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Thursday, February 17, 2005
*Re-enactors join battle to preserve Morris Island
-Charleston Post and Courier, 2-17-05
*Hunting Island lighthouse will reopen this weekend
-Hilton Head Island Packet Online,m 2-17-05
*Beach at Mickler's Landing in Ponte Vedra is set for daily lifeguards
-Ponte Vedra Beaches Leader, 2-16-05
2.
prior to collecting a shipload of casualties, allowed extra water to flow into the ship, hastening her demise. In 55 minutes she had sunk, in less than half the time it had taken Titanic to succumb.
An orderly Abandon Ship was executed, and her lifeboats were able to cope with all on board, the cruiser HMS Heroic, and destroyers HMS Foxhound and HMS Scourge were soon on the scene to collect survivors, besides the 30 who died, another 41 were injured, in the circumstances a light casualty list.
The ship lay quietly on the bottom, undisturbed until Jacques Cousteau found the wreck in 1975, and dived on it the following year, in October 1995, a solo dive was made by Kostes Thoctarides , and Doctor Robert Ballard, who had found her sister Titanic, led a group to dive and film the wreck in 1995. Kevin Gurr led a professional diving team in 1997, and finally in 1998, Project Britannic, a group of amateur divers visited the wreck, and took some stunning photographs.
This final ship in the trio of White Star Liners, never carried one paying passenger, and never sailed the Atlantic route, she remains the largest ocean liner wreck on the sea bed.
HMHS Drina torpedoed 1917.
The Hospital ship Drina was torpedoed on the 20th. of March 1917 and 35 died, but the ship survived, to become a ammunition hulk in Plymouth. In 1919 she was rebuilt as a cruise ship and in 1923 was renamed Arcadian. In 1930 she was laid up to be sold to Japan in 1933 for scrap.
HMHS Dover Castle torpedoed 1917.
Dover Castle, a ship of 8,271 tons had been built in Glasgow in 1904, in WW1, she was converted to a Hospital ship. With 632 on board, she was torpedoed in the Mediterranean on the 26th. of May 1917. The first torpedo to strike her, killed 7 stokers, and HMS Camelon came to her aid, took off the majority of the crew and the wounded. The Captain, with a volunteer crew stayed on board, believing the ship might be saved, but the U-Boat returned for a second attack, and this hospital ship was gone in three minutes.
HMHS Goorkha mined in 1917.
This Hospital ship when off Malta on the 10th. of October in 1917 ran into a mine, the 372 survivors which included 17 Nursing Sisters soon cleared the ship without any casualties, and the ship under tow made it into the Harbour at Malta.
HMHS Rewa torpedoed January 1918.
This 7,267 ton ship built for the British India Steam Navigation Company in 1906, and and converted to a Hospital ship, having sailed from Malta. was carrying 279 cot and walking wounded cases from Greece. She was in the Bristol Channel, when on the 4th. of January 1918, Wilhelm Werner in his U-55, lined her up, and soon sank her with his torpedoes. Two crewmen died, and the ship was very lucky to get away with such light casualties.
HMHS Glenart Castle torpedoed 1918.
Glenart Castle left Cardiff on the 25th. of February 1918, bound for Brest to load wounded. At 0347 the next day a torpedo struck her, she went down quickly, and only 38 survived from 206 on board. Her Matron, Katy Beaufoy, had served in the Boer War, and all of WW1 to date, already Katy had been lucky, whilst Matron in HMHS Dover Castle, she had missed this ship through illness when she sailed to her doom, being torpedoed in May 1917, but her luck ran out tonight.
The Birmingham Weekly Post, Saturday March 9, 1918
Miss Katy Beaufoy, the matron on the torpedoed hospital ship, Glenart Castle, was a Birmingaham lady and it is
feared she is among the missing. She was a daughter of the late Mr Thomas Beaufoy, for many years an official of the Birmingham Post Office , and a sister of Mrds J Hward Kirk, of The Grange Shirley, where she made her home.
Miss Beaufoy was matron of the Military Hospital at Exeter when the South African war broke out, and she volunteered for active service, and served throughout the war. For three years she was assistant matron of the Queen of Italy's Polytechnic in Rome, for the training of young Italian nurses, for which she was decorated. Miss Beaufoy volunteered immediately the present war broke out, and for the early months of the war was at Devonport Military Hospital. From there she was sent to Ras-el-Din Hospital at Alexandria. She had her first ship, the Ionian, at Mudros, after which she was appointed matron of the New Khedivial Hotel at Alexandria.
In June 1916, she was appointed matron of the Dover Castle, in which she continued for fifteen months, only being absent for a few days when the vessel was torpedoed in the Mediterranean. After being on shore for a short time she was given the Glenart Castle on her first voyage, from November to February and was in her when she was torpedoed on February 26.
Llandovery Castle torpedoed 1918.
On the 27th. of June 1918, this Hospital ship was torpedoed by U-86. This URL: http://www.gupda.org/naval/castl11.htm gives a vivid report of the ship's demise, and the approach to survivors.
HMHS Braemar Castle mined in 1916.
Only two days after Britannic was sunk, Braemar Castle hit a mine and was lost in the same area, which confirmed a mine field had been established in the area, and it is probable that Britannic had struck a mine and was not torpedoed.
Terry, could you please move the Braemar Castle entry
after Britannic, to put it in date context.
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