HMS Bulwark

[Neil Clark]

I often go fishing in the River Medway in a friends boat. Last weekend we decided to try spinning a lure in and around the wreck of the HMS Bulwark. This was a London Class battleship that sunk following an explosion on board. Apparently, an investigation was carried out and enemy action/sabotage was discounted. I have heard that every year a wreath is laid to commemorate the 700 or so men that perished on her.

Its remarkable that many local people are unaware of its location...

[Terry_Reeves]

Bulwark (Capt GL Sclater), was part of 5th Battle Squadron. She had a complement of 750 officers and men. On November 15th, 1914 the squadron arrived off Sheerness and on 26th November, Bulwark started to take on board ammunition when she blew up. Only 12 men survived. Because there was little evidence left, the subsequent Admiralty enquiry could only state that it could not account for the explosion.

Terry Reeves

[Dave Alton]

This extract on the loss of Bulwark is taken from the Admiralty Staff history, CB 1515 (24) The Technical History and Index, Volume 2, Part 24 "Storage and Handling of Explosives in Warships" (October, 1919).

"93. Loss of H.M.S. Bulwark. - On November 26, 1914, HMS Bulwark was lying at a buoy in the River Medway. At 7.53 a.m. she suddenly blew up, and when the smoke resulting from the explosion had cleared no trace of the ship remained beyond a mass of wreckage floating around the buoy to which she had been moored. Of the ship's company of over 750 officers and men, no officers and only a very few men were picket up alive, and of these only nine were in a fit state to give any coherent account of the accident. At the time of the explosion most of these men were in the fore part of the ship. The survivors all stated that they heard a rumbling noise and saw a flash or flame and then knew nothing more until they found themselves in the water. The accounts of a large number of eye-witnesses all agree that the first thing seen was a bright yellow flame in the vicinity of the mainmast, accompanied or immediately followed by a rumbling explosion not unlike a distant thunderclap. The stern of the ship was certainly seen to come out of the water, and the whole ship was immediately enveloped in an enormous cloud of smoke. When this smoke had cleared, the ship had disappeared, but at low water small parts of the wreck were visible.

Examination of the wreck by divers showed that the ship had been literally blown to pieces. Fragments were distributed over a large area of the river bottom, though none of the wreck was found to obstruct the fairway. Bad weather and adverse tides hampered the diving operations to a large extent, and very little was salved from the wreck before the operations were finally abandoned.

First opinions regarding the cause of the disaster tended to attribute it either to sabotage or enemy action. A very circumstantial report of the presence of an enemy submarine in the river, close to the ships, was made by an officer and boat's crew of HMS Agamemnon. They asserted that they saw a periscope and attempted to close it, whilst on their way to the scene of the disaster. The story, however, did not bear sifting, and the court of inquiry dismissed it as improbable. Evidence of all who witnessed the explosion agreed that there was no column of water seen outside the ship, such as would have arisen if a torpedo had struck her. The evidence was, in fact, conclusive that the explosion had been internal.

No facts were brought to light to support the suspicion that the disaster was due to an act of sabotage. Certain inquiries led to the arrest of an ex-naval officer, but the suspicion proved to be groundless. Careful scrutiny into the history of all parcels, &c., which had recently been delivered to the ship, led to nothing suspicious being revealed, and sabotage can be safely rules out from all possible causes of the loss of the ship.

A complete list of the lot numbers of all the cordite on board HMS Bulwark had been left by the gunner of the ship with the Naval Ordnance Officer at Portsmouth as recently as September 1914, and as records had been kept of the supplies made since that date, it was possible to trace the antecedents of all the cordite in the ship. Some of this cordite was old, but it had all given very good heat test, and there was no reason to doubt the stability of any of it. The only F.F. (fire-first) cartridges on board HMS Bulwark were four 6-inch half-charges of a certain lot and no heat tests had been recorded under 21 minutes. It was made F.F. in accordance with the regulations, it having been on the China Station for over two years, although the heat test before issue to HMS Bulwark was over 30 minutes.

The gunnery log of the ship was recovered, and this contained a record of the magazine temperatures for the past year. These temperatures had always been normal, and had only on rare occasions reached 70º F., the highest temperature ever recorded being one of 74º F. In view of these known facts, the spontaneous combustion of any of the cordite was regarded as highly improbable.

The ammunition passages of this class of ship became considerably heated when under steam, and observations made in HMS London, a sister ship, under the same conditions as regards boilers alight, &.c, which obtained on board HMS Bulwark at the time of the accident, showed that the air temperature in these passages varied from 70º to 84º. The bulkheads in the vicinity of certain steam pipes were found to be at temperatures up to 120º. Close to these spots hooks were fitted for hanging shell bags, and it was found that since the outbreak of war it had been the practice in HMS London (and presumably also in HMS Bulwark, as the organisation of the ships was identical) to hang a number of 6-inch charges in K.A. bags during the day. This cordite, which formed the ready-use supply for the upper deck casemates, was sent up to the casemates during the night and sent down again by day. The cordite bags were prevented from coming into actual contact with the hot bulkhead by 2-inch wooden battens, and although the practice of stowing cordite under these conditions was undesirable, there are no reasons for believing that the temperatures to which the cordite had been subjected had caused such rapid deterioration as to result in spontaneous combustion in the short period during which the cordite had been so stowed.

It appeared that it had been the practice to exercise the ammunition-supply parties for the 6-inch guns at drill, using live cartridges. In doing this, the various lots of cordite had become mixed, and on the day before the accident a large "gunner's party" was employed in HMS Bulwark sorting out the cartridges in both the forward and after 6-inch magazines. This operation was performed in the two cross-passages and was not completed during the day. Men were employed at the same work in the early hours of the 26th, and from the evidence of two of the survivors, who happened to visit the ammunition passages about a quarter of an hour before the explosion, it was ascertained that a pile of about 30 bare 6-inch charges remained in both the forward and the after cross-passages. When, at a few minutes before 8 o'clock, the ships company was sent to breakfast, these charges were left in the cross-passages with a sentry on them.

The position as regards cordite at the time of the accident was thus as follows:-

In each main deck casemate there were 20 rounds, either in K.A. cases or in magazine cases. At each end of both cross-passages there was another 20 rounds in K.A. cases. These were hung on the hooks previously referred to, immediately below the ammunition hoists to the upper-deck casemates. In each cross-passage there was a pile of about 30 bare full charges, with a sentry on them. It was not clearly ascertained whether the 6-inch magazines had been closed when the hands were piped to breakfast, but the probability is that they were not. It was also ascertained that in order to facilitate the rapid supply of ammunition to the guns it was the practice to keep a proportion of the lids of the cordite cases in all the magazines permanently off.

As regards shell, 20 were stowed in each casemate and a large number were hung on hooks in the ammunition passages. These shell were equal proportions of common and lyddite, and the latter had recently fuzed. No suspicion attaches to the shell, although it was discovered that it was the practice to remove the caps and pins of the No. 18 fuzes in the lyddite shell on going to night action stations.

At about 7.45 a.m. the ship's company was sent to breakfast and a few minutes afterwards the explosion occurred. There is little doubt that the initial explosion was a cordite one and that it started in the after part of the ammunition passages. As above described a train of exposed cordite was laid round the ship and by some means one of these cartridges became ignited and so caused the disaster. What the actual cause of the ignition of the cordite was it is impossible to say definitely, but the fact that the ship's company had just been sent to breakfast and were therefore allowed to smoke cannot be entirely ignored.

The court of enquiry which investigated the case immediately after the accident stated that they regretfully had to express the opinion that the loss of the ship was due to carelessness on the part of the dead officers who had been in charge of the gunnery department of the ship, and it is feared that to this and no other cause can the disaster be attributed."

Details of other explosions in ships can be read in the rest of the paper, which is available here: http://www.gwpda.org/naval/thist24.htm

Dave

[Jonathan Saunders]

A friend of mine is just completing a book primarily concerning the loss of the Bulwark but also the other British battleships lost to "suspicious" explosions. I will chase him up and see where he is with the publisher.