Sinking of the battleship Formidable

In the early hours of 1 January 1915 the German submarine U-24 torpedoed the British battleship Formidable in the western part of the English Channel. The ship sank before dawn, and 547 officers and men went down with her. She was the first British battleship sunk by a submarine in this war.

A squadron without a screen

Formidable was a pre-dreadnought launched in 1898, the lead ship of her class. She displaced about 15,000 tons, carried four 305 mm (12-inch) guns and had a crew of about 780 men. She was commanded by Captain Noel Loxley. The ship belonged to the 5th Battle Squadron, which in November had been stationed at Sheerness at the mouth of the Thames, where on 26 November its Bulwark blew up. On 30 December the squadron was moved to Portland, and the next day its ships carried out gunnery practice near the Isle of Portland.

The commander of the Channel Fleet, Vice-Admiral Lewis Bayly, had only two light cruisers at his disposal, Topaze and Diamond. There were no destroyers that could have protected the battleships against submarines. After dark the squadron steamed west in line ahead at about 10 knots, with Formidable bringing up the rear. The weather was worsening, and it was thought that in such a sea submarines would pose no danger. Meanwhile the squadron was being shadowed by U-24 under Kapitänleutnant Rudolf Schneider.

Two torpedoes

At about 2.20 a.m. the first torpedo struck Formidable abreast the forward boiler room. In accordance with standing orders, the other battleships steamed on so as not to expose themselves to further torpedoes. Loxley tried to steer the listing ship towards the shore, but she soon lost power. At about 3.05 a second torpedo struck. The crew tried to lower the boats, but in the rising sea and with the heavy list they managed this with only a few, and some of them capsized alongside. At about 4.45 the battleship rolled over and sank bow first. Loxley remained on the bridge to the end. According to survivors, he was accompanied by his terrier, Bruce. The dog’s body was later washed ashore in Dorset, where it was buried.

The cruisers Topaze and Diamond closed in to rescue survivors, and Diamond picked up 37 men. When a submarine was sighted, however, Loxley ordered them away. In the morning the fishing smack Provident from Brixham, running back to port in the storm, spotted an overcrowded boat and rescued more than 70 men. Another of Formidable’s boats drifted for nearly a whole day. Late in the evening of 1 January it reached the shore at Lyme Regis. Some of the sailors died of exposure on the way, and a few after reaching land, but several dozen were saved. According to the most commonly cited figures, 35 officers and 512 men were killed and about 200 survived. Some sources give slightly different numbers, as the size of the crew is also given differently.

The Lassie of Lyme Regis

That night is linked to a story still told in Lyme Regis today. The sailors’ bodies were laid out in the cellar of the Pilot Boat inn. According to local tradition, the landlord’s bitch, a collie cross named Lassie, lay down beside one of the men taken for dead, a sailor named Cowan, and licked his face for a long time. The man eventually stirred and was revived. The press wrote about the dog at the time.

The people of Lyme Regis are convinced that this very story gave Eric Knight the idea for Lassie, the heroine of his 1938 short story and later of novels and films. There is, however, no evidence that Knight knew the story at all, and his Lassie is a pedigree rough collie from Yorkshire whose adventures have nothing to do with a disaster at sea. The truth of the episode at the inn rests mainly on local accounts, while the link with the Lassie of books and screen remains a legend.

Consequences

The sinking of Formidable was a painful lesson for the Royal Navy. As early as September, after the sinking of the cruisers Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy, it had become clear that large ships without a destroyer screen were easy targets for U-boats. Vice-Admiral Bayly was criticised for leading the squadron slowly, on a regular course and without an escort in waters where submarines were expected. He was removed from command of the Channel Fleet and made President of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, although he was ultimately cleared of the charge of negligence. In the summer of 1915 he took command on the coast of Ireland, at Queenstown.

Schneider commanded U-24 for another year and a half. On 19 August 1915 he sank the British passenger liner Arabic, which caused a serious crisis in relations between Germany and the United States. He died on 13 October 1917, when during a storm a wave washed him off the conning tower of the submarine U-87. The wreck of Formidable lies on the bed of the English Channel and is protected as a war grave.