HMS Audacious when new.
HMS Audacious was a King George V class battleship,
built for the Royal Navy at Cammell Laird
from 1911 to 1913. One year and six days
after her commissioning, Audacious put to
sea from her base at Lough Swilly for target
practice, along with six other new super-dreadnoughts.
While making a turn northeast of Tory Island
at 8:45 AM, the vessel stuck a mine abreast
the port engine room. The dull thud was not
at first thought to be an explosion, so no
order to close the watertight doors was given
until the ship had completed her turn and
failed to right herself. The port and centerline
engine rooms flooded, and the ship took on
a marked list to port. To counteract the
list, compartments were counterflooded on
the starboard side, which reduced the list
to 10-15 degrees. However, many of these
compartments, thought to be watertight, were
not. Progressive flooding from both the damage
and the counterflooding proved to be more
than the pumps could handle, and the vessel
began to settle. She attempted to make port
at her best speed of 9 knots, but about 1
hour and 15 minutes after the explosion the
rising water in the starboard engine room
caused the loss of all power. The vessel
went dead in the water, without power to
her auxiliary machinery. The British liner
Olympic, sistership to the ill-fated Titanic,
answered the distress call, and along with
the cruiser Liverpool and some destroyers
took off all but 250 essential crew members.
The giant liner then attempted to tow the
wounded battleship to port, but the sea and
wind were pulling hard to the south, so the
pull line parted. The cruiser, and later
the collier Thornhill, also attempted the
tow, but the rough weather made salvage impossible.
By 5 PM all but 50 crewmen had been evacuated,
and they followed an hour later. By 9 PM
the list had increased to 30 degrees, and
the vessel was down dramatically by the stern.
At 10:45 PM she capsized, and 15 minutes
later a large explosion of a forward magazine,
followed by two smaller secondary explosions,
accompanied the sinking of the vessel. No
lives were lost in the incident, but one
of Britain's newest and most powerful dreadnoughts
had been lost due to poor damage control.
HMS Audacious sinking
At the time of the sinking, the British Grand
Fleet was suffering a series of setbacks
that caused it to be much weaker than it
looked on paper; Several of the newer dreadnoughts
had not yet been worked up, several others
were suffering from engine problems, and
the battlecruiser Invincible was having her
troublesome electric turret gear replaced
with a hydraulic system. In an effort to
hide this weakness, Admiral Jellicoe suggested
that the loss of Audacious be covered up.
The British Foreign Office readily agreed,
and the British cabinet concurred. A campaign
of censorship led to the suppression of all
stories of her loss, and the ship continued
to appear on the fleet lists until after
the war.
However, there were hundreds of Americans
embarked on the Olympic, so the American
press was filled with stories and even photos
of her sinking. Soon, the loss of HMS Audacious
was common knowledge to the entire world,
and the continued insistence of the Royal
Navy that the ship was still in service became
a running joke that undermined the credibility
of the British government on the world stage.
The HMS Audacious lays in 216 feet of water,
with the top of the wreck at 190 feet, some
15 miles off Malin Head. The wreck's GPS
possition is 55 28.291 North by 07 45.101
West. Because the loss of the vessel was
kept secret, the wreck was not discovered
until 1995, and it is thus almost completely
undisturbed. The vessel is upside down, with
large holes blown in the hull from the magazine
explosion and mine, which allows access to
the engine rooms and other internal spaces.
One turret is turned 90-degrees, so the guns
protrude from underneath the hull. Torpedoes,
13.5-inch, and 4-inch shells litter the bottom
around the wreck. The bottom is gravel, which
leads to excellent visibility. Due to the
depth and the prevalent heavy seas, this
is a difficult dive for the experienced diver
only.
Thanks to Doug Johnson for the photos!!
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