Explosion of the battleship Bulwark

On the morning of 26 November 1914 the British battleship Bulwark, anchored in the estuary of the Medway, a few kilometres west of the port of Sheerness, was torn apart by a huge explosion in her own magazines. The ship sank almost at once. About 740 officers and men were killed, and of the whole crew only a dozen or so survived. It was one of the most tragic disasters in the history of the Royal Navy, and it happened not in battle but at an anchorage deep in home waters.

The ship

Bulwark was a pre-dreadnought of the London class (some studies place her in the Formidable class), launched in 1899 at the Devonport dockyard. She displaced about 15,000 tons and carried four 305 mm guns. By 1914 she was already obsolete. She belonged to the 5th Battle Squadron, which on 14 November had been moved to Sheerness, at the mouth of the Thames, to guard the coast against a possible German invasion. She was commanded by Captain Guy Sclater.

The explosion

The ship was moored to buoy no. 17 in Kethole Reach. At 7.53 a.m., according to the report given to Parliament that day (some sources give 7.50 a.m.), an explosion tore the hull apart. Witnesses on neighbouring ships saw a column of fire and smoke, and when it subsided there was no trace of the battleship. The blast was heard in Whitstable and Southend, a dozen or more kilometres away. Wreckage and bodies floated on the water.

Boats from nearby ships picked up 14 sailors alive, two of whom later died in hospital. Those who survived were mainly men who had been on the mess deck in the middle of the ship and were thrown out through an open hatch. All the officers were killed, including the captain, as well as more than a hundred Royal Marines. Casualty figures differ by source: most often 736–741 dead are given, but according to some lists as many as nearly 800 men were killed. Immediately after the disaster only about 30 bodies were recovered.

The cause

That same day the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, informed the House of Commons that, according to the admirals on the spot, the disaster had been caused by an internal explosion in a magazine. He announced that only twelve men had survived and that between 700 and 800 had been killed. The naval court of inquiry found that the explosion had been caused by the accidental ignition of ammunition and found no evidence of treachery or enemy action. The most probable explanation was the overheating of cordite charges. Ammunition was being moved that morning, and the propellant charges had been stacked in a passage next to a boiler-room bulkhead, which grew hot as the boilers were lit. Burning cordite may have detonated the shells in the nearby magazines. There is no certainty, because no one from that part of the ship survived.

It was not the only such disaster. In May 1915, also on the Medway off Sheerness, the minelayer Princess Irene blew up, and in July 1917 at Scapa Flow a cordite explosion destroyed the battleship Vanguard, killing over 800 men. The remains of Bulwark still lie on the bed of the Medway, marked by buoys. The wreck is a war grave, and diving on it is forbidden without the permission of the Ministry of Defence.