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Sunk by German mine off north-west Orkney on 5 June 1916 with the loss of the UK Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener
The wreck of the 10,850-ton armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire lies 1.5 miles off the 200-foot sheer cliffs of Marwick Head at the north-west tip of the main island of Orkney. It is a very special and sensitive wreck for the people of Orkney – its memory deeply entwined in the fabric of Orkney itself. A total of 737 souls, including the UK Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, and his staff, perished on the fateful night of 5 June 1916 as Hampshire sank quickly after striking a mine laid by a German submarine eight days earlier – part of German preparations for what would develop into the Battle of Jutland. There were only 12 survivors.
The 10,850-ton Devonshire-class armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire. (IWM)
Hampshire was laid down on 1 September 1902 by Armstrong Whitworth at its Elswick shipyard at Newcastle upon Tyne and launched on 24 September 1903. Fitting out afloat was completed on 15 July 1905. She was one of six such vessels in her class and displaced 10,850 long tons with a length overall of 473.5 feet, a beam of 68.5 feet and a deep loaded draught of 25.5 feet.
Hampshire was powered by two 4-cylinder triple expansion steam engines, each driving one of her two shafts and giving her a maximum speed of 22.4 knots. Her two manganese bronze propellers each weighed approximately 43 tons and had a diameter of almost 16 feet. Seventeen Yarrow and six cylindrical Scotch marine boilers provided the high-pressure steam for her two engines.
Hampshire’s main armament consisted of four 45-calibre breech-loading (BL) 7.5-inch Vickers Mk I naval guns mounted in four single-gun turrets, one on the centre line of the fo’c’sle forward of the bridge, two set one on either side of the bridge and the fourth on the centre line towards her stern. These guns fired a 200lb (91 kg) shell to a range of about 12,600 metres – almost 8 miles.
Her secondary battery at the time of construction comprised six BL 6-inch Vickers Mk VII naval guns that fired a 100lb common Lyddite or high explosive (HE) shell with a maximum range of approximately 11,200 metres – almost 7 miles. These guns were arranged in a single casemate on either beam amidships, and a vertical double casemate on either beam towards the stern. The four lower guns were found to be of limited use, particularly in a poor sea, and were demounted in 1916, given gun shields and set on the upper platform deck – replacing four of the Hotchkiss 3-pounders, which were landed. The lower casemate openings were then plated over to improve seakeeping. Hampshire was also fitted at the time of her construction with two single 12-pounder 8cwt guns that could be dismounted for service ashore.
As built, 18 quick firing (QF) 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns were set nine along either side of the mid-section of her beam between main and foremasts. These reliable QF guns were in use with the Royal Navy between 1886 and the 1950s, and during WWI they fired a 3.3lb common Lyddite shell and had a rate of fire of 30 rounds per minute with a range of 4,000 yards. They were intended as a defence against fast enemy torpedo boats or torpedo boat destroyers attacking her beam.
Two lateral submerged 18-inch torpedo tubes were fitted one either side of the vessel just forward of the bridge. Torpedo hatch doors in the hull plating opened to allow a ram to project laterally from the vessel’s beam for the full length of the torpedo, protecting the torpedo from the movement of the water down her side which could potentially jam the torpedo in the beam tube as it came out.
Bow aspect of HMS Hampshire. The top of the waterline vertical armour belt can be seen between the darker hull paintwork below and the lower row of portholes. The two upper fo’c’sle decks, each with a row of portholes, are unarmoured. (IWM)
The ship’s waterline main vertical armour belt ranged from a maximum thickness of 6 inches to 2 inches outwith the citadel, which was closed off at either end by 5-inch transverse bulkheads forward of the foremost 7.5-inch A turret and aft of the aftmost 7.5-inch Y turret. The horizontal deck armour ranged in thickness from 0.75 to 2 inches, whilst her conning tower, made of cast steel because of the complex shape, was 12 inches thick.
On completion in 1905, Hampshire was initially assigned to the 1st Cruiser Squadron of the Channel Fleet and later was assigned to the 6th Cruiser Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet before being transferred to the China Station in 1912.
When World War I began in August 1914, she was in Wei Hai Wei, and was ordered south to the Dutch East Indies to search for the German light cruiser Emden, which was operating in the Indian Ocean. Ingeniously, the Emden’s captain had added a false fourth funnel en route as he passed through the neutral Dutch East Indies to make Emden look like a British light cruiser.
Emden sighted the Hampshire off Sumatra but managed to elude her and go on to sink a succession of Allied vessels before being tracked and destroyed by the Australian light cruiser Sydney on 9 November near the British Cocos Islands. Once Emden had been destroyed, Hampshire was released, and on her return escorted an ANZAC troop convoy through the Indian Ocean and Red Sea to Egypt. She then returned to Britain to join the Grand Fleet where, serving with the 2nd Cruiser Squadron, she saw action at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May and 1 June 1916.
The series of defeats which had overwhelmed Russia on the Eastern Front during 1915 had made it imperative for a high-ranking British minister to go there and examine the situation. The British Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, the creator of Britain’s new volunteer army and organiser of Western Front resistance, was chosen. Russia had demanded huge consignments of munitions, so the British Minster of Munitions and his staff would go as well – Kitchener had the experience to gauge how far Britain’s munitions factories could assist.
One of the famous World War I recruiting posters featuring Lord Kitchener’s image.
Lord Kitchener had been the driving force behind Britain’s recruitment campaign in the early years of World War I with his famous ‘YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU’ poster. But by 1916, he was being openly criticised for his war tactics and beliefs. In the years following his death, a bitter controversy would rage about the sinking of the ship he had been on, the Hampshire. Was it really a mine, as per the official explanation – or was it a bomb planted by German, Irish or even British saboteurs? Great play was made of the fact that the Stromness lifeboat had not put to sea to pick up survivors, and that locals trying to get to the scene to help in a shore search were turned back at bayonet point.
At the beginning of June 1916, Kitchener travelled north up through Britain to the port of Thurso and on 5 June he crossed the stormy Pentland Firth from Thurso to Scapa Flow in the destroyer Oak. He was received aboard HMS Iron Duke by Admiral Jellicoe and the flag officers of the British Grand Fleet, and listened at lunch with interest as they recounted their exploits in the Battle of Jutland, which had taken place only a few days earlier.
The commander of the Hampshire, Captain Savill, had received his sailing orders the day before, on 4 June: Hampshire was to depart Scapa Flow on 5 June for Archangel in northern Russia – a journey of 1,649 nautical miles. She was to pass up the east side of Orkney on a route that was regularly swept for mines and to maintain a speed of not less than 18 knots. She was instructed to pass midway between the Shetlands and Orkney, and keep not less than 200 miles from the Norwegian coast on her journey north. She would have a protective screen of two destroyer escorts as far north as latitude 62°N, and from there on she would proceed alone at 18 knots, zigzagging to avoid torpedo attack.
Chart showing