HMS Pathfinder (1904)

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The light cruiser HMS Pathfinder had the unhappy distinction of being the first ship ever to be sunk by a torpedo fired by submarine. (The American Civil War ship USS Housatonic was sunk by a spar torpedo). She was lead ship of the Pathfinder class, having a sister ship Patrol.

She was built by Cammell Laird, Birkenhead, launched on July 16, 1904, and commissioned on July 18, 1905.

Pathfinder was sunk off St. Abbs Head, Berwickshire, Scotland, on Saturday September 5, 1914 by the German U-21, commanded by Leutnant zur See Otto Hersing. At the time, Pathfinder was the leader of the 8th Destroyer Flotilla based at the Rosyth, Scotland. The ship was struck in a magazine, which exploded causing the ship to sink within minutes with the loss of 259 men. There were 11 survivors.

The explosion was seen by Aldous Huxley who recorded the following in a letter to his father sent on the 14th September 1914:

I dare say Julian told you that we actually saw the Pathfinder explosion — a great white cloud with its foot in sea. The St. Abbs' lifeboat came in with the most appalling accounts of the scene. There was not a piece of wood, they said, big enough to float a man—and over acres the sea was covered with fragments—human and otherwise. They brought back a sailor's cap with half a man's head inside it. The explosion must have been frightful. It is though to be a German submarine that did it, or, possibly, a torpedo fired from one of the refitted German trawlers, which cruise all round painted with British port letters and flying the British flag.

See HMS Pathfinder for other ships of this name.

[edit] General Characteristics

• Displacement: 2,940 tons
• Length: 385 feet (117.3m) overall
• Beam: 38.4 feet (11.7m)
• Draft: average 13.8 feet (4.2m)
• Complement: 270
• Armament: 9 4-inch (102mm) guns, 2 18 inch (46cm) torpedo tubes
• Propulsion: Two 4 cylinder triple expansion oil fired steam engines driving twin screws
• Speed: max 25 knots (28.75mph, 46.25kph)
• Armour: 2 inch (5cm) (belt), 0.6-1.5 inch (1.5-3.8cm) (deck)