Sydney Wignall

Sydney Wignall (16 October 1922 – 16 April 2012) was a British marine archaeologist, climber, explorer and spy.^[1][2][3][4]

He was born in Wallasey on the Wirral as the son of a cobbler, the youngest of four children. He attended Wallasey Oldershaw grammar school, but left at 16 with no qualifications and later became an apprentice electrical engineer.^[5] By 1955 he was living in Colwyn bay.^[2]

He led a Welsh team of climbers to climb the 25,355-foot-high Gurla Mandhata, Tibet, in 1955, was sponsored by Time Magazine and the Liverpool Post.^[4] Unknown by his fellow climbers he was spying for the Indian Army intelligence to spy on the military developments in this part of Tibet. He later wrote about his experiences in the book Spy on the Roof of the World.^[3] From the climb he would be able to view the Chinese military build up and make notes on its size and scale. Wignall and his party were captured by the Chinese army and held prisoner for two months.^[4][3] During this period the group suffered frostbite and dysentery and were beaten by the guards.^[3] There was also psychological torture, but all attempts to break them failed, and they never confessed or released any information.^[6] Wignall successfully passed on the information, but never returned to the area or to climbing again.^[6]

During Wignall's career as a marine archaeologist he made a number of significant finds and contributions to the field.

In 1962 he was a civilian under-water photographer working on an RAF dive of a Roman galley near Sicily. He located the vice-flagship of the Spanish Armada the Santa Maria de la Rosa in 1968, which was off the coast of Ireland. He was also involved in searching for Sir Francis Drake's lead coffin, and the American warship Bonhomme Richard which sank in 1779, the submarine Resurgam off Rhyl, and the Confederate blockade-runner Lelia, lost north of Prestatyn in 1865.^[2]

تم توثيق صعوبات البحث والغوص المتعلقة بسفينة سانتا ماريا دي لا روزا في كتاب " خمسة قامات كاملة: حطام الأسطول الإسباني" للدكتور مارتن. ^{[ 7 ] [ 8 ]} في عام 1970، ساهم في التنقيب عن حطام سفينة الأسطول الإسباني "إل غران غريفون" قبالة جزيرة فير آيل ، بالتعاون مع كولين مارتن. كما قدم ويغنال إسهامًا من خلال تحليل المكتشفات التي عُثر عليها خلال غطساته. وقد توصل إلى أن قذائف الأسطول الإسباني قد ضعفت أثناء عملية التصنيع. أدى التبريد المفاجئ إلى إضعافها وجعلها غير مستقرة أثناء الطيران. ^{[ 9 ]} تُحفظ العديد من تفاصيل عمله في أرشيف جامعة بانغور . ^{[ 10 ]}