HMS Vanguard (1909)

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HMS Vanguard
HMS Vanguard
Overview
Type Battleship
Shipyard

Vickers , Barrow

Keel laying April 2, 1908
Launch February 22, 1909
Commissioning March 1, 1910
Whereabouts Destroyed by an ammunition chamber explosion in Scapa Flow on July 9, 1917 , 843 dead
Technical specifications
displacement

19,560 ts design
displacement 23,030 ts fully charged

length

163.3 m over everything
152.4 m pp

width

25.6 m

Draft

8.7 m

crew

758 men

drive
speed

21.75 kn

Range

6900 nm at 10 kn,

Armament
  • 10 × 12 in. (305 mm) -L / 50-Mk.XI in twin towers
  • 20 × 4 in. (102 mm) -L / 50-Mk.VIII (later reduced)
  • 4 × 3-pdr salute guns
  • 3 × 18 inch torpedo tubes
Armor
Side armor
Upper armored deck
Lower armored deck
Barbettes
Gun turrets
Command tower
Underwater protection
Armored transverse bulkheads
Torpedo bulkheads


51 mm to 254 mm
19–38 mm
19–76 mm
229 mm
279 mm
254 mm

102–203 mm
38–51 mm

The HMS Vanguard was a Dreadnought - Battleship of St. Vincent class of the British Royal Navy , which in 1917 sank with the loss of almost the entire crew by an ammunition chamber explosion.

History of the ship

The Vanguard , the eighth Royal Navy warship with this name, was built at the Vickers shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness and was launched there on February 22, 1909. The commissioning took place on March 1, 1910.

After the outbreak of the First World War , the Vanguard was assigned to the "1st Battle Squadron" of the Home Fleet in Scapa Flow . With the "4th Battle Squadron" she took part on May 31 and June 1, 1916 in the Skagerrak battle against the German deep sea fleet . In doing so, she suffered no loss or damage.

While she was anchored in Scapa Flow alongside the Royal Oak , the Vanguard exploded on July 9, 1917 at 11:30 p.m. and sank within a few seconds. The explosion flash is said to have lit the whole fleet as bright as day. A reporter for the local newspaper "The Orcadian" observed a V-shaped pillar of fire, then a "terrible explosion " and then a rain of burning debris that fell all over Scapa Flow and set part of the heather on fire on the island of Flotta . Other eyewitnesses observed a first explosion near the foremast, which was followed by two much more severe detonations, the first in the area of ​​the central turrets P and Q, the second could not be located precisely because of the flames and smoke. Only two crew members survived the disaster, one officer died of his injuries. A Japanese liaison officer was also among the victims . About 70 men survived because they were on land or on other ships at the time of the accident. The exact number of victims, which has long been uncertain, amounts to 843 according to recent research. It was assumed that there was an undetected fire in a coal bunker. As a result, the cordite stored on an adjacent bulkhead in the ammunition magazine for the turrets P and Q was heated so that it ignited and triggered an explosion of the magazine. However, it is also conceivable that the cordite became unstable due to chemical decomposition processes and self-ignited.

The wreck

The remains of the Vanguard , marked with a buoy, are located about 1.5 km north-northeast of the island of Flotta at the position 58 ° 51 '  N , 3 ° 6'  W Coordinates: 58 ° 51 '0 "  N , 3 ° 6' 0"  W in 34 m depth. The wreck shows massive damage from the explosion; a section of the bow with bollards and anchor winches stands upright on the debris-strewn seabed, from the stern only a 20 m long section remains. The remains of the Vanguard have war grave status and are protected by the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 as a “Controlled Site”. This means a strict diving ban for the wreck position and a radius of 200 m, which is only lifted in exceptional cases. Any form of rescue activity is also prohibited.

To date, the sinking of the Vanguard is the worst explosion in the history of Great Britain and one of the worst in the history of the Royal Navy. A Celtic high cross in the cemetery of Lyness on the island of Hoy , where the graves of 18 recovered victims are located, commemorates the 843 dead .

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b The Orcadian, July 11, 2002: Research puts Vanguard loss at 843 ( Memento of October 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ A b Report of the Court of Inquiry into the Circumstances Attending the Loss of HMS Vanguard on the 9th July, 1917
  3. ↑ Rod Macdonald: Dive Scapa Flow, Edinburgh / London 1998, pp. 144-145
  4. ^ Office of Public Sector Information: The Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 (Designation of Vessels and Controlled Sites) Order 2008