Surviving Disaster: HMS Audacious and the RMS Olympic

In October of 1914, the King George V class dreadnought battleship HMS Audacious was carrying out gunnery practice off the coast of Ireland.

Unbeknown to her Captain, C F Dampier, she was sailing straight into waters that had recently been visited by a German minelayer, the SS Berlin.

Early in the morning an explosion ripped through the hull and over 800 sailors were now in serious danger. Rescue, however, came in the form of the White Star Line’s RMS Olympic. The sister ship of the RMS Titanic was now in a race to save the crew and HMS Audacious herself.

HMS Audacious was a King George V Class Dreadnought Battleship and she had been assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron as part of the Home Fleet prior to World War One.

Due to a perceived U Boat threat, she and the other ships of the 2nd Battle Squadron were sent to Scapa Flow.

Having been sent on gunnery practice off the coast of Ireland, she struck a mine and began flooding.

White Star Line RMS Olympic came to her rescue and took on board many of her 800 plus crew and attempted to save HMS Audacious herself.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:43 Design & Construction
02:59 Entering Service
05:07 SS Berlin Minelayer
06:47 Audacious strikes the mine
08:58 RMS Olympic
12:25 Aftermath

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[chrisabraham]

Great video. HMS Audacious launched into the Merseyside where her propellers were nicked overnight and the ship found in the morning chocked up on bricks.

[robevans]

An excellent video, thank you for posting it. I had the privilege of diving on the wreck of the Audacious around 15 years ago, using mixed gas and a rebreather as she’s about 70m deep IIRC. She’s pretty broken up, but one of the sights that will forever remain with me was one of her gun turrets lying upside down on the seabed, having fallen out when she turned over. Those twin 13.5” guns were quite a sight!
A chap called Leigh Bishop, a celebrated and pioneering deep wreck diver, took some stunning underwater photos of the wreck a few years before and, once I saw them in one of the dive magazines of the day, I HAD to visit that site. If you Google his name, you’ll soon come across the photos he took of Audacious and that those amazing guns.

[iainmalcolm]

Good story. At least all the crew survived. How unlucky was the sailor on HMS Liverpool. Hit by a piece of metal from about 1/2 a mile away. Crazy odds.

[robinmilford]

Thank you for that. My great uncle James Pengelly was a shipwright in her sister ship HMS Ajax during WW1, I didn't realise she was there too.

[luislealsantos]

Another EXCELLENT documentary. Thanks for sharing your hard work.

[geordiedog]

Not an event that I was aware of (which is what you want, of course). Captain Haddock made me laugh ‘cos I’m a bairn - I know.
Great video again. Narration is really great. Confident and expressive without sounding mawkish. Great work.

[colinwestwood]

Excellent video, all the facts and figures plain and simple.

[donjones]

A tough blow for Britain, losing their very newest battleship so early in the war. Sailors must have cursed mines as the worst - no enemy to fight against. Even with a torpedo there was at least a submarine for your forces to chase.

[headmonkeyboy]

I came for the ship, sub"d for the excellent narration. Thank you sir.

[sophiepaterson]

Thanks for a great video. I like the level of detail you put into other related topics. In this case, it's interesting to see the level to which the media cooperated with the government in the national interest.

[sasmitadas]

Excellent video again. Thanks for posting

[ninjaman]

Love the Naval stuff, please keep it coming 👍🏻💯🇬🇧

[freddieellis]

I’ve always thought the 13.5” battlewagons were particularly beautiful!

[mycroft]

Excellent summary. Thanks for posting.

[johnreed]

Thank you for you very good video . Although I did know about the sinking of the Audacious your take on it gave an awful lot more information to fill in the gaps of what
I didn't know . Well researched, well narrated & presented.
Thank for all your hard work .

[lordwintertown]

Kinda Ironic that the HMT Olympic the sistership of the largest Ocean Liner lost in war time HMHS Britannic was there to aid the largest Dreadnought lost in the Great War and both large vessels were lost to a mine.

Ehh that poor Town class 1910 having a large chunk of metal hitting it's crew from a near mile away is something although tragic as well.

[dc-ever]

Those were the days, when the media had respect for the country during times of national crisis, unlike today where they love to spread doom and gloom and couldn't give a toss about the country. Great video shows how far our society has changed over the last 100 years.

[Urlocallordandsavior]

I think it's weird how mundane disasters can be in real time. The passengers and crew aboard the Olympic would've probably considered this hours' long situation to be quite an adventure, especially the Americans, despite the risk of fatalities. It's like that interview of the passenger couple on aboard Pan Am Flight 843, a plane that miraculously landed safely despite losing about a third of its right wing, a situation where in most cases, the plane would likely crash and kill many, if not all, of its passengers and crew aboard, the couple's calm and collected behavior in that interview, and their recounting of the events, understates the seriousness of the situation that they went through.

[couttsw]

The British hNavy had the bad habit of sailing with all watertight doors open instead of sealing all compartments and not losing watertight integrity. It was easier to keep the doors open so the data said to facilitate the faster movement of the crew, many ships that are on the bottom are there because their watertight doors could not be closed due to the high volume of water now flooding compartments.

[merlin]

Thank you for producing this fascinating detailed account of another sad incident I knew nothing about. This incident leaves me wondering what happened to the other 198 mines and how long it took us to realise and how they were cleared. I hope the Admiralty then targeted the German Berlin to end its days.