HMS Bulwark (1899)
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| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Class and type: | Formidable-class battleship |
| Name: | HMS Bulwark |
| Ordered: | 27 June 1898 |
| Builder: | Devonport Dockyard |
| Laid down: | 20 March 1899 |
| Launched: | 18 October 1899 |
| Commissioned: | 11 March 1902 |
| Fate: | Destroyed by internal explosion on 26 November 1914 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 15,366 tons (load); 15,995 tons (deep) |
| Length: | 431 ft 9 in (131.6 m) |
| Beam: | 75 ft (23 m) |
| Draught: | 27 ft 3 in (8.3 m) (load); 28 ft 2 in (8.6 m)(deep) |
| Propulsion: | Two sets 3-cylinder vertical triple expansion engines two in-turning propellers |
| Speed: | 18 knots (33 km/h) |
| Range: | 5,550 nautical miles (10,280 km) at 10 knots (20 km/h) |
| Complement: | 750; 766 as flagship in 1904 |
| Armament: |
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HMS Bulwark belonged to a sub-class of the Formidable-class of battleships of the British Royal Navy known as the London class.
She was launched in 1899 and had an armament of 4 × 12-inch (305 mm) guns in pairs, sixteen x 12 pounder guns and four torpedo tubes. Her length was approximately 400 feet (120 m). She had a displacement of 15,000 tonnes and a crew of 750.
In 1908, Captain Robert F Scott of Antarctic fame became Bulwark's commander, becoming the youngest junior battleship commander at that time. That same year, Bulwark joined the Channel Fleet before she was transferred to the Home Fleet and later consigned to the Reserve in 1910.
She recommissioned in 1912 and joined the 5th Battle Squadron. From the beginning of World War I in 1914, Bulwark carried out numerous patrols in the English Channel under the command of Captain Guy Sclater.
[edit] The destruction of the Bulwark
A powerful internal explosion ripped the Bulwark apart at 7.50am on 26 November 1914 while she was moored at Number 17 buoy in Kethole Reach, four miles (6 km) west of Sheerness in the estuary of the River Medway. Out of her complement of 750, only 14 sailors survived. Two of these men subsequently died of their injuries in hospital, and almost all of the remaining survivors were seriously injured.
The only men to survive the explosion comparatively unscathed were those who had been in Number 1 messdeck amidships, who were blown out of an open hatch. One of these men, Able Seaman Stephen Marshall, described feeling the sensation of "a colossal draught", being drawn "irresistibly upwards", and, as he rose in the air, clearly seeing the ship's masts shaking violently.
Witnesses on Implacable, the next ship in line at the mooring, reported that "a huge pillar of black cloud belched upwards... From the depths of this writhing column flames appeared running down to sea level. The appearance of this dreadful phenomenon was followed by a thunderous roar. Then came a series of lesser detonations, and finally one vast explosion that shook the Implacable from mastheads to keel."
The destruction of the Bulwark was also witnessed on board the battleship Formidable, where "when the dust and wreckage had finally settled a limp object was seen hanging from the wireless aerials upon which it had fallen. With difficulty the object was retrieved and found to be an officer's uniform jacket with three gold bands on the sleeves and between them the purple cloth of an engineer officer. The garment's former owner had been blasted into fragments."
Perhaps the most detailed descriptions of the disaster came from witnesses on board the Prince of Wales and Agamemnon, both of whom stated that smoke issued from the stern of the ship prior to the explosion and that the first explosion appeared to take place in an after magazine.
A naval court of enquiry into the causes of the explosion, held on 28 November 1914, established that it had been the practice to store ammunition for the Bulwark's six-inch (152 mm) guns in cross-passageways connecting her total of 11 magazines. It suggested that, contrary to regulations, 275 six-inch shells had been placed closed together, most touching each other, and some touching the walls of the magazine, on the morning of the explosion.
The most likely cause of the disaster appears to have been overheating of cordite charges stored alongside a boiler room bulkhead, and this was the explanation accepted by the court of enquiry. It has also been suggested that damage caused to a single one of the shells stored in battleship's cross-passageways may have weakened the fusing mechanism and caused the shell to become 'live'. A blow to the shell, caused by it being dropped point down, could then have set off a chain reaction of explosions among the shells stored in the Bulwark's cross-passageways sufficient to detonate the ship's magazines.
On 29 November, divers sent to find the wreck reported that the ship's port bow as far aft as the sick bay had been blown off by the explosion and lay 50 feet (15 m) east of the mooring. The starboard bow lay 30 feet (9 m) further away. The remainder of the ship had been torn apart so violently that no other large portions of the wreck could be found.
The wrecksite is designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act
In terms of loss of life, the explosion on HMS Bulwark remains the second most catastrophic in the history of the UK. The most deadly explosion in British history was that of Vanguard, caused by a stokehold fire detonating a magazine, at Scapa Flow in 1917.
[edit] References
- A. Cecil Hampshire (1961). They Called It Accident. London: William Kimber.
- R.A. Burt (1988). British Battleships 1889-1904. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
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