’s plate:
N.V. A. KUYPER & V.D. REES
MACHINEFABRIEK
ROTTERDAM
1921
4.9
No. 6
This plate tells us several things.
The manufacturer, A. Kuyper & Van der Rees Machinefabriek, was a short‑lived Dutch engineering works that built marine engines between 1914 and 1922. The 1921 date stamped on the plate matches the year Lukkos was built, confirming the engine is original and not a later refit.
Below the date are two numbers: 4.9 and No. 6.
“4.9” is a foundry pattern or casting reference, used internally by the factory to identify the mould used for that year’s production. “No. 6” is the engine’s serial plate number, meaning this was the sixth engine of that pattern built in 1921.
Because the company produced only a small number of engines before going bankrupt, plates like this are extremely rare. Finding it on the wreck provides definitive proof that the Pot Wreck is the SS Lukkos, and that the machinery lying on the seabed is the same engine installed when she left the yard in 1921.
A ship lost without a wireless, without a distress call, and without witnesses — finally identified a century later by divers, archives, and a single brass plate.
https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/194486/
https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/49933/
