Jonahs of the Titanic?

When the Titanic sank on 15^th April 1912 it sent shockwaves around the world, so many people involved in this shipwreck, so many names thrown around at the later inquiries. As the stories hit the newspaper stands and later became well known within the countless books, films, documentaries and even sheet music, many didn’t realise that some of these names were synonymous with shipwreck. For some of the survivors, Titanic wasn’t the first time they had been lost at sea, for others it wouldn’t be the last. Here are some people on board the most famous shipwreck in the world and their links to other sea disasters. Some of the survivors found themselves on the same ships as their former Titanic crewmates.

Charles Lightoller (4 sinkings) – Born in 1874, Lightoller suffered his first shipwreck in 1889 when a storm forced the sailing vessel Holt Hill to run aground. The crew were later rescued from an uninhabited island. After surviving Titanic, he went on to serve as First Officer on the liner Oceanic when she grounded and sank in 1914. In command of the destroyer HMS Falcon, she was accidentally sunk in a collision off Bridlington during a night time convoy manoeuvre where he fought overnight to save half of his ship that was still afloat. After being rescued he later took command of HMS Garry where he rammed and sunk the German submarine UB-110 off the Yorkshire coast. During the Second World War he took his yacht Sundowner to the Dunkirk evacuation and rescued 130 people from the beaches. He died in 1952 of heart disease.

Arthur John Priest (4 sinkings, 1 collision) – Possibly the largest amount of sea disasters claimed by one single person on board Titanic, Priest was a fireman for the great liners, surviving first the collision between the Olympic and HMS Hawke off the Isle of Wight in 1911, survived a gun battle between the German vessel Greif and his ship Alcantara where he was once again sunk, mined on the Titanic’s sister ship Britannic off the Greek island of Kea in November 1916 while working as a hospital ship, then a torpedo despatched his final ship the Donegal in the English Channel. After four sinkings and one collision, incredibly Priest would not die until 1937 when “the unsinkable stoker” succumbed to pneumonia in his bed in Southampton.

Violet Jessop (2 sinkings, 1 collision) – A stewardess on board Titanic, Violet had already been on board Olympic during the Hawke collision, was rescued from the lifeboat after Titanic went down and then found herself on the third sister Britannic when she was mined. She later wrote a biography about her life and had been referred to as “Miss Unsinkable.” She died of heart failure in 1971 at the age of 83.

Archie Jewell (3 sinkings) – After surviving Titanic, lookout Archie Jewell survived the Britannic sinking but was later lost in the sinking of Donegal.

George Beauchamp (2 sinkings) – Following his survival from Titanic, stoker George went on to serve on board the Cunard liner Lusitania when she was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland on 7^th May 1915 killing 1197 people. He survived once again and said later that he would “stick to smaller” vessels. He died in 1942 at the age of 72.

Captain Edward Smith (1 sinking, 1 collision) – Commanding officer of Titanic was also captain of the Olympic during the Hawke collision. A subsequent investigation blamed Olympic for the incident.

Frank “Lucky” Tower – This has since been proved to be an urban legend, a man who was said to have survived Titanic, Lusitania and the 1914 sinking of the liner Empress of Ireland in a collision in the St Lawrence Seaway. No Frank Tower appears on any list on either ship despite claims that it was a true story.

Throughout history there have been several incidents that have involved the same people. In 1991 a group of entertainers took charge of the rescue of their crewmates and fellow passengers on the liner Oceanos when she sank off the coast of South Africa. Several of those same people were on board the Italian liner Achille Lauro in 1994 when she was consumed by fire and sank off Somalia. 

HMHS Britannic, a ship that many Titanic survivors would later serve on when she sank in 1916

Britain’s Lost Tragedies Uncovered (and remembered)

Since the age of 11 I have had a fascination with disasters, particularly the lost ships of the world but this soon extended to air disasters and then it spiralled into an archive of information that I have now. As many people know I have written over a dozen books on disasters, starting with the Great Gale of 1871 in my home town of Bridlington which saw 28 ships sink in one horrendous day, over 50 lives were lost and the two town lifeboats put out of action.

But as time went on there were many disasters that I would come across, many of them being so forgotten that there is no memorial, no books, no TV drama and in some cases it would only be an accidental acquiring of a newspaper report from over a century ago that would lead me to discover more. But despite many of these forgotten events, it came to my attention that there were some that had a memorial to their victims already placed. As with any tragic death, it is the relatives and friends of the deceased that are affected the most, not to mention if there are any survivors who have to suffer the PTSD for years to come. But as the years go by the stories get lost, so this is where I come in.

The History Press wanted a book of these largely unknown incidents and so the hard part for me was which ones to put into print. It was then a three year whirlwind of visiting places around the UK to try and find as much information as possible to add to their stories. The first one (I did the chapters in date order) was the Southampton fire of 1837. I had known about a tragic fire in the area since 1997 when I first visited the city but never looked into it any further. It turned out that just down the road from the blitz-damaged ruins of Holyrood Church was a warehouse that, on the night of 7^th November 1837, had a small fire that soon grew to be a raging inferno. The locals nearby tried to help extinguish the blaze but there was no hope. 22 people were killed, their names now forever engraved on either side of the entrance to the church.

Over 300 miles north is the seaside town of Whitby, a place on the North Yorkshire coast that I have visited on many occasions, not least to see the lifeboat house and the memorials to the sinking of the hospital ship Rohilla during the First World War. On the top of the cliffs stands Whitby Abbey, overshadowing a small church where there is a memorial to the lifeboat crew from 1861. Like Bridlington, Whitby suffered the same stormy problem exactly ten years and one day before the Great Gale of 1871. Only this time it was the lifeboat crew who died after heroically rescuing the crews of several ships despite overwhelming cold, storms and exhaustion. Of the 13 crew members, there was one survivor and that was Henry Freeman. He later went on to be coxswain of the RNLI lifeboat and his grave today reflects his heroic career as does the lifeboat museum in the town. 

The next memorial I wanted to write was that of the Hull Paragon railway station disaster. It was 14^th February 1927 that a mistake at a signal box caused two trains to be on the same track on a collision course. A train out of Hull and a train entering the station from the small town of Withernsea smashed into each other and caused carnage. Eight people were pronounced dead on the scene, four more would die later, most of them from Withernsea. The survivors were left with horrific injuries and walls had to be broken down in order to extract the victims from the railway lines and get them to hospital. Today the area is still in use, although the Withernsea line is long gone. A memorial plaque with an information board sits behind the Hull Royal hospital overlooking where so much sadness reigned 95 years ago. Due to the fact that I have since had further information on this disaster, and that I had already written about the other two disasters on this same line (Lockington in 1986 and Burton Agnes 1947), it is my intention to write a book solely on this crash.

Over to the Isle of Wight was another adventure to the museums and monuments of Britain, so many interested places including castles. But up on a hill on a quiet country road near the village of Brook is a scarred piece of chalk cliff, the site of the crash of a passenger flying boat. On 15^th November 1957 Aquila Airways flying boat City of Sydney took off from Calshot with 58 people on board, but immediately had an engine failure that caused it to be turned back. The aircraft slammed to the ground and what is actually incredible is that 13 people survived. This became England’s worst air disaster at the time and Britain’s second worst. At the foot of the cliff a memorial stone marks the spot where you can stand and look up at where tragedy struck, another plaque is in the nearby Brook church.

Now what is incredible about this next disaster is not that it occurred in a place just as quiet and peaceful, but that two similar accidents happened here almost fifty years to the day between each other. On 10 June 1925 a day out on board an open top coach turned to disaster when one of three in a line, carrying 23 passengers, suffered brake failure on a hill near Grassington, North Yorkshire. The coach smashed through the wall of Dibbles Bridge and landed upside down killing 7 people. Fast forward five decades, on 27 May 1975 and the exact same thing happened with a party of pensioners, the coach landing in the exact same place, only this time it became (and still is to date) Britain’s single worst road disaster with 33 killed. Most people came from the town of Thornaby and the town has put a lot of effort into making sure their residents are remembered by placing several memorials around the town, but the fact that the two disasters are so similar is nothing short of eerie, especially when you compare the two images. 

London has seen its fair share of tragedy over the years. I have already written about the Moorgate tube crash before and future projects include the sinking of the Marchioness on the Thames. But two fires just months apart would provide many headlines when an illegal drinking club was firebombed by a disgruntled customer and killed 37 people in August 1980 (the killer was jailed for life) and then in January 1981 a party in a house at 439 New Cross Road had fire brigades race to the scene to be met with carnage. To this day nobody knows exactly how the fire started, many people believe it was arson yet with no concrete evidence this is merely speculative as all signs point to an accident. 13 people died in the blaze, a friend of the deceased later committing suicide. A plaque on the side of the house today remembers the 14 who died. To this day the New Cross Fire is steeped in controversy.

One chapter that did shock me as being forgotten was the explosion at a valve house for the water company in the village of Abbeystead in Lancashire in 1986. During a tour of the plant, several locals were being shown around to allow their minds to be put at rest over fears that the station was causing a flooding issue nearby. What nobody knew is that there had been a build-up of methane gas that had been released over time and when a demonstration was taking place of the water pumping, this gas was released and all it took was a cigarette. A resulting explosion ripped into the tunnels and lifted the ground above their heads. 16 people were killed. A small plaque remembers those who died but the name Abbeystead is barely remembered by anybody other than those familiar with this tragedy.

When I talk of forgotten disasters, I don’t ever think that people live at the site of a place like this and don’t know a thing about it. But when I visited the village of Dunkeswick 20 years after twelve people were killed in an air disaster it shocked me that people can be so ignorant of their local area. We are talking about people living in the next field! But on 24^th May 1995 a dense fog rolled over the Leeds area and as Knight Air flight 816 took off from Leeds-Bradford Airport it soon became apparent that their artificial horizon was not working properly. The pilots could not tell which way was up, the Embraer Bandeirante plunged into a farmer’s field with no survivors. The nearest church at the tiny village of Weeton has a memorial in their grounds.

Each of these disasters made headlines at the time, for those involved in the rescue operations, the recovery of bodies or even surviving the injuries, they will never be far from their minds. But once the press have walked away and moved on to the next story, many of these tragedies will once again be left alone. Only the history books can now tell these stories. Nobody is alive that remembers the Whitby storm or can tell us what survivor Henry Freeman was like to talk to. I have written down as many as I can and my work will keep on going for many years to come. These disasters here have all been given memorials in one way or another. Many other stories in my book have nothing. The Hosier Lane family massacre of 1869 has nothing, the street itself devastated in a World War 2 air raid. The site of the Ronan Point tower block that collapsed in 1968 is not marked. An explosion in an underpass leading to Hull’s fishing docks has nothing but graffiti on its walls and the terrible memories of 19 people being burned, two of them fatally.

So today I continue my work and at this moment have already researched more about the Hull rail disaster, got funding for a memorial to a sinking ship during World War 2, got more books ready to be released and, of course, renewed my National Archives reader card ready for the next step. If anybody can help add further detail to my archive about any of these disasters, or indeed ones that I have never written about, then please get in touch via email - shipwreckdata@yahoo.co.uk - and I will reply. 

Britain's Lost Tragedies Uncovered was published in 2021 by The History Press, priced £12.99 and available in paperback as well as e-book. 

The Lost Ships of the Falklands War 1982

When war broke out in the South Atlantic in 1982 few could imagine just how much would happen in just a few months. From the initial invasion by Argentina of the island of South Georgia followed by the Falkland Islands in April, the British government wasted no time in sending a task force to retake the islands. By the time the Argentinian military surrendered on 14 June 1982 the seabed was littered with vessels.

Fenix – Argentine landing craft said to be the first casualty of the war, but very little is known about her. She has been photographed wrecked on a beach by several sources.

ARA Santa Fe – 25 April 1982. This Argentine Balao class submarine was originally the USS Catfish, launched in 1944 and sold to Argentina in 1971 and renamed. On 25 April 1982 she was sighted by a British helicopter after sailing from South Georgia following a mission to resupply and land marines. Depth charges were launched and the now surfaced submarine was riddled with small arms fire which made her inoperable. Going alongside Grytviken pier, the sub partially sank there and was later scuttled in deep water three years later.

ARA General Belgrano – A cruiser originally launched by the US Navy as the USS Phoenix she was famously photographed at Pearl Harbour during the 1941 Japanese attack, incredibly unscathed as the fleet burned around her. Sold to Argentina she was renamed 17 de Octubre then eventually General Belgrano. On 2nd May 1982 she was part of a task group escorted by smaller ships and unbeknown to her followed by the British submarine HMS Conqueror. With every intention to turn towards the Falklands to take part in hostilities, Conqueror was given permission to sink her. Torpedoes sank her leaving 323 dead, hundreds of survivors floated for hours before the escort ships even realised the vessel had gone down. In 2003 a National Geographic expedition failed to find the wreck in a search involving survivors of both Belgrano and Conqueror.

HMS Sheffield – 4th May 1982. The Type 42 destroyer commissioned in 1975 was the first British casualty after an air attack ended with an Exocet missile slamming into her side and igniting fires within the ship. 20 of her crew died, 261 others survived. The ship was taken under tow by HMS Yarmouth but after six days the flooding within became too much and she sank, the first warship sunk in conflict since the Second World War.

Narwal – Argentine fishing vessel damaged in air attack by aircraft from HMS Hermes 9th May 1982. The bombs failed to explode but enough damage was caused to see the vessel founder the following day.

Isla del los Estados – Argentine military supply ship that had only been in service for 18 months when she sank on 11 May 1982 after a battle with HMS Alacrity’s 4.5 inch gun killing all but two of her 24 crew.

Rio Carcarana – An Argentine cargo ship, she was attacked on 16th May 1982 by British aircraft and was soon on fire. Fearing the detonation of her cargo of munitions the crew were ordered to abandon ship, although she only sank days later when HMS Antelope despatched the derelict burnt out hulk by two Sea Skua missiles.

HMS Ardent – 21 May 1982. Type 21 frigate, attacked by Argentine aircraft in Falkland Sound, two bombs struck the ship but failed to explode. Several more bombs from other aircraft slammed into various points around the vessel causing major fires. HMS Yarmouth took off the survivors but 22 others were dead. Ardent sank the following day in shallow water.

HMS Antelope – On 21 May 1982 the Type 21 frigate came under air attack and fought back with SeaCat missiles, disabling one aircraft but not before a bomb penetrated her hull killing one crewman. Incredibly the bomb did not explode. Another attack saw an aircraft crash after coming under fire from Antelope's 20mm guns. Attempts to diffuse the unexploded ordnance still on board saw the bomb detonate on the night of 23rd May killing one member of the team and injuring another. The ship was ripped apart and sank in two sections, thankfully most people survived.

HMS Coventry – 25 May 1982. Air attack on Coventry, another Type 42 destroyer, resulted in explosion and fire following bomb strike. Of the three bombs that hit the ship, one failed to explode. 20 killed, ship capsized with very little time and survivors rescued by nearby ships in nearby task group. Wreck has been located and surveyed by Royal Navy over the last few years.

Atlantic Conveyor – 25 May 1982. Taken from civilian owners Cunard to be used as cargo transport, she was hit by two missiles the same day as HMS Coventry resulting in fires consuming vital stores which included helicopter parts. Vessel later sank with 12 killed. 

RFA Sir Galahad – Together with RFA Sir Tristram, these two Landing Ship Logistics came under air attack on 8th June 1982 in what was one of the worst incidents for the British of the entire war. Direct hits on both ships saw the death of 48 crew and soldiers with many more suffering horrific burns, the most famous being Welsh Guardsman Simon Weston who has since become the image of the Falklands survivor due to his facial burns and public story. Sir Galahad was later sunk in deep water, Sir Tristram carried back to Britain on the back of a heavy lift ship.

Foxtrot 4 – On 8th June 1982, she was one of four LCU landing craft from HMS Fearless and was transporting army personnel and vehicles down St Choiseul Sound when it came under attack from Argentine aircraft. Taking direct hit from a bomb, she was taken in tow before sinking. Six people were killed, there were 11 survivors.

Hercules – Not officially on the list of ships sunk during the Falklands War, on 8th June 1982 this Liberian tanker was bombed by Argentine aircraft in the mistaken belief that it was a British supply vessel almost 500 miles away from the conflict. There were no injuries to the crew who were later rescued and the ship was scuttled after an unexploded bomb was found in the tank. A controversy around this sinking has never fully been settled.

Bahia Buen Suceso – Argentine landing craft which was captured by British forces on 15th June 1982 and sunk as target by Royal Navy on 21st October 1982.

Despite the ships above being sunk and out of action, there were many more on both sides that suffered damage, death and destruction in the course of their duties. These include HMS Glamorgan, HMS Plymouth, HMS Brilliant, RFA Sir Tristram, HMS Glasgow, ARA Guerrico, Alferez Sobral, Formosa, Piedra Buena, HMS Arrow, HMS Alacrity and many more. As with many wars that have come before and will so in the future, most people involved with the incidents here bear no ill feeling towards their former enemy. Pilots have met up with the crews of the ships they have bombed, crew of the Conqueror have shook hands with those who survived the General Belgrano and despite the long running Argentine claim to the islands, the people who live on the Falkland Islands cast their vote and today still remain under the flag of Great Britain.