SMS Szent István

1918

Premuda, MAS-15, the sinking on film Location: Adriatic Sea, off Premuda Island · Coordinates: 44.27°N 14.37°E · Casualties: 89 · Survivors: ~1,005 · Depth: 66 m · Cause: motor torpedo boat — Ambushed by Luigi Rizzo's Italian motor torpedo boat MAS-15 off the island of Premuda at 03:20 on 10 June 1918. Two torpedoes struck the starboard quarter. Counter-flooding failed; she capsized over three hours on a calm Adriatic morning, the entire sinking captured by motion picture camera from her sister-ship SMS Tegetthoff. · Fate: protected war grave · diveable · Type: dreadnought · Tegetthoff class · Tonnage: 20,000 tons · Crew: 1094 · Flag: Austria-Hungary · Launched: 1914 Austro-Hungarian Tegetthoff-class dreadnought, sailing south to attack the Otranto Barrage. Ambushed by Luigi Rizzo's Italian motor torpedo boat MAS-15 off the island of Premuda at 03:20 on 10 June 1918. She capsized over three hours on a calm Adriatic morning, filmed in full from her sister ship Tegetthoff: the only sinking of a dreadnought ever recorded on motion picture. 89 dead of 1,094. The Vessel SMS Szent István (Hungarian: "Saint Stephen") was an Austro-Hungarian dreadnought battleship of the Tegetthoff class, built at the Hungarian Danube Shipbuilding Company yard at Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) between 1912 and 1915 and commissioned on 13 December 1915. She was 152 metres long, 20,000 tons displacement, and armed with twelve 30.5-centimetre primary guns in four triple-gun turrets (two forward, two aft), twelve 15-centimetre secondary guns in casemate positions, and four 53-centimetre torpedo tubes. Her armour protection included a 280-millimetre main belt of Krupp cemented armour, 280-millimetre turret face armour, and 76-millimetre deck armour. She was the last of the four Tegetthoff-class dreadnoughts completed by the Austro-Hungarian Navy and, at her commissioning in December 1915, among the most powerful capital ships in the Mediterranean. Her specific distinction, beyond her sister ships, was her Hungarian construction: she was the only major Austro-Hungarian capital ship built at a Hungarian shipyard (Fiume) rather than at the Austrian naval arsenal at Pola. Her construction had been the specific political commitment of the Hungarian government in the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867; the Hungarian political class had insisted that the Hungarian shipbuilding industry be represented in the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought programme. By June 1918, Szent István had been the Austro-Hungarian fleet's flagship at various points of the First World War. Her operationa The Disaster Capitano Rizzo's tactical response was immediate and aggressive. MAS 15 closed to approximately 300 metres of Szent István and launched her two 45-centimetre torpedoes; MAS 21 similarly engaged Tegetthoff, but Tegetthoff's torpedo strike failed to detonate. The torpedo launches occurred at approximately 03:25 on 10 June 1918. Both of MAS 15's torpedoes struck Szent István on her starboard side. The first torpedo struck at approximately frame 32 (forward of the amidships), below the waterline, and exploded against the ship's starboard side. The second torpedo struck at approximately frame 48 (amidships), also below the waterline, and exploded against the ship's starboard side. The two torpedo impacts produced a single catastrophic breach of approximately 25 metres along the ship's starboard side. The immediate damage control response was systematic but ultimately insufficient. Szent István began to list substantially to starboard within seconds of the impact; her pumps were activated but could not keep pace with the flooding rate; her adjacent watertight compartments were progressively compromised by the continuing structural failure. Captain Seitz's standard counter-flooding response (flooding port-side compartments to compensate for the starboard flooding) was implemented but was substantially inadequate for the specific damage pattern. Over the subsequent two hours, Szent István's list progressively increased from 5 degrees to 10 degrees to 15 degrees to 25 degrees. At appr