War Graves

The disaster was raised in the House of Commons. On 28 January 1894, the three-masted iron-clad barque Port Yarrock -- carrying refined copper ore worth GBP 100,000 from the US to Cobh -- was driven onto Kilcummin strand in Brandon Bay after dragging her anchors for over a week in a disabled state. All 20 British and Scandinavian crew perished; seven bodies were never recovered. The Court of Inquiry blamed the managing owner, Robert John Rowat, for allowing the ship to sail short-handed and for failing to send instructions to move her to safety. An anchor and centenary memorial stone placed in 1994 stand on shore above Kilcummin strand. Very shallow shore exploration in the Maharees area.

Few wrecks carry the emotional weight of the Rohilla. This Harland & Wolff-built liner had been requisitioned as a hospital ship just weeks into the First World War and was steaming south from Scotland to collect wounded soldiers from France when a northeast gale drove her onto Whitby Rock in the early hours of 30 October 1914. With shore lights blacked out for wartime, her crew never saw the reef. What followed was a three-day rescue drama that gripped the nation — lifeboats launching repeatedly into mountainous seas, spectators lining the cliffs, and 83 lives lost despite extraordinary courage from the rescuers. Most of the dead were doctors and nurses. The site is a war grave. At low spring tides, structural remains break the surface — a stark reminder visible to anyone walking the coastal path above.

The Admiralty first feared a U-boat, then concluded that a cordite fire had reached HMS Natal's magazine, the same kind of explosion that destroyed other British warships at anchor during the war. On 30 December 1915 the Second Cruiser Squadron's armoured cruiser lay at anchor off Cromarty, wives and children aboard for Captain Eric Back's film show, when fire broke out and her magazines blew up. She capsized almost at once, with heavy loss of life; tugs and warships pulled more than 300 men from the water. Her upturned hull stayed in the firth for the rest of the war, and salvage went on into the late 1970s. Her scattered remains lie in about 15 metres, marked by a buoy.

Bound from Nantes for Bilbao, where she was to take on iron ore for Glasgow, the French steamer Longwy was off Corsewall Point in early November 1917 when the German submarine UC-75 torpedoed her. Captain Joseph Huet and twenty-eight of his men died, and the captain's body later came ashore at Girvan. Her masts still broke the surface, so a temporary Notice to Mariners went out and the Northern Lighthouse Board laid a lit buoy beside her as a warning to shipping; it was not lifted until October 1919. She now lies broken in the Firth of Clyde, her boilers, triple expansion engine and stern section still recognisable.

More than 564 people died when the RMS Leinster went down, a toll no other single sinking in the Irish Sea has matched, and one of the most devastating maritime disasters of World War I. Near the Kish Bank on 10 October 1918, UB-123 fired three torpedoes at her. The first went wide and the second hit her port side. Captain Birch was trying to bring her round toward Kingstown when the third almost cut her in two. Of the 22 postal sorters on board, 21 were killed. Built at Birkenhead in 1896 as a mail steamer for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, she lies at 28 metres, around 4 nautical miles east of the Kish Light. Her bow stands proud of the seabed, while the rest has largely collapsed into the sand. Her anchor was raised in 1991 and is on display at Carlisle Pier, Dun Laoghaire. She is a war grave.

Of the twelve men aboard the armed minesweeper George Milburn, only one lived: the blast hurled him clear into the sea, and a passing fishing boat later picked him up. She was a 37-metre steel steam trawler, built by R. Irvin & Son and converted for war service. On 12 July 1917 she was escorting the oiler SS Wylie on the run from Queenstown to Milford when a mine from UC-42 went off amidships and tore her apart, killing eleven of her crew outright. She now lies broken in two at 23 metres, west of Hook Head in Waterford Harbour, and is a designated war grave.

The crew of UC-42 were laying mines to destroy other ships when one of their own mines destroyed them. On 10 September 1917, this German UC II-class minelaying submarine was deploying a minefield at the entrance to Cork Harbour off Roches Point when a mine detonated, killing all 27 crew instantly. She rests on her port side with the keel visible and an external bow torpedo tube lying in the silt beneath. A licence under the National Monuments Acts is required to dive this protected site.

On the night of 14 October 1939, Kapitanleutnant Gunther Prien threaded U-47 through the supposedly impassable defences of Kirk Sound and put four torpedoes into a battleship at anchor. Eight hundred and thirty-five men — many of them boy sailors barely into their teens — died in the cold water of Scapa Bay. HMS Royal Oak now lies upturned in 33 metres, still weeping fuel oil after more than eight decades, marked by a green buoy bearing a simple request: respect their resting place. Every year, Royal Navy divers descend to replace the White Ensign on her hull, the only people authorised to visit a wreck protected under the highest classification of the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. The sinking transformed Scapa Flow's defences: Churchill ordered permanent causeways across the eastern approaches, and Italian prisoners of war built the barriers that still carry Orkney's roads today.

A little before midnight on 9 July 1917, a chain of blasts ripped through the anchorage at Scapa Flow, hurling debris onto ships lying half a mile off. HMS Vanguard had exploded where she was moored. Two of the 845 men aboard lived. No accident in the whole of the twentieth century cost the Royal Navy more lives. The Court of Enquiry put it down to cordite going off by accident: unstable propellant kept in magazines whose temperatures were badly controlled. So complete was the destruction that her remains, strewn over the seabed in 34 metres off the north coast of Flotta, look little like the St Vincent-class dreadnought she had been. The Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 makes her a war grave, as it does HMS Royal Oak, and diving on her is forbidden. Those of her dead who could be recovered are buried at Lyness Royal Naval Cemetery on Hoy, looking out over the water where they died.

Friday the 13th lived up to its reputation. On 13 April 1917, the SS Bandon struck a mine from German submarine UC-44 off Mine Head while sailing from Liverpool to Cork. The blast beside the engine room killed 28 crew; only 4 survived, including Captain Kelly. In a grim twist, UC-44 herself was destroyed just four months later by one of her own mines off Dunmore East, with her commander Kurt Tebbenjohanns as the sole survivor. The Bandon wreck lies badly broken up at 33-34 metres, oriented east-west. INFOMAR multibeam surveyed. Built in 1910 by Swan Hunter, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 81.1 metres long. War grave.

There is truly nothing else like HMS M2 anywhere in the world. Originally completed in 1919 as a submarine monitor carrying a massive 12-inch gun, she was converted in 1927 into the world's first undersea aircraft carrier, fitted with a watertight hangar and catapult for a tiny Parnall Peto floatplane. On 26 January 1932, during a routine exercise off Portland, water flooded through the hangar and she went down with all 60 hands. The salvage investigation found those hangar doors standing open — a haunting detail that has fuelled debate ever since. She rests upright and intact at around 33 metres in Lyme Bay, her 90-metre hull still unmistakably that of a submarine, the cylindrical hangar forward of the conning tower instantly recognisable.

The sinking of the SS Mendi in 1917 had profound consequences, especially for South Africa, where it remains a symbol of national unity and the sacrifices made by black South Africans during World War I. The collision with the SS Darro in the English Channel resulted in the loss of 646 lives, mostly members of the South African Native Labour Corps. The tragedy is commemorated annually in South Africa and other countries. The wreck, discovered in 1974, lies in the English Channel and is designated as a protected site.

Twenty-five bars of gold remain unaccounted for. The White Star Line passenger liner, converted to an Armed Merchant Cruiser, struck two mines laid by U-80 off Fanad Head on 25 January 1917, sinking with the loss of 354 lives in temperatures of minus 9 degrees Celsius. The wreck at approximately 40 metres off Lough Swilly is heavily collapsed from both natural deterioration and years of intensive salvage.

Two torpedoes, five minutes, twelve dead. On 26 January 1918 the SS Cork, built for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company's cross-channel trade, was on her way across the Irish Sea from Dublin to Liverpool with sheep, horses and cattle aboard when SM U-103 attacked. One torpedo struck her engine room. A second hit close to the foremast and wrecked a lifeboat, taking away any margin for escape. Barely five minutes after she was hit she had gone, nine nautical miles northeast of Point Lynas, Anglesey, and seven passengers and five crew went with her. She lies upright and largely intact in the Irish Sea at 48 metres, a well-preserved record of cross-channel commerce in the early 20th century.

Two ships. One U-boat. Two days. Eighty-three dead -- sixty-seven of them from a city of just 28,000 people. On 15 December 1917, U-62 torpedoed the SS Formby on the Liverpool to Waterford route. Bad weather delayed the news. Two days later, the SS Coningbeg sailed the same route, unaware her sister ship lay on the bottom. U-62 was still there. All 44 aboard the Coningbeg perished. Originally built as SS Clodagh by Ailsa Shipbuilders in Troon in 1903, the Coningbeg was a Clyde Shipping Company cargo vessel serving the Waterford trade. Together with the Formby, this twin tragedy remains one of the worst maritime disasters of WWI off the Irish coast.

Nobody in Waterford knew. Bad weather had cut the telegraph, and it was assumed the Formby had simply sheltered from the storm. In reality, U-62 had torpedoed the Clyde Shipping Company cargo vessel on 15 December 1917 while she carried cattle from Waterford to Liverpool, killing all 35 crew. Two days later, her sister ship SS Coningbeg sailed the same route into the same waiting U-boat. All 44 aboard the Coningbeg died too. Of the 83 killed across both sinkings, 67 were from Waterford and surrounding communities including Faithlegg and Cheekpoint. The double tragedy devastated the waterfront community and is commemorated as one of the worst maritime disasters of World War I off the Irish coast.

The Bellevue is notable for her unusual resting position, with her stern section pointing skyward from the seabed. This orientation is believed to be the result of a wartime mine encounter. Originally launched as the Escort in 1897, she was a steam-powered trawler built in Glasgow and later renamed Bellevue in 1922. Her final voyage ended in tragedy off the west coast, with the loss of all eight crew members. The wreck lies in the Firth of Clyde, where her triple expansion engine and stern section survive. Netting is reported on the wreck.

A salvage officer, a Chief Petty Officer and two hands from the whaler Beluga went aboard the stricken Leonatus to save her, and only three of the four got clear. She had come north from Swansea with coal and was waiting off Lerwick to join a small convoy for Norway when an explosion aft of her well deck stopped her two miles south of Bard Head. Records disagree on whether a torpedo or one of the mines laid nearby by UC-40 was to blame. Captain James Fenton sent his crew to the boats, and the whalers Balaena and Beluga picked them up. The tug Peewit then took her in tow, but she was settling, and she sank soon after the tow was slipped; the Chief Petty Officer went down with her. Built at Stockton-on-Tees by Richardson Duck and Co Ltd in 1903, she lies upright in two main sections, her propeller and stern gun still visible; the recovery of her bell confirmed her identity.

On 5 September 1914, just weeks into the First World War, HMS Pathfinder made unwanted history as the first major warship ever sunk by a locomotive torpedo fired from a submarine. SM U-21, commanded by Otto Hersing, struck the scout cruiser's forward magazine, and the resulting explosion tore the bow clean off. Of her complement, 259 men were lost. She now rests upright in around 60 metres of water off St Abbs, her hull intact from stern to bridge area but the bow section scattered where the magazine detonated. A designated war grave under the Military Remains Act, she may be visited but not disturbed. Those who descend to her pay their respects to a moment that changed naval warfare forever.

SM U-89 sits at approximately 62 metres depth, 25 miles off Malin Head, remarkably well preserved with deck guns at both bow and stern and torpedoes still in storage. She surfaced just 200 yards ahead of the cruiser HMS Roxburgh on 12 February 1918. The cruiser rammed the conning tower without hesitation, sending U-89 to the bottom with all 43 crew. Large cod, pollock, and conger eels patrol the wreck. Designated war grave.

Ninety seconds. That was all the time between the torpedo impact and the Pinto disappearing beneath the Atlantic. She was doing what rescue ships do -- stationary, picking survivors from the water after U-482 had torpedoed the SS Empire Heritage just 30 minutes earlier. The same U-boat fired again, and the 1,346 GRT convoy rescue ship sank almost instantly. Captain Lawrence Boggs, M.B.E., was among the dead. Built in 1928 and converted for rescue service in May 1942, the Pinto had sailed with 10 convoys before her loss on 8 September 1944 while stationed with Convoy HX 305. The wreck at approximately 66 metres lies near the Empire Heritage wreck site, north-northeast of Tory Island.

The steamship Lakemoor, under the command of Lieutenant K J Powers, was part of a convoy carrying war supplies from Newport, Virginia to Glasgow. Onboard were ten officers and fifty-seven ratings, including Lieutenant Kirk Thomas, the second in command. As the convoy passed through the North Channel on 11th April 1918, the German submarine UB-64, commanded by Kapitanleutnant Otto von Schrader, targeted the Lakemoor. A torpedo strike caused the ship to sink rapidly. Tragically, five officers and forty-two ratings perished, while twenty crew members survived. The wreck of the Lakemoor now rests in the Firth of Clyde. Her remains are scattered, with notable features including her anchor, cargo remnants, and a triple expansion engine.

Sherman tanks sit upright on the seabed at 67 metres, some perfectly intact, others still racked neatly in the holds three deep. The SS Empire Heritage was a 15,702 GRT tanker carrying aviation fuel, tanks, and half-track military vehicles from New York as part of Convoy HX-305 when U-482 torpedoed her on 8 September 1944 approximately 20 nautical miles northwest of Malin Head. She went down in under five minutes, killing 113. Thirty minutes later, the same U-boat torpedoed the rescue vessel Pinto as she picked up survivors. The wreck is a designated war grave.

It took two U-boats and two days to sink the Justicia, at 32,234 GRT and 237 metres long one of the largest vessels lost during World War I; accounts of how many torpedoes struck her range from four to six. Laid down as the Holland-America liner Statendam, she was completed as a British troopship. UB-64 torpedoed her northwest of Malin Head on 19 July 1918, but she stayed afloat and was taken in tow. The next day UB-124 found her and fired two more torpedoes, and by noon she had rolled over and gone down. She lies at 70 metres, more than 25 nautical miles offshore, and everything about her is built on a vast scale: oversized chains, derricks and capstans on the foredeck, and a massive anchor still in place on the broken-off bow.

She sent no distress signal, left no survivors and has never been given a conclusive explanation. HMS Viknor disappeared off Tory Island on 13 January 1915, taking all 295 hands with her, and her loss ranks among the worst the Royal Navy suffered off Ireland during World War I. Her career had begun in 1888 as RMS Atrato. A later sale renamed her The Viking and turned her into a cruise ship, and late in 1914 the Admiralty requisitioned her and sent her to war. What sank her was never established. The chief suspect is the minefield laid by SMS Berlin, which also accounted for HMS Audacious and SS Manchester Commerce. Not until 2006 was the wreck found, by the Irish survey vessel Celtic Explorer, at a depth of 85 metres some 18 kilometres west of Tory Island. She is a designated war grave.

Eighteen minutes. That's all it took for the Lusitania to disappear beneath the Celtic Sea on 7 May 1915, taking 1,198 souls with her. A single torpedo from U-20, fired with the Old Head of Kinsale eleven miles to the north, struck the starboard side -- followed by a mysterious second explosion whose cause is still debated. The sinking turned American opinion against Germany and altered the course of World War I. Today the wreck lies on her starboard side at approximately 93 metres, heavily collapsed and continuing to degrade from corrosion and tidal currents. The wreck is protected under Irish law (National Monuments Acts; Underwater Heritage Order), and the Irish Examiner reported in 2024 that efforts are underway to document and recover artefacts before further collapse.

The destruction of HMS Bulwark had significant consequences, notably due to the tragic loss of 736 men, marking one of the largest accidental explosions in British naval history. The likely cause was overheating of cordite charges stored near a boiler room bulkhead. The wreck of Bulwark, now a protected site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, lies in the waters off Kent. Diving on the site is generally prohibited without permission from the Ministry of Defence, preserving it as a war grave and a somber reminder of the lives lost.