Drawings of HMS Hawke by Dr Tamás Balogh
History of the Hawke
HMS Hawke was one of nine Edgar-class ‘ protected cruisers ’; built in 1891 , she spent most of her career in the Mediterranean . On 21 September 1911 while in the Solent , she collided with RMS Olympic , Titanic ’ s sister ship . Hawke lost her bow , while Olympic was holed aft , sustaining a damaged propeller and shaft . The collision put Olympic in dry dock , thus delaying the completion of Titanic and perhaps setting up her encounter with that fateful iceberg .
By 1914 the Edgar class ships were obsolete and were used as a training squadron , however the pressure of war meant they were sent to patrol the North Sea off Aberdeen . On 15 October 1914 while on patrol with the rest of the squadron , Hawke stopped to pick up mail from her sister ship Endymion . Unknown to either ship they were being watched by German submarine U9 .
" Unknown to either ship they were being watched by German submarine U9 "
As Hawke set off to resume her position in the patrol , her course took her towards U9 , which having sunk the three British cruisers Aboukir , Hogue and Cressy a month earlier promptly put a torpedo into Hawke ’ s starboard side . There was a huge explosion and fire ; Hawke rolled over and sank in minutes . Some 524 sailors and marines went down with the ship , including 55 boy sailors aged between 14 and 18 , plus two civilian canteen workers . In all 70 men were saved , 49 of them picked up by a Norwegian steamer and 22 from a life raft by the destroyer Swift . One man died a day later .
The exact position where Hawke sank was not known ; she was out of sight of the rest of the squadron and a search only started once she was overdue . Wreck researcher Kevin Heath , who runs the ‘ Lost in Waters Deep ’ website , put in many hours researching the logs of the ships involved and U9 ’ s log , which being written in old gothic German script was a bit of a challenge . The results of all the research gave us a search area and a number of possible targets marked on the charts .
The dive team on this trip was a loose group of friends mainly from southwest England and Wales ( plus a few northerners ) who have been diving together for years . We had previously dived targets suggested by Kevin in discussion with Steve Mortimer , who coordinated the trip . For some , getting
Keeping cool before the dive
Preparing the 110m shot line
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