2nd Clarinet
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In Memory - HMS Bulwark26th November 1914.
On the 26th November 1914, the following members of the Royal Marines Band Service gave their lives while serving onboard HMS Bulwark.
Bandmaster E.Scofield.
Band Corporal A.J. Beaby.
Musicians H.J. Barrell, A.T. Hope, A.J.W. Mahon, F. Moore, G. Robertson, F. Davis, H. King, D. Cambell, C.C. Goodman, W.G. Hendry, J. Whichello, H. Averley and W. Maxwell.
I have posted below, the circumstances of that day.
HMS Bulwark belonged to a sub-class of the Formidable-class of predreadnought battleships of the British Royal Navy known as the London class.
HMS Bulwark was laid down at Devonport Dockyard on 20 March 1899 and launched on 18 October 1899. She began trials in May 1901 and was completed in March 1902.
Like the first three Formidable-class ships, Bulwark and her four London-class sisters were similar in appearance to and had the same armament as the Majestic and Canopus classes that preceded them.
History
HMS Bulwark had a long refit immediately after completion for the installation of fire control, but finally commissioned at Devonport Dockyard on 11 March 1902 for Mediterranean Fleet service, relieving battleship HMS Renown as fleet flagship on 1 May 1902. She underwent a refit at Malta in 1905-1906. Her Mediterranean Fleet service ended when she paid off at Devonport on 11 February 1907.
On 12 February 1907, Bulwark recommissioned to serve as Flagship, Rear Admiral, Nore Division, Home Fleet, at the Nore. She grounded near Lemon Light in the North Sea on 26 October 1907, and underwent a refit at Chatham Dockyard in 1907-1908.
In 1908, Captain Robert Falcon Scott of Antarctic fame became Bulwark's commander, becoming the youngest junior battleship commander at that time.
Bulwark joined the Channel Fleet on 3 October 1908. Under the fleet reorganization of 24 March 1909, the Channel Fleet became the 2nd Division of the Home Fleet, and Bulwark thus became a Home Fleet unit. She underwent a refit later in 1909.
On 1 March 1910, Bulwark commissioned into the reserve at Devonport with a nucleus crew as Flagship, Vice Admiral, 3rd and 4th Divisions, Home Fleet, at the Nore.
She began a refit at Chatham in September 1911, and grounded twice on Barrow Deep off the Nore during refit trials in May 1912, suffering bottom damage.
Her refit complete in June 1912, she recommissioned and joined the 5th Battle Squadron. From the beginning of World War I in August 1914, Bulwark and the 5th Battle Squadron, assigned to the Channel Fleet and based at Portland upon the outbreak of war, carried out numerous patrols in the English Channel under the command of Captain Guy Sclater.
From 5 November 1914 to 9 November 1914, while anchored at Portland, Bulwark hosted the court martial of Rear Admiral Sir Ernest Charles Thomas Troubridge for his actions during the pursuit of the German battlecruiser Goeben and light cruiser Breslau in the Mediterranean Sea in August 1914.
On 14 November 1914, the 5th Battle Squadron transferred to Sheerness to guard against a possible German invasion.
A powerful internal explosion ripped the Bulwark apart at 7.50am on 26 November 1914 while she was moored at Number 17 buoy in Kethole Reach, four miles (6 km) west of Sheerness in the estuary of the River Medway.
All of her officers were lost, and out of her complement of 750, only 14 sailors survived; two of these men subsequently died of their injuries in hospital, and almost all of the remaining survivors were seriously injured.
The only men to survive the explosion comparatively unscathed were those who had been in Number 1 mess deck amidships, who were blown out of an open hatch.
One of these men, Able Seaman Stephen Marshall, described feeling the sensation of "a colossal draught", being drawn "irresistibly upwards", and, as he rose in the air, clearly seeing the ship's masts shaking violently.
Witnesses on battleship Implacable, the next ship in line at the mooring, reported that "a huge pillar of black cloud belched upwards... From the depths of this writhing column flames appeared running down to sea level.
The appearance of this dreadful phenomenon was followed by a thunderous roar.
Then came a series of lesser detonations, and finally one vast explosion that shook the Implacable from mastheads to keel."
The destruction of the Bulwark was also witnessed on board battleship Formidable, where "when the dust and wreckage had finally settled a limp object was seen hanging from the wireless aerials upon which it had fallen.
With difficulty the object was retrieved and found to be an officer's uniform jacket with three gold bands on the sleeves and between them the purple cloth of an engineer officer.
The garment's former owner had been blasted into fragments."
Perhaps the most detailed descriptions of the disaster came from witnesses on board battleships Prince of Wales and Agamemnon, both of whom stated that smoke issued from the stern of the ship prior to the explosion and that the first explosion appeared to take place in an after magazine.
A naval court of enquiry into the causes of the explosion, held on 28 November 1914, established that it had been the practice to store ammunition for the Bulwark's six-inch (152 mm) guns in cross-passageways connecting her total of 11 magazines.
It suggested that, contrary to regulations, 275 six-inch shells had been placed close together, most touching each other, and some touching the walls of the magazine, on the morning of the explosion.
The most likely cause of the disaster appears to have been overheating of cordite charges stored alongside a boiler room bulkhead, and this was the explanation accepted by the court of enquiry.
It has also been suggested that damage caused to a single one of the shells stored in battleship's cross-passageways may have weakened the fusing mechanism and caused the shell to become 'live'.
A blow to the shell, caused by it being dropped point down, could then have set off a chain reaction of explosions among the shells stored in the Bulwark's cross-passageways sufficient to detonate the ship's magazines.
On 29 November 1914, divers sent to find the wreck reported that the ship's port bow as far aft as the sick bay had been blown off by the explosion and lay 50 feet (15 m) east of the mooring.
The starboard bow lay 30 feet (9 m) further away.
The remainder of the ship had been torn apart so violently that no other large portions of the wreck could be found.
The wreck site is designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act
In terms of loss of life, the explosion on HMS Bulwark remains the second most catastrophic in the history of the UK. (The most deadly explosion in British history was that of battleship HMS Vanguard, caused by a stokehold fire detonating a magazine, at Scapa Flow in 1917.)
To those named above and the ships crew who also died.....R.I.P.
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