Warships Lost With All Hands

[Cicero]

Just trying to establish which was the largest (in terms of crew) warship which was lost with all hands.

In WW2 it was HMAS Sydney, which was lost with all of her crew of 645.

At Jutland, several British battle cruisers blew up with the loss of over 1200 men each. However, in each case there were survivors.

The largest I can come up with, for a single ship is SMS Scharnhorst, the German armoured cruiser of the Great War. She went down will hands- 860 men.

Any advances on this?

[Cicero]

Just came close with two from Jutland- HMS Defence (lost 903) and HMS Black Prince (lost 857).

[AK84]

Japanese carriers at Midway? The German. Pre dreadnought lost at Jutland?

[Otara]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...time_disasters

WW2 possibly Fuso, or Chiyoda.

WW1 seems to be HMS Defense.

Otara

[Cicero]

Thanks AK84 and Otara. The Pommern from WW1 would be a possibility, but still less than the Defence.

Interesting your point Otara, I misread the page on HMAS Sydney. It was the largest Allied ship lost with all hands.

[KarlGauss]

I know you said lost with "all hands", but will still mention the HMS Hood which, after being hit by German shells, exploded and sank killing 1415 of the 1418 individuals on board.

[Cicero]

No worries, I had thought of the Hood but knew of the few survivors. The guy who was into doing the interviews only died a few years back.

(And to hijack my own thread- what were the Admiralty thinking- sending a WW1 battle cruiser (they were known to be prone to explode when fighting as capital ships) and a battle ship that hadn't been even given proper shake down exercises against the most powerful unit in the German Fleet).

[Si Amigo]

The Scorpian went down with a total loss of life.

It appears to have been common (for obvious reasons) for subs to go down with all hands lost.

[Gray Ghost]

The board ate my last reply, so I'll try to be brief.

I agree that Fuso and Chiyoda are probably the candidates for WW2, if we only look at warships. I would not be surprised if one of the merchant ships carrying prisoners back to Japan ended up being sunk with all hands and a much higher death toll. Awa Maru and Junyo Maru come close, I suppose. So does the SS Thielbek, in a similar role.

I wonder if the answer is one of the giant rowed ships that participated at Actium, Lepanto, or Salamis? Certainly, if one of the ginormous "Forty's" of Philopator had sunk with all hands, it'd qualify, with it's complement of over 7,000 rowers, sailors, and soldiers. I don't believe they ever saw battle though, and I wonder if any were actually built, or if they were the antiquities version of military vaporware. While Antony's navy at Actium certainly had ships large enough to potentially qualify if fully manned, malaria outbreaks meant that he had to sail with drastically reduced complements.

I had thought that some of the Spanish Armada ships would be large enough to qualify, but the wiki of their travails in Ireland suggest that even the largest ships (La Trinidad Valencera, 1,000 tons, 360 men) weren't big enough. Maybe elements of the 2nd Mongol invasion fleet, the one scattered by the Kamikaze typhoon of 1281? An MA thesis on the fleet, and archaeological examination of its remains can be found here. He cites the Arab explorer, Ibn Battuta, who mentioned in 1347 that large ships, "carried 1,000 men, 600 sailors and 400 marines, had four decks and twelve sails, and were followed by three small vessels." So perhaps one of those large ships, fully loaded, and lost at sea during the storm, might have been greater than Sydney, but certainly not Fuso.

Also wanted to mention the fates of HMS Neptune and USS Juneau. Neptune hit a mine in 1941 and lost 737 of her 767 men. 1 man of the 30 survivors that made it to lifeboats managed to survive 5 more days at sea until being rescued by the Italian Navy.

Juneau, while limping away from the November 13, 1942 battle of Guadalcanal, took two submarine torpedoes, exploded, broke in half, and sank in 20 seconds. Other ships in the vicinity, seeing the explosion, assuming no survivors of the sinking, and being engaged with the IJN at the time, left the area. Actually more than 100 men of the 699 man complement, including at least 2 of the 5 famous Sullivan Brothers, had survived the immediate sinking. 8 days on the open sea left only 16 survivors.

[casdave]

I would expect that the list would carry a very high number of WW2 subs

[Gray Ghost]

Found an interesting article on the fate of the IJN Fuso and its crew here. From the article:

While it is true that U.S. Navy efforts and even interest in rescuing all but a handful of survivors for interrogation was minimal, in fairness it was chiefly the FUSO's men who chose to refuse the chance for life. As USS CLAXTON had found with the YAMASHIRO's survivors, so did USS HEYWOOD L. EDWARDS experience the same thing with FUSO's survivors. Despite cajolings, and attempts to snare some, none of the floating survivors consented to be rescued. Ultimately, unlike YAMASHIRO, none were retrieved at all. The consequence of this abstinence was tragic. Those that did not perish in the waters of the strait swam ashore, only to be butchered wholesale by Philippine natives eager for vengeance. Survivors of YAMASHIRO, ASAGUMO, and MICHISHIO all report slaughter of many Japanese in this way, and their own narrow escape from the same when a handful was handed over to American Intelligence officers. The result was that as a result of the battleships' explosion, her sinking, exposure, or murder by the natives, virtually all of FUSO's crew perished that grim day.

Even so, contrary to most reports, there were survivors from FUSO, at least one. The Chief Engineer Ishii Tokichi of the ASAGUMO explicitly reported in his interrogation that a `survivor of the FUSO with them had told him that the bomb hit of Oct 24 had destroyed the wardroom and exploded a deck below'. Mentioned as an aside, this casual detail rings true and it is electrifying to think that if the interrogators had just thought to ask Ishii if the engineer had heard the rest of the FUSO's survivor's story. Inexplicably, they failed to ask. It also shows that FUSO and ASAGUMO survivors were at one time grouped together. Unfortunately, this individual's story -- if he survived captivity -- has not come to light.

I'm not sure if it counts for the OP if survivors made it to shore or another ship (the Asagumo), only to eventually be killed there.

It is surprising to read that people can survive even the most violent shipboard explosions: the aforementioned Hood, HMS Barham, IJN Mutsu. You'd think no one could possibly live through that, and yet people do.

[Jim's Son]

Originally Posted by Cicero

No worries, I had thought of the Hood but knew of the few survivors. The guy who was into doing the interviews only died a few years back.

(And to hijack my own thread- what were the Admiralty thinking- sending a WW1 battle cruiser (they were known to be prone to explode when fighting as capital ships) and a battle ship that hadn't been even given proper shake down exercises against the most powerful unit in the German Fleet).

I think there were four approaches/straits the "Bismarck" and "Prinz Eugen" could use and "Hood" and "Prince of Wales" happened to get the unlucky assignment.

Chruchill was afraid of what would happen if two large German capital ships got loose on the mid Atlantic and ran into a convoy. If that happened, the losses in ships, personnel and supplies would be staggering. Churchill was a real aggressive commander in chief..he was constantly pushing his admirals and generals to take more action. The British figured, or hoped, that the superior firepower of Hood and Prince of Wales could handle the two German ships, or slow them down enough for other ships to close in.

[campp]

The Indianapolis wasn't exactly a walk in the park. About 900 men.

[Capt Kirk]

Originally Posted by Jim's Son

I think there were four approaches/straits the "Bismarck" and "Prinz Eugen" could use and "Hood" and "Prince of Wales" happened to get the unlucky assignment.

Chruchill was afraid of what would happen if two large German capital ships got loose on the mid Atlantic and ran into a convoy. If that happened, the losses in ships, personnel and supplies would be staggering. Churchill was a real aggressive commander in chief..he was constantly pushing his admirals and generals to take more action. The British figured, or hoped, that the superior firepower of Hood and Prince of Wales could handle the two German ships, or slow them down enough for other ships to close in.

I have to agree withJS The British were pretty desperate at this point in the war and really had no choice, one encounter with a convoy would have been a disaster and the US and USSR weren't in it yet. I don't think anyone British or German would have predicted the outcome with the Hood, In other words the Royal Navy had to stop the Bismarck at any cost IMHO

[Darth Sensitive]

Originally Posted by Capt Kirk

I have to agree withJS The British were pretty desperate at this point in the war and really had no choice, one encounter with a convoy would have been a disaster and the US and USSR weren't in it yet. I don't think anyone British or German would have predicted the outcome with the Hood, In other words the Royal Navy had to stop the Bismarck at any cost IMHO

IOW:

Out of the cold and foggy night came the British ship the Hood
And evry British seaman, he knew and understood
They had to sink the Bismark, the terror of the sea
Stop those guns as big as steers and those shells as big as trees

[Leo Bloom]

[hijack if permitted]
What responses, and when, in warship design were made as a result of the Hood disaster, or others with the same structural failure mode?

Were armament bays reinforced and isolated then? And wouldn't it be a likely conclusion to do so, at least to a greater extent?
[/hijack if permitted]

[chacoguy]

The Yamato went down with, roughly 2,500 souls, around 90% of her crew.

[Otara]

Originally Posted by Gray Ghost

The board ate my last reply, so I'll try to be brief.

I wonder if the answer is one of the giant rowed ships that participated at Actium, Lepanto, or Salamis? Certainly, if one of the ginormous "Forty's" of Philopator had sunk with all hands, it'd qualify, with it's complement of over 7,000 rowers, sailors, and soldiers. I don't believe they ever saw battle though, and I wonder if any were actually built, or if they were the antiquities version of military vaporware. While Antony's navy at Actium certainly had ships large enough to potentially qualify if fully manned, malaria outbreaks meant that he had to sail with drastically reduced complements.

Interesting. Did some reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessarakonteres

"But this ship was merely for show; and since she differed little from a stationary edifice on land, being meant for exhibition and not for use, she was moved only with difficulty and danger."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinque...rger_polyremes

"It must be noted however that there is no indication of any of these monsters actually participating in battle."

So as you say, the hugest ones seem to be more showpieces at best, if not outright fibbing.

Otara

[Otara]

Originally Posted by Leo Bloom

[hijack if permitted]
What responses, and when, in warship design were made as a result of the Hood disaster, or others with the same structural failure mode?

Were armament bays reinforced and isolated then? And wouldn't it be a likely conclusion to do so, at least to a greater extent?
[/hijack if permitted]

There werent any left, Hood was the last english battlecruiser. They'd already managed to get most of the others blown up in fairly similar circumstances, ie using a design that was never intended to fight directly against other battleships.

Most of the lessons about Hood's vulnerability were learned in WW1 at Jutland, they then tried to keep it relevant by modernising it with extra armour , which didnt work so well in practise.

You're also talking 1941 for Hoods destruction, Im not sure there were any new designs for heavily armoured capital ships after that date, they were already on the way to construction, or not made. Vanguard was still being built and did include some lessons according to wiki, but the fundamental flaw by then was recognising that battleships were pretty much done in general.

Otara

[Capt Kirk]

Originally Posted by Otara

There werent any left, Hood was the last english battlecruiser. They'd already managed to get most of the others blown up in fairly similar circumstances, ie using a design that was never intended to fight directly against other battleships.

Most of the lessons about Hood's vulnerability were learned in WW1 at Jutland, they then tried to keep it relevant by modernising it with extra armour , which didnt work so well in practise.

You're also talking 1941 for Hoods destruction, Im not sure there were any new designs for heavily armoured capital ships after that date, they were already on the way to construction, or not made. Vanguard was still being built and did include some lessons according to wiki, but the fundamental flaw by then was recognising that battleships were pretty much done in general.

Otara

He is correct IMHO and I would like to add that the Hood was scheduled for an upper deck armor replacement and buttressing that did not happen because of the war. So to correct my earlier statement at least some British and probably some crew did know of her weaknesses. I can only assume the Germans would have thought the lessons of Jutland and WW1 were learned and corrections made

[Gray Ghost]

Originally Posted by Otara

There werent any left, Hood was the last english battlecruiser. They'd already managed to get most of the others blown up in fairly similar circumstances, ie using a design that was never intended to fight directly against other battleships...

Weren't HMS Repulse and Renown also battlecruisers? Different classes than Hood, I think, but still battlecruisers with those 15 inches.

[Cicero]

I think the USA had two battle cruisers on the boards just before the end of WW2 (Alaska and Guam from memory).

Re the Hood- Churchill was an interferer in operational matters- he had done this since WW1 when he was first Lord of the Admiralty. It didn't help that the Fierst Sea Lord (Dudley Pound) had a brain tumour that would kill him and Churchill found him easy to dominate. If tthe Bismark had got into the Atlantic so what? It was one ship in a huge ocean. It had to have fuel and replinish supplies eventually- and sooner or later it would have been caught. The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had made sorties into the Atlantic and the Graf Spee had intercepted ships. It didn't make a lot of difference- a few hipss versus (eventually) a heap of U Boats.

(End of hijack.)

[Gray Ghost]

Originally Posted by Cicero

I think the USA had two battle cruisers on the boards just before the end of WW2 (Alaska and Guam from memory).

Re the Hood- Churchill was an interferer in operational matters- he had done this since WW1 when he was first Lord of the Admiralty. It didn't help that the Fierst Sea Lord (Dudley Pound) had a brain tumour that would kill him and Churchill found him easy to dominate. If tthe Bismark had got into the Atlantic so what? It was one ship in a huge ocean. It had to have fuel and replinish supplies eventually- and sooner or later it would have been caught. The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had made sorties into the Atlantic and the Graf Spee had intercepted ships. It didn't make a lot of difference- a few hipss versus (eventually) a heap of U Boats...

One big difference is that, unlike a U-Boat, or even a wolfpack of them, a major surface combatant can close with a convoy and stand a good chance of annihilating every ship. It doesn't have to ambush and run like subs do. Even absolute disasters like SC-7 or PQ-17 rarely sank more than half the ships in the convoy. Moreover, unlike the pocket BB's like Graf Spee or the battlecruisers like Scharnhorst, Bismarck potentially had staying power when confronted with major surface combatants. I'm not surprised the British lost their shit at the thought of Bismarck in their sea lanes.

Aside, it's surprising that Spee tried to duke it out with Exeter, Achilles and Ajax. Even giving up 2-3 knots of speed to them, you'd think he could have punished them in a stern chase over the day, especially with his range advantage with those flat-shooting 280mms, and eluded them at night. Then again, I'm not sure what his bunkerage situation was, and wiki mentions that he was overdue for an engine overhaul; perhaps he felt he couldn't outrun them all day, at the height of the S. Hemisphere summer?

[Cicero]

I don't think it would be a nice experience if you were in a convoy and the Bismark intercepted it. However, the ocean is a huge place and finding a convoy is not that easy. However, even when intercepted I doubt if every ship could be destroyed- if you have ships going in all directions even at a slow ten knots you still have to find them and catch them- and get out of the area before any Naval vessel showed up. The Germans had a policy of avoiding damage or potential damage if possible. There was also historical data from WW1 where the German cruisers did a "fair" amount of damage but were eventually cornered. Even the powerful squadron of Von Spee (Admiral, not the ship) after destroying a motley collection of British vessels at the Battle of the Coronel Islands was itself destroyed at the Falklands.

As to the ship Graf Spee, you would think it could have cleaned up the relatively thin skinned Ajax and Achilles after the Exeter was pretty much disabled. However, it had been at sea for a long time and I think fatigue on the part of the Captain may have been a factor- as it was with his name sake at the Falklands.

Again, end of hijack

[Namkcalb]

Originally Posted by KarlGauss

I know you said lost with "all hands", but will still mention the HMS Hood which, after being hit by German shells, exploded and sank killing 1415 of the 1418 individuals on board.

Likewise, the sinking of the Vichy French battleship Bretagne in the battle of Mers-El-Kebir killed 1012 seamen, but some escaped.

[Otara]

Originally Posted by Gray Ghost

Weren't HMS Repulse and Renown also battlecruisers? Different classes than Hood, I think, but still battlecruisers with those 15 inches.

Sorry, last one made, which I confused into last one left - Id forgotten about them completely to be honest. It should be pretty obvious most of my knowledge here is wiki doodling.

Renown had a pretty major reworking, its arguable whether it was a BC any more, but cant really dispute Repulse.

Alaska class was designed in 39, last one finished in 43. They might have included some changes, more likely they didnt make the mistake in the first place. There was a general knowledge about the vulnerability of magazines, but you can only protect them so far without ending with a battleship.

Otara

[AK84]

[Hijack]
Wow, the USN did not even try to rescue survivors from Japanese ships! That is really really sad.
[/hijack]

[Son of a Rich]

Wasn't there some enormous (Elizabethan?) warship that capsized on its maiden voyage, right out in front of the crowd assembled to witness the launch? Tilted, and water came in the lower gun ports, I believe. I tried Googling, but only found the Vasa, and I don't think that was it.

[Cicero]

The French battleship Suffren was lost with all hands in the Great War - that was about 650 men. Similarly the French battleship took 96% of her crew down her- again just over 600 men.

Even though the French battleships were smaller than their British counterparts, they still seemed to carry far less crew.

[Namkcalb]

Originally Posted by Son of a Rich

Wasn't there some enormous (Elizabethan?) warship that capsized on its maiden voyage, right out in front of the crowd assembled to witness the launch? Tilted, and water came in the lower gun ports, I believe. I tried Googling, but only found the Vasa, and I don't think that was it.

Mary-Rose?

[Cicero]

Sounds like the Mary Rose. There was also the weird HMS Captain which capsized a few months after completion (Black Night Off Finesterre) with the loss of 500 crew.

I have a suspicion that there was a battleship which had a magazine explosion around 1900 but I can't remember the name. HMS Bulwark had an internal explosion and lost 738 men. There were a few survivors though.

[Otara]

http://www.localhistories.org/maryrose.html

"It is a myth that the Mary Rose sank on its maiden voyage! It was launched in 1511 and it did not sink until 1545!"

Mary Rose actually sank during a battle, looks to me like a confounding of its loss with the Vasa or some such.

Otara

[Declan]

Originally Posted by Cicero

If tthe Bismark had got into the Atlantic so what? It was one ship in a huge ocean. It had to have fuel and replinish supplies eventually- and sooner or later it would have been caught. The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had made sorties into the Atlantic and the Graf Spee had intercepted ships. It didn't make a lot of difference- a few hipss versus (eventually) a heap of U Boats.

(End of hijack.)

Most of the forming convoys would have been held in port and anyone making transit would have been recalled, leaving only what convoys were over the magic line. Basically damage control, until the bismark and hopefully not joined by her sister ship the tirpitz in a rotation, were either elimated or mission killed.

The only problem is that the British would have sued for peace long before that happened.Not wanting to besmirch the honor of the Royal Navy, but enough politicians of that era would have concidered it an honourable reason to sue for an armistice or a separate peace.

Declan

[Raguleader]

Originally Posted by AK84

[Hijack]
Wow, the USN did not even try to rescue survivors from Japanese ships! That is really really sad.
[/hijack]

They did try, though it's debatable how hard they tried. As mentioned upthread, many Japanese sailors simply refused to be rescued by American ships for various reasons. There are accounts of American shipwrecked sailors and downed pilots concealing themselves from Japanese forces in hopes of being rescued by their own friends instead.

Figure the Japanese refusal to be rescued by the Americans might have been one part honor-before-reason, one part possibly fearing what the Americans would do to them once captured, and one part hope that friendly forces would rescue them instead or that they could survive on their own (such as by swimming to shore).

On the topic of American battlecruisers, the Alaska class weren't battlecruisers in the classic definition, but "Large Cruisers". They were designed to be bigger, more heavily armored cruisers, rather than smaller, faster battleships.

And newer battleship designs, interestingly enough, featured less armor coverage than older designs, the idea being to pack as much armor as possible around the most vital parts of the ship (engines, guns, magazines, basically the ship's center of mass) and conserve weight by not armoring any of the less vital parts. The idea being to make it a lot less likely for a situation where a lucky shot penetrates something important and takes the ship out of the fight immediately.

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by AK84

[Hijack]
Wow, the USN did not even try to rescue survivors from Japanese ships! That is really really sad.
[/hijack]

Another brief hijack to comment on this hijack:

I'm looking for an online cite for this, but in the battle of the Bismark Sea, American and Australian air forces sank 8 Japanese troop transports and 4 escorting destroyers, and slaughtered every survivor they could see, by strafing men in the water and in lifeboats. They killed about 5,000 -- it's unclear how many died in the sinkings and how many were killed in the subsequent attacks. The rationale was that any Japanese troops who made it to shore would be able to accomplish their mission and reinforce Japanese positions in New Guinea.

This site claims that that there were a few isolated instances of PT boat and submarine commanders who ordered survivors killed for the reasons I mentioned above, but there was no "systematic" plan of mass slaughter. An account I read years ago came from one of Martin Caidin's WWII Pacific histories -- I believe it was The Ragged, Rugged Warriors. According to Caidin, there was a specific plan, and the attack aircraft were sent out specifically to locate and kill survivors for days, long after the ships were sunk or had cleared the area.

To reply more directly to the OP -- well, not exaclty warships, but certainly ships of war...

The German transport MV Wilhelm Gustloff was packed to the gillswhile evacuating soldiers, and was sunk by a Russian submarine with a loss of more than 9,000. According to Wiki, it may be the largest loss of life in a single sinking in recorded history.

Then the was the HMS Rohna, one of the first ships ever sunk by a smart bomb. Though Bristish, it was carrying American troops and more than a thousand of them died, making it America's greatest loss of soldiers due to a single sinking during WWII.

[cckerberos]

Here's one:

Through 4 and into 5 March Allied aircraft were despatched to straff Japanese life rafts and rescue vessels to prevent the large number of Japanese who had escaped their sinking transports from being rescued and arriving in Lea to be rearmed and sent to the front. There was a deadly race for the survivors between Japanese submarines and Allied aircraft.

[MarcusF]

Originally Posted by Declan

Most of the forming convoys would have been held in port and anyone making transit would have been recalled, leaving only what convoys were over the magic line. Basically damage control, until the bismark and hopefully not joined by her sister ship the tirpitz in a rotation, were either elimated or mission killed.

[continuing hijack]
This I agree with. It was the disruption to the Atlantic supply lines that Britain feared. The loss of ships if the Bismark got amongst an individual convoy would have been bad but the need to delay and re-route convoys over a prolonged period would have been disastrous for the already over-stretched merchant fleet.

The only problem is that the British would have sued for peace long before that happened.Not wanting to besmirch the honor of the Royal Navy, but enough politicians of that era would have concidered it an honourable reason to sue for an armistice or a separate peace.

Declan

This I do not understand. What politicians and when and why would they have sued for peace? Things were not good in May 1941 but I do not believe there was any substantial group looking for a way out. (Incidentally, it could hardly be a "separate peace". Separate from who? Britain (or at least the British Empire) were the only power fighting Germany at this point!) The Greek adventure had gone sour and the battle for Crete was being lost but support from America was growing (Roosevelt could not take the US into the war but was moving steadily into a state of active support for Britain) and it was clear from Ultra that Hitler was intent on invading Russia. Against that background there was no significant support for giving up. A long term failure of the Atlantic supply route might have forced Britain out of the war but nobody was looking for an "honourable reason" for quiting. We are not talking of politicians looking for an "exit strategy" from an unpopular war.

[/end hijack]

[gunnergoz]

Originally Posted by casdave

I would expect that the list would carry a very high number of WW2 subs

The only problem with the subs as part of the "most men lost" list is that few, if any subs of that era carried more than about 100 crew.

[Lust4Life]

Originally Posted by Otara

http://www.localhistories.org/maryrose.html

"It is a myth that the Mary Rose sank on its maiden voyage! It was launched in 1511 and it did not sink until 1545!"

Mary Rose actually sank during a battle, looks to me like a confounding of its loss with the Vasa or some such.

Otara

The Wasa sank on its maiden voyage.

The Mary Rose sank while sailing to engage a French fleet off of the Isle of Wight, while watched by Henry viii from Southsea Castle.

It is believed to have been heavily overladen with extra soldiers, and sank when the ship heeled in a sudden gust of wind and her lower gunports which were open, were flooded.

[lisiate]

Originally Posted by Cicero

Sounds like the Mary Rose. There was also the weird HMS Captain which capsized a few months after completion (Black Night Off Finesterre) with the loss of 500 crew.

I have a suspicion that there was a battleship which had a magazine explosion around 1900 but I can't remember the name. HMS Bulwark had an internal explosion and lost 738 men. There were a few survivors though.

Are you thinking of the USS Maine in 1898? She blew up in Havana harbour but there were 89 survivors.

[Boyo Jim]

There were some survivors. miraculously it seems given one of the most spectacular explosions ever caught on film, of the British battleship HMS Barham. According to Wiki, 862 crew lost out of about 1100.

[mlees]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Bulwark_(1899)

November 1914: HMS Bulwark suffered internal explosion from unknown causes while at anchor, only 14 survived out of 750, with two of those later dying of their injuries in a hospital.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Vanguard_(1909)

July 1917: HMS Vanguard suffers an internal explosion and 2 out of 800 men survive.

[Cicero]

Yeah- I mentioned the Bulwark at #31 above. The Vanguard however, was probably the one I was trying to remember.

[mlees]

Originally Posted by Cicero

Yeah- I mentioned the Bulwark at #31 above. The Vanguard however, was probably the one I was trying to remember.

Oops! Yes you did.

I was trying to find an HMS battleship loss around 1900, but couldn't find any. I was glancing through a bunch of ship histories online, and I ended up including Bulwark when I didn't need to.

[ralph124c]

The first RN ships lost to a German submarine (WW1) were the "Aboukir", the "Hogue", and the "Cressy"-were they lost with no survivors?

[lisiate]

Quoth wikipedia:

837 men were rescued while 1,397 men and 62 officers

And to make matters worse one of the survivors went down with all three ships!

Wenman "Kit" Wykeham-Musgrave (1899–1989) survived being torpedoed on three ships.[7] A midshipman aboard the Aboukir, he went overboard and he swam away from the suction. He was climbing on board the Hogue when she was torpedoed. He swam to the Cressy, but after she was torpedoed, he went overboard again, clung to a bit of driftwood and was eventually picked up by a Dutch trawler."

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by mlees

Oops! Yes you did.

I was trying to find an HMS battleship loss around 1900, but couldn't find any. I was glancing through a bunch of ship histories online, and I ended up including Bulwark when I didn't need to.

No worries. I usually have no problem with those things being repeated as very few people have time to read a long thread.

[Dissonance]

Originally Posted by AK84

[Hijack]
Wow, the USN did not even try to rescue survivors from Japanese ships! That is really really sad.
[/hijack]

The Pacific war was brutal on a scale that the European war wasn't, at least outside the Eastern Front. It was more common for both sides to try to kill the survivors than to try to rescue them, and I'm not talking about the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. From Samuel Eliot Morison's History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Vol. 5, describing aftermath of the night action of Friday November 13, 1942 off of Guadalcanal:

Even after 0939, when tug Bobolink had taken her in tow, Atlanta shot at a Japanese "Betty" which ventured too close; the seamen of Bobolink, rendered bloodthirsty by previous experiences, machine-gunned every dark head they saw afloat until Captain Jenkins begged them to desist lest mistakes be made.

Another example, this time describing strafing lifeboats, from A Glorious Way to Die: The Kamikaze Mission of the Battleship Yamato

A U.S. ensign named Brewer was photographing Yahagi's death throes. When the survivors tried to launch a boat he dived his plane across the listing hull. A short burst from his guns smashed the boat to splinters and tossed its occupants into the sea.

[ralph124c]

HMS Thetis was a RN submarine, which sank (accident) before WWII.
I don't know if anybody escaped-but there was a national outcry-regarding the bungled rescue attempts.

[Cicero]

I just looked up the Thetis after your post.

The interesting thing (unless you were a crew member) was that she was lost twice with all hands. Firstly as HMS Thetis she went down. She was raised, changed name to Thunderbolt and was sunk again with all hands.