The wreck of the cruiser HMS Hawke, sunk by German submarine U-9 early in World War One with the loss of 524 officers and crew, appears to have been discovered off Scotland's north-east coast by the Lost in Waters Deep wreck-researchers and Gasperados technical dive team.
The divers are waiting for the Royal Navy to officially confirm the wreck’s identity from their footage. HMS Hawke was one of the earliest British warships to be sunk in WW1, about 10 weeks into the conflict.
Hawke went down in fewer than eight minutes after being struck by a single torpedo on 15 October, 1914, while on patrol in the North Sea out from Aberdeen.
Following exhaustive research led by Stromness-based wreck-hunter Kevin Heath of Lost in Waters Deep, the wreck was pinpointed from the Halton Charters diving support vessel Clasina at a depth of 110m, about 70 miles east of Fraserburgh.
Heath had combed the records of all other British ships with which Hawke might have communicated before the sinking, as well as U-9’s logs, which helped to give an idea of where Hawke might have been when the torpedo was fired.
The team initially checked out an obstruction that had been reported by fishers in the 1980s and found nothing there, but the wreck of the Hawke turned out to lie only about half a mile away.
The dive-team dropped onto the site on 11 August, and reported being surprised by the good condition of the wreck, though the bow had been damaged when it struck the seabed. The ship lay on its starboard side, with minimal marine growth on its surfaces.
Hawke carried two 234mm and ten 152mm guns, plus twelve 6-pounders and four 3-pounders, along with four 457mm torpedo-tubes. The guns were described as many and pristine, with some even appearing to remain reflective in places.
Bridge apparatus remained in place, as did the captain’s walkway at the stern and remains of the teak decks. Many of the intact portholes lay open, reflecting the sudden nature of the sinking, with the rooms inside revealing large amounts of Royal Navy crockery.
Hawke was a 118m Edgar-class protected cruiser (featuring reinforced armour), driven by a pair of three-cylinder triple-expansion engines. She had been commissioned in 1893 at Chatham Dockyard, going on to serve in the Mediterranean Fleet and the International Squadron.
In 1907 Hawke joined the Home Fleet and in September 1911 she smashed her bow in a collision in the Solent with Titanic’s sister-ship the liner RMS Olympic, which sustained considerable hull damage – though no blame was attached to the naval vessel's captain for the incident.
Hawke‘s original inverted bow was crushed by the impact with Olympic’s hull, and was replaced by a straight bow.
At the start of WW1, HMS Hawke joined the 10th Cruiser Squadron, taking part in blockade duties between the Shetland Islands and Norway. In October 1914, the squadron was deployed further south in the North Sea to protect a Canadian troop convoy from German attack.
The cruiser had stopped to pick up mail from the Endymion before moving on, without zig-zagging, to regain her station. She was still out of sight of the rest of the squadron when U-9 launched its deadly strike at 10.30pm.
When Hawke was reported missing the destroyer Swift was sent from Scapa Flow to find her but came across only 22 crew on a raft. A Norwegian steamer had meanwhile picked up 49 more men and one survivor died of his injuries, leaving a total of 70 survivors.
The HMS Hawke story will be posted on the Lost In Waters Deep site, where many other such shipwreck stories can be found.
The Gasperados like to share the details of their expeditions at their annual technical diving conference Guz.tech. The next one takes place at the University of Plymouth on 30 November and it can be booked now for £30.
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