HMS Hampshire

1916

Marwick Head, Kitchener aboard, twelve survived Location: off Marwick Head, Orkney, Scotland · Coordinates: 59.13°N 3.40°W · Casualties: 737 · Survivors: 12 · Depth: 65 m · Cause: mine — Struck a mine laid by the German submarine U-75 off Marwick Head, Orkney, at 19:40 on 5 June 1916. In a force-nine gale, with seas running at five metres, no boats could be launched. She sank in fifteen minutes. · Fate: war grave · protected · Type: armoured cruiser · Devonshire class · Tonnage: 10,850 tons · Crew: 655 · Flag: United Kingdom · Launched: 1903 Royal Navy armoured cruiser, carrying Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War and the face of the recruiting poster, on a diplomatic mission to Russia. Struck a mine laid by U-75 off Marwick Head, Orkney, at 19:40 on 5 June 1916 in a force-nine gale, and sank in fifteen minutes. 737 dead of 749, including Kitchener; twelve men made it ashore on a coast where the Admiralty had turned local rescuers back until morning. The loss became the centrepiece of British conspiracy theories about the war for a generation. The Vessel HMS Hampshire was a Devonshire-class armoured cruiser of the Royal Navy, commissioned at the Armstrong Whitworth yard at Elswick on 15 July 1905. She was 144 metres long, 10,850 tons standard displacement, armed with four 7.5-inch guns in single turrets and six 6-inch guns in casemate mountings. Her design speed was 22 knots on four-shaft triple-expansion engines. The Devonshire class of six ships (HMS Devonshire, HMS Hampshire, HMS Carnarvon, HMS Antrim, HMS Argyll, HMS Roxburgh) was the Royal Navy's last class of armoured cruiser to be designed with the specific role of fleet-scouting for the main battle line. By the mid-1910s the class had been effectively superseded by the battlecruiser concept and by the modern light cruiser classes. Hampshire was assigned in 1916 to the Grand Fleet's 2nd Cruiser Squadron based at Scapa Flow. Her commanding officer in June 1916 was Captain Herbert Savill, 53, a career Royal Navy officer. Her crew was 655 officers and ratings. The Disaster At 19:40 on 5 June 1916, approximately 1.5 nautical miles off the western coast of the Orkney mainland (specifically off Marwick Head), HMS Hampshire struck a contact mine that had been laid by the German submarine U-75 on approximately 29 May 1916. The mine exploded beneath the forward starboard section of HMS Hampshire's hull. The damage was extensive: the forward engine room and forward boiler room were flooded immediately; her main electrical power was lost; her damage-control systems were unable to respond before the progressive flooding made her loss inevitable. HMS Hampshire listed heavily to starboard within 90 seconds of the mine strike. Her list progressed at approximately 8 degrees per minute. By 19:50 on 5 June 1916 she was at 45 degrees of list. She capsized at 19:55 on 5 June 1916 at approximately 59°10′N 3°24′W in approximately 65 metres of water. The HMS Hampshire loss was catastrophic for her complement. Of her 655 crew and 30 additional passengers (a total of 685 aboard), only 12 survived. Of the 673 dead, essentially all died in the freezing water of the North Atlantic within 30 minutes of the sinking. The weather conditions (force-9 gale, 6-metre swell, water temperature approximately 7°C) made survival in the water essentially impossible except for the few men who had reached life rafts or debris that could support them out of the water. Field Marshal Lord Kitchener died in the sinking. He was last seen on the upper deck in his Army greatcoat, walking tow