Shipwrecks

No. 96 HMT Resono

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Diary of the War No. 17

In the second part of our Christmas double bill, we commemorate a loss on Boxing Day 1915 and finish off with a poem as an extra special feature.

We have looked at fishing vessels in the War Diary before – how, at the outbreak of war, neutral fishing vessels found themselves on an unexpected front line of minefields, how the sailing fishing fleets of Lowestoftwere targeted and how they fought back.

In commemorating the loss of HMT Resono 100 years ago, today’s post pays tribute to the efforts of the steam trawling fleets. They saw action principally as minesweepers and patrol vessels, many requisitioned from the beginning of the war. They were eminently suitable to backfill these roles: as smaller ships, they were at less risk of detonating mines, their crews knew the seas intimately, and they needed little modification.

Sweeping was monotonous, deadly, and dangerous, with a high casualty rate: it was inevitable that a number of sweepers and patrol vessels would be lost in the minefields littered around the coastline. On 26th December 1915, Resono, one of the famous Sleight fleet of trawlers operating out of Grimsby, was blown up 2 miles SE of the Sunk Light Vessel in the Thames Estuary.

The Sleight fleet saw distinguished service in both World Wars. Sir George Sleight’s obituary of 1921 states that over 50 of his ships were requisitioned: it also states that he developed from a cockle-gatherer to the owner of the largest steam trawler company in the world. (1) His fleet is readily identifiable among wartime casualty lists by its distinctive house naming scheme: Recepto, Remarko, and Remindo were other First World War losses from the fleet. Many Sleight vessels participated in both wars: Resolvo and Resparko, First World War veterans, were both lost in 1940. Yet others survived two wartime services, including the Revello, built in 1908 and therefore a contemporary of Resono, which was eventually wrecked in 1959.

Black and white photo of steam trawler, with steam coming out of its funnel.
Sleight trawler Revello, which sprang a leak and sank off Kilnsea in 1959, after seeing service in both World Wars. She had been sunk in 1941, but was salvaged a few months later. © Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre. George Scales Maritime Photographs.

To conclude this month’s edition of the War Diary, here is Kipling’s poem Mine Sweepers, also a century old. It was first published as the introduction to an article on the work of the minesweeper-trawlers for the Daily Telegraph, 23rd November 1915: the original can be read here.

Dawn off the Foreland – the young flood making

Jumbled and short and steep –

Black in the hollows and bright where it’s breaking –

Awkward water to sweep.

“Mines reported in the fairway,

“Warn all traffic and detain.

“Sent up Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain.”

 

Noon off the Foreland – the first ebb making

Lumpy and strong in the bight.

Boom after boom, and the golf-hut shaking

And the jackdaws wild with fright!

“Mines located in the fairway,

“Boats now working up the chain,

“Sweepers – Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain.”

 

Dusk off the Foreland – the last light going

And the traffic crowding through,

And five damned trawlers with their syreens blowing

Heading the whole review!

“Sweep completed in the fairway.

“No more mines remain.

“Sent back Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain.”

To borrow a phrase: the poem counted them all out and counted them all back!

(1) The Times, Monday 21 March, 1921, No.42,674, p16.

No. 95 Thomas W Lawson

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In the first part of a special Christmas double bill, it is my pleasure to . introduce my guest blogger John Hicks, who, as a descendant of those involved in the rescue, has recently written a book on the wreck of the Thomas W Lawson.

Lawson.jacket
Cover of the book, depicting the largest sailing ship in the world  as a sad wreck among the Isles of Scilly.

He writes:

The Isles of Scilly, off the south-west tip of Great Britain, have been the scene of innumerable wrecks (over 900 have been recorded by name), of which probably the best known are those of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell’s flagship HMS Association and three other vessels from his homecoming fleet in 1707, with the loss of the Admiral and an estimated 1,400 to 2,000 others, and of the Schiller, a 3,421 ton German transatlantic liner, in 1875, with the loss of most of her crew and passengers, to a total of 335.

The name of the Thomas W Lawson, while not so notorious among the general public, is well known locally, and among many others with an interest in wrecks. Towards sunset on Friday, 13 December 1907 she reached the mouth of  the English Channel after a stormy first transatlantic crossing and with another gale brewing. Thinking themselves well clear of any land, the crew realised, too late, that they were among the rocks and shoals of the islands and hurriedly anchored. She was attended by the St Agnes and St Mary’s lifeboats, but for different reasons each had to return to its station.  In the night there was a violent storm, and by the small hours of the following  morning the Lawson was a wreck.  At daylight a six-oared island gig was launched into a still high sea to search for survivors, and by the end of the day, after three perilous trips among the rocks, had rescued the only three, one of whom died within hours of his injuries.

That brief narrative omits many dramatic, intriguing or disputed details, but in addition to the fascination of the immediate story there are at least three other features of great interest in the vessel and personnel involved.

As to the vessel, she was a seven-masted schooner of 5,218 registered tons, the largest fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel of all time, at the time of her loss the largest sailing vessel of any rig afloat, and still the largest vessel propelled purely by sail throughout her life which has yet existed.

Black and white photograph of five-masted sailing ship aground in shallow water off a rocky coastline in the foreground.
Besides the seven-masted Thomas W Lawson lost off the Isles of Scilly in 1907, there was also the wreck of the five-masted ship Preussen off Kent in 1912, photographed here by a local resident. BB052702 Reproduced by permission of Historic England.

As to the personnel, there was first the man after whom she was named: one of the moving spirits behind her conception and creation and a major participant in her financing and ownership.  Thomas W Lawson was a buccaneering and intensely superstitious Boston stockbroker who started work as a fatherless, penniless boy of 12, made and lost several fortunes, was reputedly worth at his zenith some $30 to $50 million (the equivalent of something like $750 million to $1.25 billion now) but died in poverty.

And finally – there was the tiny, isolated, close-knit island community into which the schooner irrupted.  Of the 17 men from St Agnes who went out in their lifeboat to the Lawson on the 13th or in their gig to search the rocks on the  14th or who (in four cases) were involved in both ventures, all but one were related and 13 bore the same surname.  One of them was aboard her as pilot when she went down, and was drowned.

There have been many accounts of the wreck of the Thomas W Lawson, but it is now the subject of a full-length investigation into all these features and their interrelation.  It is entitled An Absolute Wreck and its author is a great-nephew of the dead pilot and related to all but one of the St Agnes men involved.

Serena adds: the Isles of Scilly gig was an adaptable craft, often a salvage and rescue vessel at need, and involved in other incidents. Wrecks sometimes caused other wrecks of those that went to their aid: we know of two gigs that were lost respectively in a rescue attempt in 1816 and in salvage work in 1839, underlining the courage of those who crewed them.

Publication details of An Absolute Wreck: the loss of the Thomas W Lawson are as follows:

Title:  An Absolute Wreck – the loss of the Thomas W Lawson

Author: John Hicks

Publisher: Scotforth Books, on behalf of the author

ISBN: 978-1-9098 17-25-8

Date: 2015

Price: £15.00, including postage within the UK (in USA $25.00 plus postage from UK)

Obtainable from the author at john.hicks@montagusquare.net

No. 94 HMHS Anglia

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Diary of the War No.16

Today’s First World War Diary entry commemorates the loss of HMHS Anglia on 17 November 1915. Built in 1900 for the London and North-Western Railway, she became one of many civilian vessels requisitioned for war service. A couple of months ago, in the story of the Africa, we saw how railway companies at home built and exported railway carriages to support the evacuation of wounded servicemen from the front overseas. The ferries owned by railway companies also played their part: Anglia‘s peacetime role as a passenger vessel fitted her well for her wartime function as a hospital ship.

It was on one such journey from Boulogne to Dover, carrying nearly 400 wounded soldiers and medical staff, that Anglia struck a mine laid by UC-5 in the Straits of Dover. UC-5 had been active in mining the key route from London to France, laying fields off the Sunk in the Thames Estuary, off Dover, and off Boulogne itself. (1) Following the explosion the boats were got out and the first party of 50 quickly escaped.

Black and white photograph of rowing boats in foreground and middle ground, steering away from sinking hospital ship in the background. To the right background a black vessel stands by to assist.
Anglia, in her hospital ship livery, after striking the mine; to the right another ship (in black) can be seen standing by, identified as HM TB No.4, though published in the Illustrated London News in January 1916 with a caption identifying her as the Lusitania. The high viewpoint shows that the photograph has been taken from another vessel, rather than from a boat. © IWM Q22867.

The ship then began to list heavily and sank so rapidly that some of the crew and passengers, soldiers and medical staff alike, unfortunately went down with her. The exact numbers are not quite clear but it is believed around 129 persons lost their lives, including some of the wounded.

Black and white photograph of vessel sinking, throwing up spray, and resulting in visible sea turbulence.
This photograph of the Anglia‘s sinking shows the impact of her final plunge. © IWM 822866.

One of the vessels which steamed to her assistance was the Lusitania, bound from London to Lisbon and Cadiz, a route reflected in her name, by which the Romans had known their province roughly corresponding to modern Portugal. By coincidence, she was also lost to enemy action in the same year as the more famous vessel of that name, as she subsequently struck a mine in the same field as the Anglia, and sank half a mile south.

Three-dimensional colour image of wreck on the seabed, picked out in contrast colours modelling the wreck, with dark blue the seabed, light blue the lowest point and red showing the highest points of the wreck.
The Anglia as she now lies, from a multibeam survey in 2014. Wessex Archaeology © Crown copyright.

Anglia was not the first hospital ship loss of the war, nor would she be the last. (In a previous War Diary entry we have looked at the Rohilla, lost on the rocks near Whitby in October 1914.) The Red Cross livery signalled Anglia‘s humanitarian function to friend and foe alike, but was no talisman against minefields, which respected neither nationality nor function. Those evacuated from the front were saved from one hell, only for some to lose their lives in another.

Update 02 December 2015: ‘Twice Shipwrecked in an Hour’. For an interesting article looking at some of the survivors of Anglia and Lusitania, click here.

(1) Naval Staff Monographs (Historical), Vol. XV Home Waters – Part VI: from October 1915 to May 1916, Admiralty, London, 1926

No. 93 Ionic Star

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Degrees of separation 

Today I have the pleasure of introducing my guest bloggers Mark Adams, Archaeological Services Manager, Museum of Liverpool, and local historian Martyn Griffiths, who describe the wreck of the Ionic Star on the anniversary of her loss in 1939. The Ionic Star has a connection with one of the most famous wrecks of the Second World War in fewer than ‘six degrees of separation’, as Mark and Martyn demonstrate in words and pictures below. For more links, please see the bottom of the article, including drone footage of the site as she now lies. Many thanks to them both.

The Sefton Coastline in Merseyside is a belt of wide sandy beaches and dunes which run from Formby in the south to Southport in the north. Possibly better known to archaeologists for the prehistoric footprints recorded by Gordon Roberts, the area also has a rich maritime history, largely a result of its location on the approaches to Liverpool. This includes the remains of Britain’s first Lifeboat Station and several shipwrecks, some of which are accessible by foot in the company of an experienced guide.

One of these wrecks is the Ionic Star, which was researched by a local historian, Martyn Griffiths. Built in 1917 by Russell & Co. of Glasgow, she was a refrigerated cargo liner with dimensions of 389.8 x 53.2 x 32.4 feet, and had a triple-expansion steam engine by D. Rowan & Co., Glasgow. Launched as the Rubiera, she belonged to the Blue Star line and was renamed the Ionic Star in 1929.

Black and white photograph of steamship in side view, depicting a star logo on the funnel amidships.
Ionic Star, showing the Blue Star logo on her funnel.

She was wrecked on October 16th 1939, after having lost her way whilst steaming up the Mersey Channel. She was carrying a cargo of meat, fruit, and cotton and was inward bound from Rio de Janeiro and Santos in Brazil to Liverpool, but sank on the edge of Mad Wharf, about one mile west of Formby Point. Her cargo was saved and no lives were lost, though she later became a total loss.

Although a salvage firm tendered for the job of breaking her up for scrap and the offer was accepted by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, the difficult access with the rising and falling tides meant that they were only able to break up about 50 tons and then gave up the job.

During the war she was used as target practice by aircraft flying from the nearby RAF Woodvale and elsewhere, but a considerable amount still remains firmly embedded in the sand and she remains a significant local landmark.

View of shipwreck on sands at sunset, showing skeleton of vessel.
View of Ionic Star as she lies today on Mad Wharf, showing a significant break in the hull structure. © Martyn Griffiths

The Blue Star Line had several other steamers in their fleet at the time, one of which was the Doric Star. It was this steamer that only two months later on the 2nd December 1939 was to be sunk by the German Battleship Admiral Graf Spee off the coast of South Africa – rather a bad few months for the Blue Star line. Only 15 days were to go by until the Graf Spee herself was scuttled outside the harbour at Montevideo in the Battle of the River Plate.

Black and white photograph of German warship on fire and sinking, with smoke billowing out of the vessel to the right.
Graf Spee on fire following the Battle of the River Plate, December 1939.

The site was recently used for a test-flight of a UAV by Prof David Burton of the General Engineering Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, who supplied the dramatic video in the Youtube link.  The long-term aim of the group is to use a range of telemetry, including LiDAR, mounted on UAVs to provide a means of recording otherwise inaccessible sites such as the Ionic Star.  The flight was also run as part of a guided walk to the site organised by the Sefton Coast Landscape Partnership and Archaeological Services, Museum of Liverpool.

Links: 

http://www.bluestarline.org/ionic1.html

http://www.martyngriff.co.uk/page12.htm

http://formby-footprints.co.uk/

http://www.formbycivicsociety.org.uk/2003%2003%20originsbritainsfirstlifeboatstation.html

http://digiart-project.eu/consortium/ljmu/ljmu-geri/

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/archaeology/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cph79ESYaWE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKEH-GsbvPk

No.92 The Novocastrian

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Diary of the War No.15

Today’s wreck, the Novocastrian, which was sunk a century ago on 5 October 1915, is representative of themes emerging in the loss of civilian vessels during the war.

Over the last few months we have traced the emergence of the UC-class minelaying submarines which sank so many ships off the east coast, which remained the key focus of war activity: in this case it was UC-7 which was responsible for the loss of Novocastrian, sunk a day after the minefield was laid off the Pakefield Gap, Suffolk.

Novocastrian was built for passenger service in 1915, but never carried her intended 54 first-class and 28 second-class passengers, since passenger services had been curtailed following the outbreak of war in August 1914. Instead, she became a cargo-carrying vessel, and at the time of loss was laden with a general cargo from London for Newcastle.

The ship sank within ten minutes. The boat was launched with all hands on board before she finally sank, but falling debris from a derrick upset their boat as they got away. Nevertheless everyone managed to cling on to bits of wreckage until they were picked up by a minesweeper.

The sinking of a new vessel only a few months old was a sign of things to come, since pressure would be later be put on British tonnage as ships would be sunk almost as fast as they were built, but this point had not yet been reached.

The Novocastrian appears on page 27 of Lloyd’s War Losses for the First World War. The month’s tally on the next page showed that 11 British ships had been sunk by submarine worldwide  for 39,154 tons; 5 ships from Allied nations for 14,961 tons; and one neutral was lost for 2,508 tons. These losses covered sinking by torpedo, gunfire, or shelling only.. Minelaying submarines had not come into use at the beginning of the wartime loss register, so mines are dealt with in a separate column (at the beginning of the war it was expected that they would be laid by conventional vessels).

The next column shows that the Novocastrian was among the 14 British ships sunk by mine for 16,770 tons, 2 Allied for 2,064 tons, and 8 neutrals for 8,371 tons. Among those 8 neutrals was the Dutch Texelstroom, mined the following day off the Thames in a field for which UC-7 was also responsible.

The Novocastrian is therefore quite representative of the average type of vessel and location of loss at this point in the war, a ship of between 1,000 and 2,000 tons, lost on the east coast of England: the Texelstroom likewise fits this profile. At this stage in the war, too, brief notices in the press still announced sinkings, but these were confined to the bare facts and omitted details of the vessel’s voyage or when and where it was lost. It was enough to know all hands had been saved and three were in hospital.

No.91 The Africa

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Diary of the War No.14

This month’s First World war wreck was a ship sunk en route to France on 16 September 1915.. The terms boat train and train ferry are familiar to many: the former a train service timetabled to connect with a scheduled ferry service, the latter a vessel transporting a train across a body of water. Less well known are ships carrying locomotives and rolling stock as cargo, in this case to the First World War battlefields of France, where they were needed to transport men and materials to the front, and as ambulance trains to bring back the wounded. (My own grandfather was among them, invalided out by trench fever in 1917.)

Black and white photograph of crane at right with suspended railway carriage over the deck of a ship.
GWR railway carriage, marked with a Red Cross, being loaded onto the SS Africa. Photo courtesy of STEAM – Museum of the GWR, Swindon

During the night of 15 September, UC-6, one of the new coastal minelaying submarines, slipped through the Straits of Dover to lay a minefield ‘across the passage abreast of the South Goodwin Light Vessel.’ (1) The first anyone on the British side knew of this new minefield was when the SS Africa struck one of these mines on the evening of the next day. The potential of the German minelaying submarine was not yet fully understood by the British (despite the activities of UC-11 as noted in Diary of the War 11 for June 1915) and at first the field was believed to have been laid by an enemy steamer under the colours of a neutral vessel.

Black and white photo of steamship with single funnel, and four carriages aboard, partly reflected in the water below.
The SS Africa in dock with all four carriages loaded onto the vessel, two fore and two aft. Photo courtesy of STEAM – Museum of the GWR, Swindon

The Africa did not sink immediately, and, in fact, it was noted that ‘these UC minefields [laid in late September 1915] in the thickly peopled Dover area brought about the total loss of very few ships: many of those mined were safely beached on the shelving shores of Kent, and after repair continued their voyages’. The Africa was among those beached near Deal, but became a total loss, unlike other vessels beached for recovery on what became known as the ‘Hospital Coast’ of  stricken ships. In fact, the Africa was dispersed in 1917.

Contemporary newspaper photo showing the stricken SS Africa as beached near Deal. The railway carriages are awash at roof level and the image has been retouched by a contemporary hand to make the carriages easy to discern. By courtesy of STEAM - Museum of the GWR, Swindon.
Contemporary newspaper photo showing the stricken SS Africa as beached near Deal. The vessel is awash and the image has been retouched by a contemporary hand to show the roof line of the sunken railway carriages. Photo courtesy of STEAM – Museum of the GWR, Swindon.

There is some irony in her final location on the ‘Hospital Coast’, because the railway carriages aboard the Africa were intended for use as ambulance trains and were built by the Great Western Railway (GWR) in Swindon. Elaine Arthurs from Swindon’s STEAM Museum adds to the story:

‘The Great Western Railway supplied and constructed 16 ambulance trains at Swindon Works during the First World War. This equated to 256 carriages. The trains were used on both the home front and abroad, transporting injured troops to military hospitals. The trains that were used abroad were transported from Britain to France by boat. A team of men from the GWR went with the carriages to see their safe transit to the continent. Whilst on one trip to France from Tilbury Docks the SS Africa, carrying both GWR ambulance carriages and employees, was mined off the coast of Kent. The ship and its contents were lost, along with two crew members, but the GWR employees survived.’

With many thanks to Elaine and to the STEAM Museum, Swindon. This wreck site marks the intersection of two significant strands of Britain’s industrial heritage in the age of steam, shipping and the railways: in a similar vein, it so happens that the STEAM Museum is also adjacent to the Historic England office in Swindon, where I have written this blog today! For more on wreck sites laden with First World War rolling stock, please see the St. Chamond, torpedoed in 1918.

No.90 The fishing fleets strike back

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Diary of the War No.13

Following on from last month’s War Diary post about a group of Lowestoft fishing smacks captured and sunk by scuttling charges, this month I look at an occasion when the tables were turned. As previously mentioned, one of the outcomes of the attacks on fishing vessels was the arming of selected smacks to patrol and protect their number when out at sea.

On 11 August 1915 UB-6 sank the fishing smack Leader 20 miles NE of Lowestoft, before being warned away by gunfire from the armed smack G & E. It was thought that G & E had sunk the submarine, but it was later ascertained that this was not the case, and UB-6 had limped home to give intelligence that fishing smacks were standing up for themselves.

Four days later, on 15 August, UB-4 approached to try her luck with another fleet of smacks off the Smith’s Knoll Spar Buoy, in the fishing grounds off Norfolk. The Inverlyon was also fishing when UB-4 began to approach at about 8.15 pm, closing within 30 yards. ‘It was dusk and no better target could be expected’. (1)

However, UB-4 was not prepared for what happened next. Inverlyon was not just out to catch fish. She had also assumed a new role just under a fortnight earlier. Gunner Ernest M Jehan of HMS Dryad was in command, and hoisted the White Ensign, firing a revolver at the officer steering the submarine. This was not so much to hit his opponent personally, as to signal to his crew to open fire with their 3pdr gun.

Nine rounds of fire disabled UB-4. According to Gunner Jehan’s report: ‘1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th shorts striking conning tower, 5 and 7 over, 6, 8 and 9 hitting hull.’ (2) She sank ‘head down, at an angle of 80°’. (1) Jehan continued: ‘3 bodies appearing, one shouting. Skipper Philips undressed and swam with lifebuoy but could not reach man before he sank. . . .We are lying by trawl which is foul of submarine.’

According to British naval intelligence, UB-4 had set out from her Flanders base before the return of UB-6 ‘taught by the G & E that some smacks were to be respected’, and thus was unaware of this new British anti-submarine tactic. It was a rare success in modern warfare for a small sailing vessel of 59 tons to sink a submarine, even a submarine as small as a UB-I class vessel of 127 tons surface displacement.

And Inverlyon? Like so many Lowestoft smacks before her, she too would eventually be captured and scuttled, but this would not happen until 1 February 1917.

(1) Naval Staff Monographs (Historical), Vol. XIV, Home Waters: Part V: July to October 1915, Admiralty, London, 1926

(2) His handwritten note, repr. in Taffrail, (Taprell Dorling), Swept Channels, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1935

 

No.89 Early Newspapers

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Sepia photograph of dark plaque, with text commemorating Lady Francis Wingfield and the founding of the Stamford Mercury, associated with the same building.
Plaque commemorating the founding of the Stamford Mercury in 1712, No.52 High Street St. Martin’s, Stamford, listed Grade II*. © Serena Cant

On a recent trip to Stamford I spotted a plaque commemorating the Stamford Mercury, first printed in 1712. It remains one of Britain’s oldest newspapers still in circulation, so I thought today we would have a look at how early newspapers form our principal source for early 18th century wrecks.

There are no extant issues of Lloyd’s List prior to 1740, although it was published earlier, so we need to turn elsewhere for our understanding of wrecks before that date. Records for major vessels – warships and East Indiamen – tend to be fairly well preserved in official documents. The wrecks of lesser vessels appear less often in such sources, but may crop up in the records of the Admiralty Court of the Cinque Ports or in intelligence reports in the Calendar of State Papers Domestic. Sometimes, too,  we find wrecks reported in the early years of the London Gazette, first published in 1665: it remains in circulation as an official paper of record (where honours and appointments are ‘gazetted’ today).

The arrival of regional newspapers in the early 18th century changed all that, although the concept of a national or a daily paper was yet to materialise, but a number of local newspapers sprang up around the country, typically printed once or twice a week. Such papers presented national and international news, together with local items of interest – sometimes engagingly jumbled together, juxtaposing news of an international peace treaty with informing the readership that Mr So-and-So had fallen off his horse . . .

Whether it was the mails from Holland with the latest news from the Continent, or local informants who kept the editorial office abreast of the latest county news, news offices depended on their correspondents – hence the adoption of this term to describe a journalist as early as our early newspapers (1711, according to the Oxford English Dictionary).

Shipwrecks were naturally newsworthy . . .

Among the earliest English newspapers I have seen are the Post Boy and the Flying Post, or Postmaster, dating from 1696. A report from Harwich of a ‘violent storm at SSE’ on 27 August 1696 detailed ‘eight colliers lost at the Gunfleet’, a notorious sandbank off the Essex coast. (1)

The coal magnates of Newcastle-upon-Tyne were alive from the beginning to the importance of news concerning the collier fleets, so from its inception in 1711 the Newcastle Courant became a key source for shipwrecks. Its first wreck appears in issue 12. Shipping was so important to Newcastle that not only were wrecks reported in the local area, but also the loss of any collier anywhere. An entry for May 1712 is typical:

North Shields, May 16. Yesterday sailed about 100 laden colliers and coasters, 3 of them, belonging to Yarmouth, run upon the Black Middens; Mr Can and Mr Baskfield got both off last night but Mr Scot is there yet; and in danger of losing his ship. (2)

As for the Stamford Mercury, this inland paper preserves the only record hitherto located for a wreck in far-away Cornwall in 1717:

There was lately driven on shore at Gonwallo [Gunwalloe], on the coast of Cornwall, the Wreck of a Ship of about 200 Tons, who had bulg’d on the rocks, and all her Crew were lost: she appeared, by some Writings found on board her, to be French, and to have come from Cadiz. (3)

This record comprises 50% of our knowledge of wrecks in English waters for that year: the other 50% comprises a warship recorded as hulked that year, the type of vessel more likely to leave a documentary trail from build to loss. The survival of this newspaper snippet could not demonstrate more clearly the value of early newspapers as a research tool for quantifying the potential archaeology of the English coastline.

(1) The Post Boy, 29 August to 1 September 1696, No.206

(2) Newcastle Courant, 17 May to 19 May 1712, No.126, p3

(3) Stamford Mercury, 28 November 1717, p262

No.88 Lowestoft trawlers

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Diary of the War No. 12

The focus of this month’s centenary commemoration is a group of eight fishing vessels, the Coriander, Fitzgerald, Achieve, Venture, Athena, Quest, Prospector and Strive, all captured, scuttled, and sunk on 30 July 1915 while out fishing in the North Sea.

Black and white photographs of several Lowestoft smacks under full sail.
Wooden sailing trawler Prospector, LT 554, 59 tons, (left foreground) one of the vessels stopped and sunk by a time bomb on 30 July 1915. By courtesy of Lowestoft Maritime Museum.

This was by no means the first attack on Lowestoft smacks, as all eight were, or any British fishing fleet. The situation had been escalating since the start of hostilities, but became very marked in July 1915 with the Lowestoft fleet coming under attack on several occasions.

In fact, the wartime toll on the fishing fleet was such that a separate section of the official 1919 HMSO publication Merchant Shipping (Losses) was devoted entirely to ‘Fishing Vessels Captured or Destroyed by the Enemy’, running to 25 pages. According to Table B in this publication, for July 1915 alone 36 British fishing vessels were sunk for 3,966 tons – and this table took no account of requisitioned trawlers and drifters, being solely concerned with fishing craft still in civilian employment.

View of Gloucester Docks with a series of tall ships, and an orange search and rescue vessel in foreground.
Gloucester Tall Ships, 23 May 2015. Keewaydin, a Lowestoft smack, whose dark mainmast is prominent in centre background with LT 1192 painted in white letters on her keel, was built in 1913 in Rye for the Lowestoft fishing fleet and continued fishing out of Lowestoft until the 1930s. She is therefore an exact contemporary of the lost vessels in this week’s post. © Andrew Wyngard

All eight vessels were sunk in the space of about five hours by UB-10, captained by Otto Steinbrinck, who, as one of the most prolific U-boat captains of the First World War, would go on to sink 197 more vessels throughout the war. In fact, he accounted for the greatest number of ships sunk (but not the greatest tonnage – for example, these eight ships were very small). (1)

‘The Lowestoft smacks suffered another heavy raid on the 30th. The morning was still and fine and they were lying becalmed and scattered widely over the fishing grounds round about Smith’s Knoll.’ (2) The Coriander was the first victim, being ‘accosted and eventually scuppered by a submarine which placed a bomb in her hold’.

These repeated attacks on the Lowestoft fishing fleet triggered an investigation into the best method of dealing with the threat, concluding that, since the attacking submarines were small and not armed with guns (only with bombs and torpedoes: the latter would not have been expended on small wooden vessels) always approaching their potential victims closely, self-defence would be adequate protection. Four smacks were issued with 3pdr guns to ‘cruise to seaward of and near to the fishing fleet’.

On a lighter note, the same report noted the downside of reporting submarine sightings where the new-fangled wireless telegraphy was unavailable: ‘The pigeon service is slow and unreliable.’

View of visitors aboard a sailing ship in harbour to give a sense of the small scale of the vessel.
View of Keewaydin at the Gloucester Tall Ships festival, 23 May 2015. At 62 tons, this smack, a member of the National Historic Fleet, is typical of her contemporaries sunk on 30 July 1915 and gives a sense of scale. © Andrew Wyngard

(1) uboat.net

(2) Naval Staff Monographs (Historical), Vol. XIV, Home Waters: Part V, July to October 1915. Admiralty, London, April 1926

No.87 Layers of History

~ Serena ~ 1 Comment

Inspired by my recent holiday in Croatia, I thought I’d turn this week to looking at wrecks in English waters from that part of the world. I’ve touched before on how changing national boundaries and ideas of nationhood affect the way we classify wrecks – the nationality recorded at the time of loss is often very different from the nationality now, and this is as true for Croatia as for the subjects of my previous articles on Estonia, Finland and Hungary.

'Sailing ship in a storm', Ivankovic, 1887, ex voto painting in the cloisters at Kuna Peljeska, Croatia. Note the small saint on a cloud towards top left, rendering divine assistance, typical of such scenes, while the ship wallows in the sea, having lost most of her sails. The associated church contains many silver ex voto plaques, many with shipwreck scenes.
Sailing ship in a storm, Ivankovic, 1887, ex voto painting in the cloisters at Kuna Peljeska, Croatia. Note at top left the small saint on a cloud rendering divine assistance, typical of such scenes, while the ship wallows in a heavy sea, having lost most of her sails. The associated church also contains many silver ex voto plaques, several depicting shipwreck scenes. Image courtesy of Andrew Wyngard.

Croatia has a long and proud seafaring tradition with many rocky islands rising steeply out of the sea, affording little shelter to anyone unfortunate enough to be shipwrecked there. Indeed, Richard the Lionheart caused an ex voto church to be built at Lokrum in 1192. The islands are well marked with picturesque lighthouses and it is worth exploring this fantastic gallery here. Though there may be a number of earlier vessels in our records whose Croatian origins are masked by the lack of detail in contemporary sources, they first come to our attention in English waters during the 19th century, when Croatia was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

One such vessel was Barone Vranyczany, lost in 1881 off Suffolk, named after a local noble family who had Magyarised their surname from the Croatian Vranjican. Her home port had the Italian name of  Fiume (now Rijeka): the name of her master, Pietro Cumicich, reflects a dual Italian-Croat linguistic heritage. With the help of the Austrian consul at Lowestoft, acting as interpreter, a fellow master from Fiume identified Cumicich’s body through his wedding ring inscribed with his wife’s initials and the date 10-12-77.

Croatia’s Italian heritage is very strong, reflecting its Venetian past and its proximity to the Italian coast. (The island of Korcula is traditionally said to have been the birthplace of Marco Polo, although this is disputed.) The Croatian littoral passed out of Venetian control to become the Republic of Ragusa, centred on Ragusa itself, now Dubrovnik: the two names, Latin and Croat, existed side by side until 1918 when Dubrovnik alone was officially adopted.

This link is clearly seen in the ship Deveti Dubrovački of Ragusa. She was one of a fleet belonging to the Dubrovnik Maritime Company, whose ships had a very simple house naming scheme. She was ‘The Ninth of Dubrovnik’: all the fleet were likewise named in order from ‘The First of Dubrovnik’ onwards. (1) She met her end in 1887 through a collision with a British steamer off Beachy Head, another wreck that illustrated the bond between husband and wife. The captain tied a rope around his wife, from which she was hauled in her nightdress aboard the steamer, despite her ‘imploring him not to mind her’: alas, she had the misfortune to see her husband go down with his ship. (The fact that the steamer did not also sink in this collision was attributed to the cushioning effect of the wool tightly packed in her hold.) (2)

Several ships have Italian names, such as the Fratelli Fabris, whose remains (1892) are said to lie close to Tater-Du on the coast of Cornwall, and which is known locally as the ‘Gin Bottle Wreck’. Indeed, a 1927 wreck was recorded in contemporary sources as of Italian nationality: the Isabo was built as Iris in Lussinpiccolo (now Mali Losinj, Croatia), then Austro-Hungary, a part of Croatia which became Italian in 1918.

At the same time the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was created, to which the Slava, a war loss of 1940 off Porlock Bay, belonged. Only nine ships out of the country’s fleet survived the war. (3) After the Second World War Yugoslavia became a Socialist Federal Republic, of which Croatia was a constituent part. Our final wreck today is the Sabac, which belonged to that country’s nationalised fleet, and which was lost in 1961 in a collision off the South Goodwin light vessel.

Since 1991 Croatia has been an independent state, but one whose long maritime history endures, intertwined with that of many other nations, past and present. Its heritage is part of our own heritage too, from Lokrum to the wrecks around our coastline today.

(1) Anica Kisić, “Dubrovačko Pomorsko Društvo”, Atlant Bulletin, No.13, July 2004, pp22-4. URL: https://www.yumpu.com/hr/document/view/36424950/srpanj-2004-atlantska-plovidba-dd/23

(2) Edinburgh Evening News, 30 December 1887, No.4,530, p2

(3) http://www.atlant.hr/eng/atlantska_plovidba_povijest.php