Jellicoe’s Nightmare
The battlecruiser Indomitable and her sister Invincible had come North to the great anchorage of Scapa Flow at the beginning of May. Like the rest of his crew, Able Seaman Archibald Martins had been told they were joining the Grand Fleet for gunnery practice. So far, Scapa had its ups and downs. There wasn’t much to do here; there were no towns just a mile or two from the ship. No music halls or pubs, no sports fields or cinemas. No little nooks and crannies where local ‘businesses’ made sure a sailor could always have a good time.
Scapa was dull.
On the other hand, since they arrived, the ship hadn’t been at four hours’ notice for steam for days on end, as was often the case at Rosyth. As one of ‘Beatty’s Hunters’, they had to be ready to charge out to sea at the first sign of the Hun, and so the crews’ chances of enjoying the delights to be found ashore had been far more restricted than they might have been.
As a lookout, stationed on the starboard side of the navigation bridge, Martins could overhear the officers’ chatter, and he often knew far more than most of his shipmates. That had been valuable more than once, as he’d been able to lay safe money that the ship would be heading to such-and-such a duty. This time, however, his insider-knowledge hadn’t earned him much; by now everyone on the ship knew his game, except for a couple of new lads who’d lost a week’s grog ration to him.
The two battlecruisers were the first part of an exchange between the Fleets. While they were here, the C-in-C intended that the Grand Fleet should have faster scouts than the older armoured cruisers, and so the 25-knot ‘Invincibles’ would serve in this role if the fleet put to sea. In the south, Admiral Beatty still had all five ‘Splendid Cats’ and the two ‘Indefatigables’, half-sisters of A/B Martin’s ship. What A/B Martins didn’t know was that Beatty’s pestering of both Admiral Jellicoe and the Admiralty had gained him more than two ships in return. Four fast ‘Queen Elizabeths’ of the Fifth Battle Squadron had been temporarily reassigned to the Battlecruiser Fleet.
Despite keeping his ears open for the last few days, Martins still hadn’t found out how long they’d be at Scapa. The ship was steaming steadily out of the Flow, on her way to the ranges, and depending on the results of the day’s shoot, he thought might overhear news later in the day. This was another difference from Rosyth; there they’d had drills, but they couldn’t fire the ship’s big guns in the in the confines of the Forth, or off the heavily populated coastline nearby.
A few minutes after they cleared the channel, they had increased speed when Martins heard a cry, ‘TORPEDO TRACK TO PORT’ come from the other side of the ship. He tensed instinctively, and glanced over his shoulder, but he knew his job was to keep scanning the starboard side. His training kicked in and he turned back to sweep his eyes across the grey sea. Behind him, he heard orders being barked down the voice-pipes; ‘Full Ahead’, ‘Hard a’ starboard’, ‘Signal Flagship torpedo sighted to port’.
There were more shouts behind him as another disturbance in the water was spotted. He looked at the Invincible, steaming ahead of his ship.
Then there was an explosion.
Martins was surprised; the noise was surprisingly muted, it was more of a low rumble and whoosh of water than the thunder of their guns or the blast of a shell. However, the deck seemed to convulse under his feet, followed by a slower shuddering and rocking. Glancing back, he saw a column of water reaching high up to port, just abaft the rear funnel. Moments later, the 4” guns of the ship's secondary armament cracked out, firing at a point where bubbles and a disturbance in the water had been spotted.
Far below and behind Martins’ station, water flooded into the port engine room as the explosion breached the outer hull and the bulkheads inboard of it. Rivets pinged off plates around the area of the blast as the bulkhead immediately forward was distorted. Water gushed into the wing bunkers abeam No.4 Boiler Room, where it freely flooded into the boiler room itself through open coal hatches. Attempts to close them were quickly abandoned as the water rose swiftly towards the boilers. Stokers hurled themselves up the escape ladders and slammed the hatches shut moments before water reached the hot coals. Cold seawater met the blazing furnaces and flashed to steam, which exploded out of the boilers and up the funnels and ventilators. The ship's list continued to increase as the engine room and wing areas flooded, and five minutes after the explosion, crews in the aft secondary battery reported waves were lapping onto the port side of the quarterdeck.
On the bridge, Martins heard the voice of the Chief Engineer telling the Captain that water was also entering the port machinery room abeam X magazine, and that the ship was in danger of capsizing. Orders were shouted for boiler room crews to damp their fires, and for preparations to be made to flood starboard wing spaces and bunkers to counterbalance the rising weight of water to port. At 1243, eight minutes after the original explosion, Martins felt a slight shudder course through the ship, and a few moments later the tinny sound of the Third Lieutenant's voice came through on a voice pipe from below. Water was entering the coal bunkers above the engine rooms and a hatch to the ventilator room and distillation plant had failed.
Below, men tried to hammer the hatch back into place as the water rushed around their legs. Timber baulks were used as levers and wedges, but no matter what they did, the hatch couldn’t be sealed. The flow had been reduced, but as men struggled to move or see what they were doing with seawater up to their waists, the lights failed. Trying to plug a leaking hatch using only a few torches was soon found to be impossible as men slipped under the water and were unable to see where the leaks were with their eyes stinging with the oily seawater.
The Captain’s face looked grave, as he knew there was nothing more that could be done. Even so, the inevitable could be delayed. His penultimate order was to flood the starboard engine room.
At 1257, his final order was to abandon ship.
Stoker George McPherson, who was stationed in the unflooded No.3 boiler room later recalled,
‘We were heeled right over when the order came to abandon, and the Chief shouted to get up the ventilator-escape trunk. My boiler was on the port side and I knew we'd been at the deepest point of the ship, but I wasn't prepared for the sight when I got to the top of the trunk.
The ventilator was on the Foc’sle deck, abaft the second funnel. The ship was heeling even further and when we reached the top, the water was only about 10 feet away from us as we climbed out - water on the deck!
I ran for’ard, and up towards the starboard side, thinking we'd be rescued from there, but Nobby (Leading Stoker Robert Garth) yelled to get off her now and into the water. We walked down into the sea and swam off towards a float that was just a few yards away. There were some boats about too. I didn't see her roll over, but I heard the roar and when I turned there was this wave coming at us. There was nothing anyone could do and I was pulled under and chucked about. I don’t know how I got back to the surface, but I did and I was right next to a cork float and some other bits of wood.
I shouted about, but I never found Nobby.’
Of her crew of 971, 726 were rescued by boats from the escorting destroyers. Indomitable capsized at 1301, twenty-six minutes after the torpedo hit. A few survivors were rescued from atop the upturned hull, before it finally sank at 1328.
The gunfire that had been directed at the disturbance on the surface was followed by traces of oil being spotted on the sea. Indomitable’s escorts followed up the attack using a new weapon; the depth charge. No obvious results were seen, but after the war German records showed that U-43 failed to return from her patrol, as one of a line of U-boats waiting to attack the Grand Fleet.
