St Kilda shelled by U90 in May 1918

[corisande]

Covid willing, I will be going to the remote island of St Kilda next May. I was researching the island and came across a fascinating tale of a German U-Boat (U-90) pumping 74 shells into the island in May 1918

 

I would be grateful for any further information on the event

 

• The RMLI Captain  Frank Athow was dismissed soon after arriving at St Kilda in 1915. I have no idea why
• The 4inch gun installed must have come from somewhere, but I do not know where
• As far as I can tell the attack in May  was not reported until October in the press
• Any other additions anyone can make
• The attack on St Kilda in May 1918 was the last of fifteen attacks on the coast of Great Britain by German naval Forces during WW1. I had no idea tree were so many

 

The island had a population of under 100 locals plus 14 Naval personnel. The navy ran a wireless station there to keep watch o German vessels.

 

There is a very detailed write up by National Trust for Scotland - click - who own the island and were examining  the conservation of the gun emplacement

 

• The Kriegstagebuch  of U-90 described firing on St Kilda on May 15th 1918 . The U-Boats log uses submarine time which was one hour ahead of local St Kilda time) and the U-boat records that at
• 09.00 The captain decided to see if the St Kilda group was being used as a military base. And that because of the cloud cover over St Kilda, he decided to use the channel between St Kilda and Boreray
• 09.55 he notes that Boreray is uninhabited. But with clearing cloud he can see 2 men on the eastern ridge of St Kilda. He dives
• 10.00 At periscope depth he heads for Village Bay
• 10.55 Enters Village Bay on the surface, and orders the manning of the U-Boat's gun. The inhabitants spot the U-Boat and the captain can see that there is panic with about 100 people trying to get away from the village
• 11.38 Having given a warning (I think by radio) he opens fire from 3000 meters
• After a number of his shots he determines that there is no return artillery from the island, and enters further into the bay, opening fire again from 1700 meters.
• In total he fired 74 shells, of which about 30 found their targets and destroyed them. But he could not knock down the radio towers.
• He decided against a landing to check the damage and to carry out demolition, as he could see armed men on the shore. In addition he had picked up emergency signals from British land station to watch out for enemy ships
• 12.28 Fire suspended and exits the bay.
• Continues away from St Kilda on his patrol

 

U-90 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walter Remy while on the way out to a patrol area was responsible for the shelling. U-90 was a Type ‘Mittel U’ U-boat of the German Imperial Navy, built by Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig and launched on 12th January 1917, undertaking 7 patrols between 10th September 1917 and 11th November 1918. It was surrendered on 20th November 1918 and broken up at Boness on the Firth of Forth.

 

Immediately after the attack on St Kilda, two auxiliary patrol vessels were permanently stationed in the bay. And a 4inch gun installed in the village, but it was not ready for action until Oct 1918 and hence never saw action

 

The sketch's source is not known. The map is my interpretation of the U-Boats shelling positions. The gun was described as 4-inch Mark III QF

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 2 October , 2020 by corisande

[horatio2]

18 minutes ago, corisande said:

RMLI Captain  Frank Athow was dismissed soon after arriving at St Kilda in 1915. I have no idea why

Nothing in his record to confirm dismissal or a  brief time at St Kilda. He was appointed (from HMS HERMES sinking) to serve six months as OC and Censor at St Kilda W/T Station from 11 November 1914 to 25 May 1915.

 

Enjoy your visit to a wonderful island - but wear a hard-hat. The resident skuas are viscious and attack the heads of visitors.. I still bear the scar.

[corisande]

Thanks. Although it is 6 months away , I have no idea whether Covid will stop the trip. It looks really interesting place and I will be disappointed if we do not get there

 

The Nat Trust site has "Captain Athow left St Kilda on the 20th May 1915 on a trawler for Oban, after he was recommended for dismissal by Wardle of HMS Calyx" But if there is nothing on his record, it does look as if he just served the intended 6 months. It did not look to me that they needed a Captain to supervise the Wireless station, and he was never replaced by another officer

 

I have found over years of travel, that it is better to research things oneself, rather to rely on guides who are more interested in Entertaining! So I had an interesting day yesterday researching St Kilda

[horatio2]

 

Commander Thomas E. Wardle, commanded the AMC HMS CALYX 19 November, 1914 – 23 March, 1915. He relinquished command of CALYX two months before Capt Athow left St Kilda. "The Big Blockade " by E Keble Chatterton has some narrative of CALYX operations around St Kilda in late 1914 "... in which radio played some amusing pranks."  CALYX nearly foundered in a gale off St Kilda on 26 December. Earlier that month "... CALYX had been ordered to St Kilda to inquire how they were getting on there with the new wireless station.. 'A dreadful thing has happened, ' was the greeting: 'the Minister's cow has had a dead calf!' "

 

If Wardle did send an adverse report from CALYX after the December 1914 events at St Kilda, it took five months to be actioned - so perhaps unlikely.

 

[corisande]

Thanks

 

It is interesting how much was going on there, including the Minister's cow :-)

[MikB]

Thanks for posting that. I didn't know of that attack, though I might've come across it before and forgotten.

 

Of course, most of the larger coastal bombardments had a clearer strategic objective - to draw fast units of the RN, especially battlecruisers, into severely outnumbered action against the supporting High Seas Fleet. 

[Hyacinth1326]

Such attacks presented a means of tweaking  the lion's tail in his own backyard. I believe on 5/6/18 some crew from U-90 actually landed on  remote North Rona, to seize sheep.

A U-boat  demolition party was landed on the coast of North Yorkshire in 1917. 

 

'Fips' Furbringer lobbed a few shells into Seaham in 1916 which killed an unfortunate woman.  Seascale in  Cumbria was also shelled by a U-boat 

The painting is by Claus Bergen by the way.

Edited 3 October , 2020 by Hyacinth1326

[Matlock1418]

6 hours ago, corisande said:

Covid willing, I will be going to the remote island of St Kilda next May.

Hope you can make it - It's a fantastic place.

I sailed out there [under sail] and visited it many decades ago, but missed the gun emplacement - Doh!

Was more interested in the scenery/geology and wildlife back then.

Now it is the GW

I shall follow your thread, and hopefully your travels, with much interest.

:-) M

 

Edited 2 October , 2020 by Matlock1418

[Matlock1418]

4 hours ago, corisande said:

It is interesting how much was going on there, including the Minister's cow

Visited Dublin a couple of decades ago and the second item on the local radio news was about a missing donkey with a long grey face!

:-) M

[corisande]

1 hour ago, Hyacinth1326 said:

I believe there is one instance of a U-crew actually landing on a remote Scottish island to seize sheep 

 

U-90 captured Lieutenant Edouard Izac when it sunk the President Lincoln , taking him prisoner, and eventually taking him to Germany. Amazingly, on the way back from this patrol, U-90 stopped at North Rona on 5th June 1918 and took seven sheep. Izac later wrote a book about his experiences while captured and that is (apparently) in his book. In the posted excerpts he gives a lot of detail on the shooting of the sheep

 

The commander of U19 Johannes Spiess, describes in his book "Seven Years in a Uboat"that he sent men ashore at both St Kilda and North Rona get sheep meat and eggs - but there is no record of the inhabitants seeing them. (again I have not red the book myself!)

 

[corisande]

31 minutes ago, Matlock1418 said:

I sailed out there [under sail] and visited it many decades ago, but missed the gun emplacement - Doh!

Was more interested in the scenery/geology and wildlife back then.

 

I have done a lot of sailing around the Western Isles when I lived in Northern Ireland, but never got to St Kilda. . This time I am going on a bigger boat, so it could be cancelled if Covid is too rampant.

 

The ship stops at Dublin as well, and my wife is concerned about the man who has to give a lecture on the Easter Rising - I may not know anything about St Kilda, but I do know a lot about the War of Independence

[corisande]

An amusing slant on news reporting of the time and spin from a local Port Glasgow paper which cannot understand tha the |Germans would want to blow up a peaceful wireless station