Hampshire wreck survey gets under way

May 9, 2016 at 10:03 am

HMS Hampshire, which sank off Birsay in June 1916, with the loss of 737 crewmen.

A project to survey the wreck of HMS Hampshire, off Birsay, got under way at the weekend.

The assessment – a collaborative project between ORCA Marine, the Archeaology Institute UHI and Seatronics — is looking at the condition of the wreck, 100 years after she sank, documenting the impact of salvage activities and environmental factors on the integrity of the remains.

HMS Hampshire struck a mine at 7.40pm on June 5, 1916, while transporting Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, to Archangel, in northern Russia, for a meeting with Tsar Nicholas II.

She sank within 20 minutes, with the loss of 737 lives, including Lord Kitchener. Only 12 of the company survived. The German U-boat U-75 laid the mine on May 29, 1916, off Marwick Head.

Presently, the wreck lies upside down in approximately 60 metres of water, surrounded by a large debris field. The HMS Hampshire site was designated in 2002, under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. There have previously only been two remote surveys of the wreck since the salvage activities of 1977 to 1983.