The three submerged torpedo tubes were also recovered: two beam tubes and one through the stern. The three tubes are noted as still being in place with the sliding doors in the closed position by salvage diver Frank Lilleker in Salvaging HMS Vanguard, 1958–59. A hole was blown near the stern tube door to get access to the tube, but once that was done an inspection revealed a circular flange against which a roughly shaped piece of plate was bolted, as though the tube itself had been removed for maintenance. The tube was believed to still be inside the stern, but had not been located by the time he finished his salvage work there.
To enable the torpedo to be fired from the beam, when the ship was steaming ahead a ram was first run out to cut a path through the water and allow the torpedo to clear the ship’s side without water pressure from the forward movement of the ship jamming the torpedo in the tube. These rams produced about 7 tons of gunmetal for the salvors when lifted and scrapped.
One of the ship’s bells was also discovered still hanging in a tangled mess of wreckage. It was lifted to the surface and was subsequently returned to the shipbuilders.
Following on from the good relations developed with the MOD and Royal Navy in relation to the Hampshire expedition, Emily Turton applied to the UK Secretary of State for Defence for a diving licence to use the same techniques to survey the Vanguard on the approach of the 100th anniversary of the sinking on 9 July 2017.
The licence was granted on terms similar to the Hampshire licence, and over the course of a preliminary one week’s diving the wreck during November 2016 and two further weeks diving during January/February 2017, Emily led a specialist team as they thoroughly surveyed and recorded the wreck with stunning atmospheric stills photography, video and 3D photogrammetry. As with the Hampshire imagery, once the photogrammetry results are ready they will be made publicly available for the common good. I was privileged to participate as a survey diver and videographer in the preliminary week of diving in November 2016.
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The wreck of this famous battleship lies in 30–35 metres of water less than one mile north of the tanker pier at Flotta to the south – the Vanguard east cardinal marker buoy swings nearby to the east. Although licensed salvage work was carried out on the wreck in the 1950s and 1970s, no diving has been permitted since the 1980s by virtue of Orkney Harbour Bye Laws and latterly by the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. Now that I was part of a licensed survey team, after 35 years of diving in Scapa Flow but being unable to visit this wreck, I was now about to see this World War I dreadnought, hidden from sight for so long under the dark waters of Scapa Flow.
Preliminary sonar scans of the area revealed that the wreck lies with her bows to the north-east and her stern to the south-west. The two extreme sections of the wreck, the bow and stern, appeared to have survived largely intact. The fo’c’sle appeared to be sitting upright, detached from the rest of the wreck. The mid-section of the ship kept its ship shape on the sonar whilst the stern of the wreck appeared to be lying on its port side.
On Day 1 of the November 2016 expedition, the shotline was dropped to the seabed near the bow. After being aware of the history of this ship for so long, but never having dived it, I found it particularly moving to finally descend through the water column and see the majestic bow of this great dreadnought materialise in the depths below.
The bow section, from the stem back for some 60 feet, was sitting upright, with a least depth of about 25 metres at the top of the stem. The intact stem rose up from the seabed for about 11 metres but as I began to swim aft on the fo’c’sle deck, it quickly angled downwards towards the seabed where the ship has seemingly been cleaved across – just forward of where the barrels of A turret would have ended. The two large fairleads immediately abaft the stem (seen in the archive black and white photo) were still present, and portholes, still with their glass in them, lined either side of the fo’c’sle, interspersed by the two starboard anchor hawses and the single port hawse.
One of the three anchor capstans was sticking up out of the deck, exposing its axle – the collapsing of the deck from the stem aft has thrust it upwards from its original position on the deck. There are empty holes in the deck where the other two capstans have been blasted out of the ship as she blew up. Thick teak deck planks still lined the fo’c’sle deck above what was the officer’s accommodation lit by a large centreline deck skylight that was still in place. A very different arrangement for officer accommodation from latter classes.
Just aft of the anchor hawse pipes, the sides of the ship flared out from the fo’c’sle, and one deck level down the upper deck begins, widening out to the full beam of the ship as you go aft. The sides of the ship here at the beginning of the upper deck, although still present, have been blown outwards and separated from the inner ship – the vertical armour belt plates on the starboard side are smoothly bent outwards by an incredible force.
The bow section just ends abruptly as the sloping deck reaches the seabed. The very end of the decking has a lip that angles abruptly downwards as a result of the centre of the ship lifting as she exploded. It appears that the bottom of the ship here at the bow has been blown out – and that the uppermost section of the bow has been detached and moved to end up sitting on the sand. The base of the stem is blown out allowing views inside through a sizeable hole.
Moving aft, as the bow section ends abruptly, it gives way to empty flat seabed that is scattered here and there with small sections of ship – the bow is seemingly isolated from the rest of the ship. Out at a 120-degree angle from the starboard side of the bow over scattered sticks of cordite there is an open expanse of seabed for some 20 metres before you arrive at the remains of A turret barbette, which lies on the seabed just as Frank Lilleker describes in Salvaging HMS Vanguard, 1958–59. The barbette lies on its side with the gunhouse deck to the north. The circular roller path on which the gunhouse turned is complete, but the gunhouse and barrels are missing.
Immediately aft of A turret barbette, and partly lying on top of it, is a section of tubular foremast along with the two tripod leg supports and the spotting top platform, which lies on its starboard side. The foremast leads down to an armoured chamber, and it is believed that most of the bridge is still here in the mass of structure in this area.
It appears that A turret barbette has been blown out of the ship – or that the ship around it has been totally destroyed. The barbette has landed on its side, whilst the lower sections of the bridge superstructure immediately abaft of it have been devastated and blown away, allowing the section of tripod mast and spotting top, high above it, to fall directly down.
After a long swim of about 50 metres out north-east, on the starboard side of the wreck what is believed to be the Q wing turret can be found – lying upside down and in isolation but amongst scattered small sections of ship.
The ship is largely gone here in the vicinity of P and Q turrets, which the Court of Inquiry appears to have correctly found to have been the centre of the explosion. There is a marked shallow depression in the seabed here, as though the seabed was excavated by the explosion. This may be ground zero, and is a similar effect to what I have seen when diving wrecks carrying munitions in Truk Lagoon that were catastrophically destroyed in a single secondary munitions explosion.
South of Q turret and the depression, the ship begins to reform – scattered large sections of plate and hull appear at first, before the tangled confusion of the innards of the battleship abaft P and Q turret appear. The sides of the ship with the vertical armour belt are gone – blown out and the armour plates salved. There is a large section of the port side of the ship, lined with a single row of portholes, which is angled back towards the stern and rests upright on the seabed.
Within the ragged outline of the ship as you move aft, the first of the sets of Babcock & Wilcox marine boilers start to be found. The boilers are more intact and stacked upon one another on the port side, whilst they are more distressed on the starboard side.