The urban legend dates right back to the1930s (Picture: swns / pa)

Two scientists think they have found proof of an urban legend which has fascinated a Devon town for nearly a century.

Since the 1930s, residents in Dartmouth have been convinced that a submarine wreckage is buried beneath a local coastal park.

Experts at the University of Winchester have now used a radar to penetrate the ground and scan underneath Coronation Park, where the sub is believed to lie.

The vague outline of what is thought to be HMS E52 can be made out on the scans alongside a second object, believed to be a German torpedo boat, which is longer and narrower.

An officer from the Britannia Royal Naval College, Lieutenant Tom Kemp, believed he identified HMS E52 as the submarine buried in the rubble at the five-acre park.

And the position of the two discoveries match up to a contemporary aerial photo of Dartmouth.

The town was home to naval officer training for more than 150 years.

Contemporary picture of HMS E52 from the First World War(Picture: National Museum of the Royal Navy/PA Wire)

In the photo, the submarine and another craft are sitting on mudflats.

Dr Simon Roffey, reader in archaeology, and Dr David Ashby, who manages Winchester University’s soil laboratory made the findings.

The pair were intrigued by Lieutenant Kemp’s research last year and, working with him, the scientists focused on one corner of the park.

The radar sent sound pulses through concrete and Tarmac and the resulting concentrations of red on the scans suggest large metallic objects lying about one metre under the surface.

Lieutenant Tom Kemp, an officer from Britannia Royal Naval College, believed he had identified HMS E52 as the submarine that was buried (Picture: Royal Navy/PA Wire)

The team concluded the E52 probably lies in the north-east corner of the park, while roughly at right angles to it is another large metallic object, most likely a German torpedo boat destroyer, S24, bought for scrap like E52 after the First World War.

The park sits at the foot of the hill that the naval college is on – and was once mudflats.

After the end of the First World War, the UK had a surplus of ships and submarines, including scores seized from the defeated Germans.

Many were driven ashore, left up creeks and anchorages and forgotten about as they decayed over decades.

A radar was used to scan under Coronation Park in Dartmouth, where it was believed the submarine was buried (Picture: Dartmouth Museum/PA Wire)

Coombe Mud and neighbouring Sandquay in Dartmouth became a similar breakers’ yard for unwanted warships, including at least two submarines.

The site was bought by the local authority in the late 1920s and filled in to create the park, which opened in 1937 in time for the coronation of George VI.

Dr Roffey, a former submariner who served in O-class boats in the 1980s, said: ‘The “submarine under the park” is a local legend, and it could make a wonderful tourist attraction if we could identify its exact location.

‘We know that there was a torpedo boat there but everyone assumed that it had been moved. Maybe it was stuck fast in the mud and they just left it there.’

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To compound the challenge of identifying the submarine is another Dartmouth urban legend, which suggests US troops who camped in the park in the latter stages of the Second World War buried some of their kit in the park rather than ship it home when they left.

The team is seeking permission from the local authority to dig small bore holes in the park to hopefully identify a piece of equipment or metal unique to E52.

Lieutenant Kemp said: ‘It’s been my personal hobbyhorse for the better part of the past year.

‘Confirming the final resting place of one of His Majesty’s submarines – and a pretty successful one at that – would serve to remind and reiterate that our naval heritage is all around us and can often be clawed back from obscurity.

‘Our time and energy could scarcely be better spent.’

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The urban legend has been around for nearly 100 years