#maritime trgedy

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Tragedy struck when the naval yacht Iolaire struck a reef on approaching Stornoway Harbour in the early hours of New Years Day 1919.

It has been described as the blackest day in the history of the Western Isles when more than 200 servicemen returning from the First World War died as their ship went down in sight of Stornoway harbour. Despite being Britain’s worst maritime disaster since the Titanic, the loss of the Iolaire remains little known beyond the isles.

The disaster occurred at 1.55am on 1st January 1919, when 205 Lewis and Harris men drowned as the HMY Iolaire sank in heavy seas. They had survived the war and were returning home for the New Year celebrations when the ship struck the rocks at Holm, 20 yards from the shore.

A report in the Stornoway Gazette recorded the impact of the tragedy:

No one now alive in Lewis can ever forget the 1st January 1919, and future generations will speak of it as the blackest day in the history of the island, for on it 200 of our bravest and best perished on the very threshold of their homes under the most tragic circumstances.  The terrible disaster at Holm on New Year’s morning has plunged every house and every heart in Lewis into grief unutterable.  Language cannot express the anguish, the desolation, the despair which this awful catastrophe has inflicted.  One thinks of the wide circle of blood relations affected by the loss of even one of the gallant lads, and imagination sees those circles multiplied by the number of the dead, overlapping and overlapping each other till the whole island – every hearth and home it is shrouded in deepest gloom.

Messages of sympathy were received from far and wide, including from the King and Queen and from Lord Leverhulme, who had purchased the island of Lewis the previous year. He also led calls for a disaster fund to be set up and fund raising events were initiated.   The Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Associations of Edinburgh and Glasgow arranged to take collections in all picture houses under their control for a week. A fundraising concert was arranged in the Usher Hall in Edinburgh on 14 February 1919, at which Scott Skinner, the acclaimed  fiddler and composer and many others performed.

A naval inquiry held at the time was not made public until 1970. It had concluded that no blame could be attributed to anybody as the ship’s log had been lost and all of the officers had perished.

The subject of my previous post, Iain Crichton Smith’s penned a poignant poem The Iolaire, about the tragedy, Peter May touched upon the tragedy in hius novel, The Chessmen, part of the Lewis Trilogy.

No other area of the country saw such a high percentage of its young, male, fight and die in the war.

Local man John Finlay Macleod’s actions were crucial in saving 40 lives. Macleod saw the crash from the shore, grabbed a rope, and jumped in the water to set up a rescue line. The other 39 survivors either swam to shore or were rescued from the wreck, meaning that the rescue line was responsible for more than half of the rescues that night.

The pics are of the memorials to this tragedy, the original obelisk dates to 1960 and is joined by a nearby cairn. For the centenary of the sinking, the Outer Hebridean arts institution An Lanntair commissioned a group of artists including Arthur Watson, Marian Levan, and Will Maclean to create an additional sculpture to be incorporated into the memorial. Recognizing John Finlay Macleod, the bronze showcases a coiled rope and was unveiled by Prince Charles in January 2019.

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March 17th 1969 Longhope lifeboat sank in the Pentland Firth with the loss of eight men on board, all from the small island of Hoy.

The lifeboat TGB capsized on 17 March, 1969, after setting out from Hoy in Orkney, to help a cargo ship adrift in a fierce storm.The next day, it was found floating upside down in the Pentland Firth. No-one survived. 

On the night of the tragedy, the Liberian-registered Irene had sent out a mayday reporting it was in trouble. A Force 9 gale, coupled with a spring tide, led to waves 60ft high. The TGB, a 47ft Watson-class lifeboat constructed of wood, went to its aid in conditions of near-zero visibility.

Radio contact was later lost. The lifeboat is believed to have been overturned by a freak wave, possibly 100ft (30.5m) high.When the boat was recovered, the bodies of all but one of the crew were inside the hull. The coxswain was still at the helm. The disaster was a terrible blow for the community of Brims. Thirty people lived here and the disaster had taken a man from every home.

It later emerged the Irene was closer to shore than initially reported, and its crew were brought ashore safely. 

The photo shows a memorial to the heroic men that was erected at Longhope Cemetery by their widows & mothers  in 1970.

More on this disaster here http://www.scapaflow.co/index.php/the_scheme/the_48_projects/the_longhope_lifeboat_disaster

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April 28th 1919 saw two crew members lose their lives from Fraserburgh lifeboat,  Lady Rothes.

The Fraserburgh lifeboat crew of 13 had launched their motor lifeboat Lady Rothes, following a call for help from the Admiralty drifter Eminent. In a gale, the ship’s engine had broken down. They signalled for help at 9am, drifting towards shore at the south end of Fraserburgh Bay.

Someone had called out “It’s nae a day for oilskins today, lads!” – the inference being that if the boat capsized the oilskins would drag the wearer under if they capsized.’ Coxswain Andrew Noble and Acting Second Coxswain Andrew Farquhar were the only ones who chose to wear oilskins. 

All the lifeboat crew put on their lifejackets and launched.

The crew had a lot of faith in the lifeboat. It was self-righting and had proven its mettle in previous rescues. The volunteers were ready to take to the oars if the engines couldn’t power through the heavy swell. Before the lifeboat reached the Eminent, disaster struck. 

The lifeboat took one lump of water on the port bow , it knocked her onto her beam end and the second wave caused her to capsize. Three of the crew members managed to cling onto the lifeboat, but ten were thrown overboard.  

The Lifeboat magazine of that The 42ft-long Lady Rothes was just overcome by the swell, the sheer weight of the water and the size of the waves.’ era described it as a ‘DEPLORABLE accident’. Nobody was at fault.   

The lifeboat righted herself immediately. Four of the crew managed to clamber back onboard, out of the icy water. Two of the others clung onto the lifelines on the hull of the lifeboat.

That left four of the lifeboat crew strewn across the water. The lifeboat and the men were swept helplessly towards the beach.

The desperate crowd on the shore pulled the men clear of the surf. Andrew Noble and Andrew Farquhar were alive when they were cast up on the beach, but despite medical attention, they died almost immediately.

Many people are shocked to learn that the men died after being pulled out alive. You can only surmise that it was due to exposure, exhaustion, cold water shock, inhalation of water or secondary drowning. We’ll never know whether their oilskins made a difference in the water.

The rest of the crew survived. 

Meanwhile, the Eminent and crew were still in distress. Eminent ran aground. Those ashore managed to attach a line to the boat and all nine of the Eminent’s crew were saved.

Reports are sketchy about how it happened as the newspapers focused on the lifeboat tragedy. It might have been the local lifesaving brigade. There was also one report of heroism by a man called Stocks, a boxing champion, who jumped into the raging sea with a line and swam to the Eminent.

Both Andrew Noble and Andrew Farquhar left widows and children, who the RNLI was able to help them financially.

It was a huge loss for the station and community. Andrew Noble was an RNLI medal-winning coxswain who had served since 1887. Andrew Farquhar volunteered on the crew and worked as a pilot at Fraserburgh Harbour.

The lifeboat had been at Fraserburgh since 1915. It was named after the Countess of Rothes who survived the Titanic disaster, and funded by her father.

The lifeboat had minimal damage from the disaster and was back on service in a matter of weeks. It’s an indication of the faith that the crew had in their lifeboat, that the same volunteers came forward.

The Fraserburgh crew continued to save lives on the Lady Rothes until she was retired from service in 1937.

Pics are of the lifeboat and  Andrew Noble (left) and Andrew Farquhar (right)

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On July 9th 1917 tragedy  struck when the HMS Vanguard blew up in Scapa Flow with the loss of over 800 lives.

Built in 1909 this was the eighth ship to bear the name Vanguard and was part of a new generation of Dreadnought battleships.

After conducting exercises in Scapa Flow she proceeded to anchor for the evening. At 11.20pm a series of internal explosions sank the ship almost immediately. Some 843 men died. Only two men survived, although another source says three.

It was initially feared that a German U-boat had caused the disaster but an investigation determined that an accidental explosion probably caused by cordite inside the battleship’s magazines sank the ship.

101 years on it is still the worst accident in the Royal Navy’s wartime history. On the night of the explosion, 16 of the ship’s officers were on another vessel watching a concert. Another eight ratings tasked with collecting the officers had just left the Vanguard in a small boat.

Only three men who were on-board HMS Vanguard (out of 845) survived the initial explosion, however, Lieutenant Commander Alan Duke, later died of his injuries, which is probably why the other source gave me three survivors? The other two men, Marine J Williams and Stoker 1st Class FW Cox, miraculously survived the explosion. The men are said to have been unable to recall the disaster and described being asleep in their bunks before waking up swimming away from the battleship. Very little is known about the lives of the two sailors following the disaster.

The wreck was heavily salvaged after the war, but was eventually protected as a war grave in 1984. It was designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, and diving on the wreck is generally forbidden.

A simple Celtic Cross memorial remembers those lost that night at Lyness Naval Cemetery, Orkney there are 445 Commonwealth burials here of the First World War, 109 of which are unidentified. The majority of the graves are of officers, ratings, and members of the land forces lost from the Vanguard. It is one of the largest military graveyards in the country.