HMS Bulwark (1899)
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.jpg) The HMS Bulwark |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Ship of the line |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | March 20, 1899 |
| Launch | October 18, 1899 |
| Commissioning | March 11, 1902 |
| Whereabouts | Sunk by ammunition chamber explosion on November 26, 1914, 738 dead |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
15,366 tons l. , Max. 15,955 tons l. |
| length |
L pp 125.3 m (411 ft); |
| width |
22.9 m (75 ft) |
| Draft |
7.9 m (26 ft) |
| crew |
750 men |
| drive | |
| speed |
18 kn , 18.09 kn for the acceptance test |
| Range |
5,550 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
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| Fuel supply |
?? t coal |
| Belt armor |
up to 231 mm (9 in) |
| deck |
25–65 mm (1–2.5 in) |
| Armored bulkheads |
231–305 mm (9–12 in) |
| Towers |
203-254 mm (8-10 in) |
| Barbeds |
305 mm (12 in) |
| Casemates |
152 mm (6 in) |
| Command tower |
360 mm (14 in) |
The HMS Bulwark was a Formidable -class liner of the British Royal Navy that belonged to the British Mediterranean Fleet from 1902 to 1907 . She then served in her home country and since 1910 in reserve associations. On November 26, 1914, the HMS Bulwark sank after an ammunition chamber explosion near Sheerness , killing 738 sailors.
History of the ship
The Bulwark ran on October 18, 1899 as the fifth ship of Formidable class in the Naval Dockyard Devonport launched and went into service on 11 March 1902nd The main armament of the ship of the line consisted of four 12- inch (304 mm) type Mk IX guns in two twin turrets and twelve 6-inch (152 mm) type Mk VII guns in side casemates . Compared to the first three ships in her class, the Bulwark had half an inch less deck armor, which resulted in a slightly shallower draft. Some of these ships are referred to as the London class (after the London , the first ship in this series), but it is only a minor variant of the Formidable class.
Operations until 1914
After its completion, a fire control system was installed on the Bulwark before it came into service in Devonport for the Mediterranean fleet on March 11, 1902 , and replaced the Renown as the flagship in the Mediterranean on May 1, 1902 . From 1904, all eight ships of the Formidable class belonged to the Mediterranean fleet. In the winter of 1905 to 1906 an overhaul of the ship took place in Malta . The service of the Bulwark in the Mediterranean Fleet ended on February 11, 1907 with her decommissioning in Devonport.
The next day, the Bulwark was put back into service as the flagship of the "Nore Division" of the Home Fleet . On October 26, 1907, she ran aground in the North Sea near the Lemon Light fire and was then overtaken at Chatham Dockyard until 1908. In 1908, Captain Robert Falcon Scott , who later became famous as a polar explorer, was given command of the Bulwark as the youngest battleship commander of his time. The Bulwark was assigned to the Canal Fleet on October 3, 1908 . When the fleet was reorganized on March 24, 1909, the Canal Fleet became the 2nd Division of the Home Fleet. During the year the Bulwark went to the yard for another overhaul.
On March 1, 1910, the Bulwark was put back into service with only a small permanent crew in Devonport as the flagship of the 3rd and 4th (reserve) divisions of the Home Fleet. The only eight-year-old ship was already obsolete due to the development of the dreadnought , and the alliances with France and Japan led to a concentration of the battleship associations of the Royal Navy in the North Sea with modern capital ships. From September 1911 the Bulwark was again overhauled in Chatham. During the subsequent testing, she ran aground twice in the Barrow Deep off the Nore in May 1912 and suffered damage to the ship's bottom, so that the overhaul was not completed until June 1912. The commissioning took place now for the 5th battle squadron of the Royal Navy, to which all ships of the Formidable class were assigned.
War effort
With the beginning of the First World War in August 1914, the Bulwark under Captain Guy Sclater and the 5th Battle Squadron were part of the Channel Fleet and stationed in Portland to monitor the Canal . On the Bulwark , anchored off Portland , the court martial against Rear Admiral Sir Ernest Troubridge took place from November 5 to 9, 1914 because of his decisions in August 1914 in the pursuit of the German Mediterranean Division ( battle cruiser Goeben and Kleiner Kreuzer Breslau ).
On November 14, 1914, the 5th Battle Squadron was relocated to Sheerness as security against a possible German landing attempt in England .
On November 26, 1914, Bulwark , anchored off Sheerness, was destroyed by a violent explosion at 7:50 a.m. Of the 750 crew members, only 14 survived, two of whom later died from their injuries. Almost all of the other survivors were also seriously injured. Witnesses on the neighboring ships of the line Implacable , Formidable , Prince of Wales and Agamemnon observed smoke rising from the stern before the first detonation. A heavy explosion followed, after which a black column of smoke rose, a series of smaller detonations and then a very heavy final explosion that completely destroyed the 15,000 ton battleship and caused the neighboring ships to tremble "from mast to keel".
Causes of the explosion
An investigative committee of the Royal Navy came to the conclusion on November 28, 1914 that the explosion was probably caused by the overheating of cordite propellant charges, which were located in a magazine near a boiler room . It was also found that the 6-inch grenades had been housed in passages that connected the various magazines. Contrary to the regulations, the grenades are said to have stood next to each other and even touched one another. In this way, the original detonation could set off a chain reaction that destroyed the entire ship.
On November 29th, divers examined the remains of the Bulwark . They found that the battleship's hull had been totally destroyed and shattered beyond recognition. The only identifiable parts found were the port wall of the bow, 15 m from the anchorage, up to the height of the hospital and about 10 m further down the starboard side of the bow. The in position 51 ° 25 ' N , 0 ° 39' O lying wreck residues by the " Protection of Military Remains Act " 1986 Protected as a "Controlled Site". This means that diving is strictly forbidden within 100 m of the named position.
The sinking of the Bulwark is after the explosion of the Vanguard in Scapa Flow in 1917 the second worst disaster in British history to date.
See also
literature
- RA Burt: British Battleships 1889-1904. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1988.
- Roger Chesneau, Eugene M. Kolesnik (Eds.): Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships, 1860-1905 , Conway Maritime Press, London 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 .
- A. Cecil Hampshire: They Called It Accident. William Kimber, London 1961.
- Dan van der Vat: The Ship That Changed the World: The Escape of the 'Goeben' to the Dardanelles in 1914. Adler & Adler Publishers Inc., Bethesda, Maryland 1985, ISBN 0-917561-13-9 .
