Remembrance
While reading Mr. Midshipman Hornblower the scenes describing the wreck of the Spanish ship on the Devil's Teeth at the end of "The Duchess and the Devil" forcibly reminded me of a naval tragedy suffered by the Western Isles in 1919. Clearly we're way off Age of Sail here, but this is a significant episode of naval history which is relatively unknown outside the islands and the circumstances are horribly similar.
Following the Armistice of 1919 servicemen all over the UK were granted leave to return home for their first Christmas and New Year since the war ended. Most of the young men of the Western Isles served as seamen and I have read somewhere that the islands lost proportionally more men per head of population than anywhere else in the Scotland. On December 31st those seamen who had been lucky enough to survive the war assembled on the pier at Kyle of Lochalsh, anxious to return home for Hogmanay. HM Yacht Iolaire (meaning "eagle" in gaelic) had been comissioned to take the men of Lewis and Harris home across the Minch and into Stornoway. Stornoway provides a safe anchorage, the Norse derivation of the name means Bay of Steering or Bay of Anchorage, however the entry to the harbour can be tricky owing to a reef called the Beasts of Holm east of the bay.
Approaching the harbour in the dark, with the wind rising the Iolaire struck the Beasts of Holm and foundered on the reef in the early hours of New Year's day. Of approximately 280 ratings on board around 200 drowned within sight of shore and the harbour where their families were waiting. The wind, the darkness and the danger of the reef made it impossible to get boats out to the yacht however one local man managed to swim to the wreck with a line which enabled many of the survivors to reach shore.
The Admiralty held an inconclusive enquiry into the disaster which many locals believed was a white wash. There were some suggestions that captain or crew, all of whom perished, may have been drinking but this was never proven. It is likely that the First Lieutenant was not familiar with the harbour approach and that an error of navigation was to blame. What is certain though is that there were too many men aboard and too few lifeboats. The Iolaire, carrying 280 men that night, had a capacity of only 80 and lifeboats for 100.
For so many young seamen to survive the war only to be drowned in sight of home and harbour was a tragedy beyond enduring for the island. The fact that the men were dressed in heavy uniforms, coats and boots may have contributed to the fact that so few men made it ashore. However it's probable that, like so many sailors, few could actually swim. It was not uncommon for sailors to view learning to swim as tantamount to tempting fate. Many islanders are also profoundly religious and see their ultimate fate as God's will.
To this day the Iolaire is one of the UK's worst peacetime disasters in terms of loss of life, however it is relatively unknown, partially due to islanders reluctance to talk about the event. Even when I was growing up on the islands, over 50 years later, talk of the Iolaire was not encouraged. In the last 20 years however a number of books have been published and the story of the disaster is perhaps better known.
(Sorry, that's a rather grim post for Friday evening. Normal service will be resumed shortly.)
Following the Armistice of 1919 servicemen all over the UK were granted leave to return home for their first Christmas and New Year since the war ended. Most of the young men of the Western Isles served as seamen and I have read somewhere that the islands lost proportionally more men per head of population than anywhere else in the Scotland. On December 31st those seamen who had been lucky enough to survive the war assembled on the pier at Kyle of Lochalsh, anxious to return home for Hogmanay. HM Yacht Iolaire (meaning "eagle" in gaelic) had been comissioned to take the men of Lewis and Harris home across the Minch and into Stornoway. Stornoway provides a safe anchorage, the Norse derivation of the name means Bay of Steering or Bay of Anchorage, however the entry to the harbour can be tricky owing to a reef called the Beasts of Holm east of the bay.
Approaching the harbour in the dark, with the wind rising the Iolaire struck the Beasts of Holm and foundered on the reef in the early hours of New Year's day. Of approximately 280 ratings on board around 200 drowned within sight of shore and the harbour where their families were waiting. The wind, the darkness and the danger of the reef made it impossible to get boats out to the yacht however one local man managed to swim to the wreck with a line which enabled many of the survivors to reach shore.
The Admiralty held an inconclusive enquiry into the disaster which many locals believed was a white wash. There were some suggestions that captain or crew, all of whom perished, may have been drinking but this was never proven. It is likely that the First Lieutenant was not familiar with the harbour approach and that an error of navigation was to blame. What is certain though is that there were too many men aboard and too few lifeboats. The Iolaire, carrying 280 men that night, had a capacity of only 80 and lifeboats for 100.
For so many young seamen to survive the war only to be drowned in sight of home and harbour was a tragedy beyond enduring for the island. The fact that the men were dressed in heavy uniforms, coats and boots may have contributed to the fact that so few men made it ashore. However it's probable that, like so many sailors, few could actually swim. It was not uncommon for sailors to view learning to swim as tantamount to tempting fate. Many islanders are also profoundly religious and see their ultimate fate as God's will.
To this day the Iolaire is one of the UK's worst peacetime disasters in terms of loss of life, however it is relatively unknown, partially due to islanders reluctance to talk about the event. Even when I was growing up on the islands, over 50 years later, talk of the Iolaire was not encouraged. In the last 20 years however a number of books have been published and the story of the disaster is perhaps better known.
(Sorry, that's a rather grim post for Friday evening. Normal service will be resumed shortly.)