Sinking of the battleship Triumph

Shortly after noon on 25 May 1915 the German submarine U-21, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Otto Hersing, torpedoed the British battleship Triumph off the western coast of the Gallipoli peninsula, near Cape Gaba Tepe. The ship capsized after about ten minutes and soon sank. Most of the crew were rescued, but according to the British official history three officers and 70 men were killed, and according to other tallies 78 men in all. It was the first kill by a German submarine during the Dardanelles operation.

An old friend of the Australians

Triumph was a pre-dreadnought built at the Vickers yard in Barrow-in-Furness to the order of Chile as Libertad. At the end of 1903, before she was even completed, Britain bought her together with her sister ship so that they would not fall into Russian hands. She had four 254 mm (10-inch) guns. At the beginning of the war she lay in reserve at Hong Kong. Hastily manned with sailors from disarmed river gunboats and volunteers from the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, she took part in the siege of Tsingtao. In February 1915 she arrived at the Dardanelles, where she took part in the bombardment of the forts, the bombardment of Smyrna and the fleet attack of 18 March.

From the landing of 25 April Triumph supported the Australians and New Zealanders at Anzac Cove with her guns almost every day. The ANZAC soldiers knew her well and regarded her as their own ship. The day before, 24 May, a truce of several hours had been in force in the Anzac area, during which both sides buried thousands of men killed in the repulsed Turkish attack of 19 May.

A submarine on its way

For several weeks the British had been expecting German submarines in the Aegean. Hersing, who in September 1914 had sunk the cruiser Pathfinder, set out from Germany at the end of April. He sailed round the north of the British Isles. Off the coast of Spain he was to refuel from a German steamer, but the oil supplied proved almost useless, so he continued sparingly, largely on the surface. He passed through the Strait of Gibraltar and in mid-May, with his tanks almost empty, reached the Austrian base at Cattaro, today’s Kotor. The dates of this voyage differ by a few days between sources. The British official history later admitted that Hersing had proved something previously not believed: that a submarine could sail from Germany to the Adriatic without a base on the way. After a short stay U-21 sailed for the Dardanelles.

On the morning of 25 May a minesweeper sighted a periscope at the entrance to the straits. Throughout the morning destroyers and trawlers hunted the submarine along the coast. At about ten o’clock the battleship Vengeance managed at the last moment to avoid a torpedo. Hersing, however, continued north, towards Anzac.

“Goodbye, old Triumph”

Triumph was manoeuvring at her firing station off Gaba Tepe with her torpedo nets out, her watertight doors closed and her light guns manned. The destroyer Chelmer was circling round her. At about 12.25 p.m. a suspicious track in the water was spotted from the destroyer a few hundred metres off the battleship’s starboard side. Before Chelmer could get there, the torpedo tore through the net and hit Triumph. The ship began to list rapidly. Chelmer came up under her stern and took several hundred men off her deck, while the rest jumped into the water, from which boats picked them up. About ten minutes after being hit Triumph turned turtle, and after nearly half an hour she disappeared beneath the water. According to the British official history the rescued sailors bade her farewell with cries of “Goodbye, old Triumph”. Her commanding officer, Captain Maurice FitzMaurice, also survived.

Hersing, who by his own account evaded pursuit by passing under the sinking battleship, slipped away from the destroyers. Thousands of Australian and New Zealand soldiers watched the disaster from the trenches on the slopes above Anzac Cove. According to the British official history they were so attached to the ship that they wanted to contribute from their pay towards raising her.

The consequences of the attack went far beyond the loss of one old ship. That same day most of the battleships were sent to sheltered anchorages at Imbros and Mudros, and their place off the shore was taken by destroyers. The troops ashore lost the support of heavy naval guns, and supplying the beaches became much more difficult. Hersing’s hunt was not yet over.