Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Navy tribute to 800 heroes...100 yrs on
Crew killed when warship blew up at anchor
FAMILIES of more than 800 sailors who died in a Royal Navy disaster paid tribute to the lost heroes yesterday.
HMS Vanguard blew up at anchor on July 9, 1917, at the height of the First World War.
Of the 845 men aboard only two would survive.
The tragedy at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys was caused not by the German navy but because the battleship’s ammunition store exploded after a fire.
In acts of commemoration, 40 descendants of the victims were invited to events to mark the 100th anniversary of Vanguard’s loss.
There was a wreath-laying service above the wreck and later a commemoration at the Lyness Royal Naval Cemetery on Hoy, where 41 of the crew are buried.
To mark the moment, shortly before midnight 100 years ago, when Vanguard was ripped apart, a watch service was due to be held last night at St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall.
During the service a white ensign flag laid by the Royal Navy on the wreck in 2009 will be presented to the people of Orkney. A new white ensign has recently been laid on the tragic wreck.
Naval regional commander Scotland and Northern Ireland, Captain Chris Smith said the history of the Royal Navy and Scapa Flow were “tightly entwined.”
He added: “The tragic loss of more than 840 lives is still felt through their descendants and those in Orkney who feel
NAVAL REGIONAL COMMANDER
passionately we should mark the centenary in appropriate fashion.”
The catastrophic loss of the dreadnought ship which had seen action at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, is one of the most tragic accidents in Royal Navy history.
Built in Barrow-in-furness, Cumbria, in 1909, Vanguard was the eighth ship to bear the name. It was also one of a new generation of dreadnoughts, which out-gunned all previous warships.
On 9 July 1917, the ship had been on exercise in Scapa Flow and had anchored for the evening.
But at 11.20pm a series of catastrophic explosions resulted in it sinking almost immediately.
The remains of the Vanguard now lies in 46ft of water to the north of the island of Flotta.
Although the exact cause of the loss is unknown, it is thought a fire started in a fuel compartment next to an armaments magazine.
Intense heat then ignited cordite in the magazine, triggering the explosions that sank her.
The wreck is protected as a designated war grave.
Last year a team of volunteer divers were granted a licence to use new technology to create a 3D model of the site.
Organiser Emily Turton, of Huskyan Dive Charters, said: “Data gathered has allowed a greater understanding of the site.”
She added that it “also allows the wider community a chance to see HMS Vanguard after 100 years underwater.”