LONDON: A team of UK divers has made a remarkable discovery off the coast of Scotland, uncovering what is believed to be the “virtually intact” wreck of a Royal Navy warship sunk during World War I. The divers located the HMS Hawke, which was torpedoed by a German submarine in October 1914, in the North Sea earlier this week.
Paul Downs, a diver who captured footage of the wreck, described the find as a “once-in-a-lifetime” event due to its “unbelievable” state of preservation. “She is virtually intact,” he remarked. “The condition of the wreck is astonishing for a vessel that’s been underwater for 110 years and suffered a violent end.”
The search for the HMS Hawke was led by “Lost in Waters Deep,” a group dedicated to locating WWI shipwrecks in Scottish waters. After years of effort, the team is now awaiting official confirmation from the Royal Navy regarding their findings.
The HMS Hawke, an Edgar-class cruiser launched in 1891, was 387 feet long and 60 feet wide. Only 70 of her crew survived when the ship was attacked by a German U-boat early in the war, with over 500 lives lost. The cruiser caught fire, exploded, and sank into the North Sea off northeast Scotland in under eight minutes. It has remained on the seabed, 360 feet deep, ever since. Downs believes the depth has helped preserve the wreck.
Despite being submerged for over a century, the ship’s guns, armaments, decking, and some interior features, such as a clock and a wall-mounted barometer, remain visible. Downs attributes the exceptional preservation to the ship’s depth and the high-quality materials used in its construction. “The brass work on the wreck, like the portholes and the deck gun breaches, is still shiny,” he noted.
The team from Lost in Waters Deep used various sources to locate the wreck, including the U-boat commander’s journal, logs from other Navy cruisers, and an 1980s report of a seabed obstruction, although the wreck was ultimately found about a kilometer away from that site.
The HMS Hawke was among the first Royal Navy vessels lost during the conflict as Britain’s fleet struggled with the threat of German U-boats. “Historically, she’s very significant,” Downs said. While he believes the wreck is unlikely to be salvaged after so many years underwater, the final decision will rest with the Royal Navy.
