Discover Top Posts Tagged with #naval sinking

Popular Recent

June 5th 1916 saw the loss of HMS Hampshire off Marwick Head, Orkney, with the loss of over 700 lives, including Lord Kitchener. Only 12 survived.

The Hampshire was en route from Orkney to Russia, taking Lord Kitchener on a secret mission to bolster support from the Tsar for the war when it hit a mine and sank. It wasn’t until lately that a definitive number was put on the number of deaths, a final figure of 737 souls were lost at sea that day.

Two of the most persistent rumours examined in a recent book, were that the ship sailed through a known minefield and that the military refused to allow local Orcadians to help with rescue attempts. Their conclusions are that the first was down to a simple misprint in an official document and the second did not hold up to close scrutiny, except in just two isolated cases.

The wreck is designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act and diving is forbidden without a licence.The ship is upside down at a depth of 55–70 metres of water. In 1983 one propeller and part of its drive shaft were salvaged. They are now on view at the Scapa Flow Visitor Centre and Museum, Lyness, Hoy, Orkney.

The Kitchener Memorial, as seen in the pic, at Marwick Head, five miles east of Dounby in Orkney, stands to commemorate, not just him, but all those who lost their lives that day.

#scotland #world war two #ship sinking #naval sinking #lest we forget #history

June 5th 1916 saw the loss of HMS Hampshire off Marwick Head, Orkney, with the loss of over 700 lives, including Lord Kitchener. Only 12 survived.

The Kitchener Memorial at Marwick Head, five miles east of Dounby in Orkney, stands to commemorate, not just him, but all those who lost their lives that day.

#Scotland #scottish #maritime disaters #WWI #naval sinking #history

On January 21st 1940 HMS Exmouth was sunk by a U-Boat in the Moray Firth with the loss of 189 lives.

The Exmouth sank with the loss of all its crew as it was escorting the Cyprian Prince, a merchant vessel loaded with supplies for building wartime defences, from Aberdeen to Scapa Flow on 21 January, 1940.

The bodies of 15 crew members were washed ashore a week later.

They were buried at a mass grave in Wick, but they were not individually identified.

The Exmouth wreck was not discovered until 2001, one of the divers described it as “an underwater garden of stunning beauty, covered with bright hydroids, anemones and starfish.” and that he have never seen so much sea life on any other wreck in the world, he went on “"It is most fitting that the site has been transformed from one of death and destruction to a scene of tranquility and life.”

The diving team discovered that the ship had been “blown apart” by the impact of the torpedo and that it was obvious from the survey the destroyer sank immediately.

“Large quantities of live munitions were strewn over the vessel.”

A plaque of remembrance was placed on the wreck in memory of those who died when the vessel went down.

You can find out more and see pics of the memorials to those lost when the Exmouth went down, at the link here http://www.hms-exmouth1940.co.uk/home.html

#Scotland #scottish #world war two #shipwreck #sinking #naval sinking #history

The 30th of December 1915 saw the HMS Natal sink in Cromarty Harbour after an explosion in her magazine with the loss of 421 lives.

A Hogmanay party and film show was underway on board HMS Natal, a 13,550 ton armoured cruiser. Among the guests were the factor of Novar Estate, Mr Harry Dods, his wife and three children, three nurses from the naval hospital in Cromarty and Violet Black, wife of the captain, Eric Black.

Without warning the warship was ripped apart by an internal explosion. The ship turned over and sank within five minutes. 421 people, including the captain and all the guests, died either in the explosion or subsequently from their injuries.

Despite rumours of sabotage or an attack by an enemy submarine an inquiry concluded that the explosion was probably the result of unstable cordite. Stored in the magazine room with insufficient ventilation the cordite had begun to sweat and eventually spontaneously combusted. Wartime security meant the incident could not be reported. The Ross-shire Journal could only report that the Dods family had been wiped out ‘as a result of a painful and distressing accident’.

Many bodies were never found. Over time the Natal gradually sank to the bottom but for many years naval ships saluted it when they passed. Much reduced the wreck is still a navigational hazard; the spot marked by a danger buoy.

The last two pics are of HMS Natal Garden, Invergordon, see more here https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/75965

#Scotland #ross & cromarty #ww1 #naval sinking #history #lest we forget

On 15th October 1915 tragedy struck when HMS Hawke was sunk off the northeast coast of Scotland.

In 1914 HMS Hawke was part of the 10th Cruiser Squadron, a group of vessels deployed to blockade the area between Shetland and Norway. However, in October 1914, the ships had been ordered further south to protect a troop convoy of 30,000 men and supplies from Canada. It eventually reached safety. The Germans, aware of ship activity in the North Sea, had dispatched two U-Boats on the 13th October; the U9 was commanded by Weddigan, famous for sinking three British cruisers, Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue, in one day, and U18. Rear Admiral Dudley de Chair’s flagship HMS Crescent put into Cromarty for re-coaling but, acutely aware of the submarine activity, he had given strict orders that ships in his fleet were to be ‘kept well apart’, to 'continually alter course’ (zig-zagging) and to 'vary their speed’. Indeed, on that fateful day the vessels were in a line abreast formation, a ten mile interval between ships, and speed and direction was being varied.

HMS Hawke and her sister ship made a mistake. Hawke broke formation to pick up mail from HMS Endymion. It was a long process and the Germans, tailing the fleet, witnessed it all. It’s always interesting to geet first hand accounts, this if from one of the officers on U-9 as it stalked the ships that fateful day:

“I gazed at the little picture of the upper ocean. The distant three cruisers (Hawke, Endymion and Theseus) were some wide space apart, but were converging, and were steering for a point, and that point was apparently in the vicinity where we lay. No wonder the Commander thought they must want a torpedo.”

He went on.

“We imagined they were bent on joining forces and steaming together, but it presently became apparent that they intended to exchange signals, drop a cutter (small boat) in the water, and deliver mail or orders, and then go their respective ways. We steered at full speed for the point toward which they were heading, our periscope showing only for a few moments at a time

Hawke and Endymion stopped dead in the water at 9.30 am and exchanged the mail. The other ships moved back on station; Hawke took longer, an additional 15 minutes to recover the cutter. She was the target selected, and at 10.30 am for the German submarine, the officer again takes up the story…

'we manoeuvred for a shot. … She nearly ran us down. We had to dive deeper and let her pass over us, else we would have been rammed. Now we were in a position for a stern shot at an angle, but she turned. It was a fatal turning, for it gave us an opportunity to swing around for a clear bow shot at 400 metres. … We dived beyond periscope depth, ran underwater for a short distance, and then came up for a look … The Hawke had already disappeared. She sank in eight minutes. Only one boat was in the water. It was the mail dory that had been lowered before the torpedo explosion.”

Why this ship sank so quickly is a matter of debate, though most writers suggest that the torpedo had struck the magazine. She apparently rolled over so quickly that boats could not be got off the sloping deck, hence many crew went down with her or spilled into the freezing North Sea to die.

524 officers and men died, although numbers vary depending on the source you read, including the ship’s captain, Hugh P. E. T. Williams, with only 70 survivors (one man died of his wounds a day later on 16 October.)

#scotland #naval sinking #world war one #maritime history

On 14 October 1939 torpedoes struck HMS Royal Oak. The battleship sank quickly with the loss of more than 800 lives.

HMS Royal Oak was a Royal Navy battleship under Captain WH Benn. She had been moored off the cliffs of Gaitnip, in the north-east corner of Scapa Flow, so her anti-aircraft guns could help defend against any air attack on the vital Netherbutton Radar Station which stood above the cliffs.

On the night of 13/14 October 1939, German submarine U-47, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien – one of the three recognised U-boat aces of World War II – crept into Scapa Flow through Kirk Sound, between the blockships which were meant to have made the Sound impassable to enemy vessels.

Royal Oak was sighted. U-47 fired three salvoes. The first landed a minor hit which the crew of the battleship mistook as a minor internal explosion, rather than a sign of attack. Despite the second salvo missing, the confusion surrounding the first hit gave Prien time to return to his original firing position, reload, and fire again. This third salvo delivered the fatal hits. The ferocity of the explosions caused the ship to heel over alarmingly and she sank with frightening speed. Those men that managed to escape the initial explosions and ensuing fires were faced with a swim through chilling waters thick with oil. Few survived the half-mile swim to shore.

From the crew of more than 1,200, 834 were lost. Recent careful research has better-established the casualty list, 833 having been the figure commonly given in the past.

Captain Benn was one of the survivors and both he and his crew were credited with doing all they could to save their ship.

Today the wreck is a designated war grave and the waters above are a place of remembrance in Scapa Flow.

#Scotland #orkneys #world war two #naval sinking #history #lest we forget

5th June 1916 saw the loss of “HMS Hampshire” off Marwick Head, Orkney, with the loss of hundreds of lives, including Lord Kitchener. Only 12 survived.

If you’re not sure who Kitchener was I will bet you know his from the recruiting poster during World War One, with the words “Your country needs you!

The true number of deaths from the sinking of HMS Hampshire 101 years ago has only recently been revealed by experts researching a definitive account of the tragedy. Twelve authors spent two years painstakingly researching the tragedy – which claimed the life of Lord Kitchener, of “Your Country Needs You” poster fame – and now put an accurate figure of 737 on the number of deaths, estimates of which have wildly fluctuated over the years. The figure is revealed in a book to be published later this year, HMS Hampshire: A Century Of Myths And Mysteries Unravelled, which also looks at the truth behind other tales surrounding the sinking.

The Hampshire, an armoured cruiser, was en route from Orkney to Russia, taking Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, on a secret mission to bolster support from the Tsar for the war when it hit a mine and sank.

The death of Kitchener had a profound impact on the country. “Very like President Kennedy or Princess Diana’s deaths in later years, everyone who was alive then would remember the moment they heard about Kitchener’s death And, much like Diana’s and Kennedy’s deaths, the demise of Kitchener attracted conspiracy theories.

Accusations of incompetence or collusion against the Admiralty have focused on the destruction of another ship, HM Drifter Laurel Crown, on 2 June, blown up by the same minefield laid by submarine U-75, and why the Hampshire was sent through a known danger zone. But authors of the book say the rumour comes from a simple misprint in an internal Admiralty document – the date of the destruction of the Laurel Crown should have read 22 June. Rumours that something sinister was afoot have also been fuelled by accounts from Orcadians claiming they were not allowed to assist in the rescue attempts and were even forcibly stopped by the military when they tried to intervene, but careful examination of what is still a sensitive subject in Orkney has revealed such stories are “almost certainly myth” with just two recorded incidents with some basis in fact. Many of the accounts come from Birsay, which was nearest to the stricken ship but not where rescue efforts were focused, in Sandwick, a few miles south of Marwick Head, where most bodies and survivors came ashore.

The second photo is the Kitchener Memorial and HMS Hampshire and Laurel Crown commemorative wall at Birsay it is inscribed:

“This tower was raised by the people of Orkney in memory of Field Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum on that corner of his country which he had served so faithfully nearest to the place where he died on duty. He and his staff perished along with the officers and nearly all the men of HMS Hampshire on 5 June 1916.“

The tower was built in 1920 there is video of it’s unveiling ceremony here https://scotlandonscreen.org.uk/browse-films/007-000-002-399-c

There is a lot more info, including newspaper reports through the years on this website, although it has yet to be updated with the new estimate on those that perished. http://www.hmshampshire.co.uk/

Finally, a review of the book and more pics can be found here http://www.centenarynews.com/article/book-review—hms-hampshire-a-century-of-myths-and-mysteries-unravelled

#Scotland #WWI #naval sinking #history #Orkney