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27 October 1914 – the first British battleship of World War I to be lost to enemy action

The 598-foot King George V-class battleship HMS Audacious is another important first in British naval history. She had the misfortune of being the first British battleship to be sunk by enemy action during World War I, on 27 October 1914, just two months into the war. She was also the only modern British dreadnought battleship to be sunk by enemy action in the war. The story of the loss of HMS Audacious also involves a famous White Star liner, RMS Olympic, which would carry out a dramatic rescue attempt.

The 23,400-ton King George V-class dreadnought battleship HMS Audacious– the first British capital ship to be sunk by the enemy during WWI. (IWM)

Audacious was one of the four dreadnought battleships of the King George V class provided for under the 1910 building programme. Battleship design had taken a dramatic leap forward in 1906 with the launch of the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought, when the Royal Navy, under the charismatic leadership of the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Fisher, boldly embraced a risky radical alteration of the prevailing balance of naval power with the creation of a revolutionary new type of battleship. HMS Dreadnought was such a quantum leap forward in battleship design that her name would be used to define the whole class of such new battleships – dreadnoughts. Almost overnight, the generation of battleships that had gone before her was rendered virtually obsolete; they became known as pre-dreadnoughts, and although they sailed with the respective fleets in World War I, they were relegated to the end of the battle line or given other rear echelon taskings. Soon, other major naval powers raced to build their own dreadnoughts.

The new dreadnoughts were some 10 per cent bigger than the pre-dreadnoughts; they were faster, carried better armour and were better compartmentalised internally. They also dispensed with much of the smaller calibre secondary armament of the pre-dreadnoughts, and gunnery on these new all big gun ships was radically improved.

The first of the new class of dreadnoughts were equipped with ten 12-inch guns set in five twin turrets, each gun being able to fire an 850lb shell 18,500 yards – more than 10 miles. The first British dreadnoughts had three of their five big gun turrets set on the centre line of the ship; A turret forward and two turrets, X and Y, aft. P turret was situated on the port side of the bridge superstructure, with Q turret on the starboard side in a staggered wing arrangement that allowed more space on the centreline of the vessel for boilers and machinery. The new dreadnoughts also had the latest 11-inch armour and faster new engines. They were indeed a revolution in naval warfare. Being the most important ships in the fleet, these battleships and the later battlecruiser evolution were called capital ships.

Before the dreadnought era, battleships and cruisers had no centralised fire control. Each gun was fired, independently of the others, from its respective turret. From 1906 onwards, battleships, and then battlecruisers, were fitted with the latest in range-finding techniques, sighting and fire control. Crucially, for the first time, all eight guns (and ten with later classes) in a broadside could be aimed and fired by one gunnery control officer positioned in an armoured chamber at the top of the conning tower just in front of the bridge – and also by a secondary gunnery control centre towards the stern of the ship. Officers in the spotting top – halfway up the foremast – observed the fall of shot, the splashes from shells landing beside the enemy ship far away in the distance, and could give suitable corrections to walk the guns in on their target.

The development of the dreadnought by Britain in 1906 could have been a colossal own goal – by destroying her traditional naval numerical supremacy in the balanced order of the time. But taking the calculated view that British shipyards could build more of the new dreadnoughts than could the shipyards of any rival countries, the Royal Navy gambled with the launch of HMS Dreadnought. They gambled – and won.

The dreadnought race stepped up in 1910 and 1911, with Germany laying down four capital ships in each of those years, and Britain laying down five. The British initially equipped their first dreadnoughts with 12-inch guns, which had a rate of fire of approximately 2 rounds per minute per gun. At long range, it was found that the latest version of this gun, which dated back to 1893 (but now had lengthened barrels), had accuracy problems.

To solve this, beginning with the Orion class of dreadnoughts of 1910/11, the Royal Navy quickly moved to the 13.5-inch gun. This larger gun allowed for a much larger shell, which gave improved penetration. The larger shell and increase in bore allowed a lower muzzle velocity, and this gave much greater accuracy and less barrel wear. The final development of the pre-war dreadnought was a 15-inch gun, which was reliable and accurate with a low muzzle velocity that gave outstanding barrel life. The first shipboard firing of such a gun took place in 1915.

Four Orion-class battleships were built for the Royal Navy between 1909 and 1912, and they were much larger than the earlier dreadnoughts. The next class, the King George V-class dreadnoughts such as Audacious were designed as an enlarged and improved evolution of the Orion class.

As Germany built up its own fleet of dreadnoughts, Britain responded by providing ten further super-dreadnoughts in the 1912 and 1913 budgets – the Queen Elizabeth and Revenge classes, which introduced further evolutions in armament, speed and protection. In contrast, Germany laid down only five battleships; she was now concentrating her resources on building up her ground forces. By the beginning of World War I in 1914, Britain had 22 of the new dreadnoughts in service compared to Germany’s 15. Britain also had another 13 under construction compared to Germany’s 5.

Battleships protected their most important and vulnerable parts inside an armoured box called the citadel, which ran from just in front of the forward gun turrets all the way back to aft of the stern gun turrets. Along the side of the citadel, on either side of the ship at the waterline, ran the main vertical armour belt, which was 11 inches thick in the first dreadnoughts but gradually got thicker with successive new classes of battleship.

In front of the forward gun turrets and aft of the stern gun turrets, a transverse armoured bulkhead ran athwartships, right across the ship from one side of the hull to the other. This transverse armour bulkhead connected the ends of the vertical main armour belts on both sides of the ship to form the rectangular framework of the citadel.

The deck over the smaller rapid fire casemate guns that lined either side of the beam of a dreadnought was armoured, and there was a further horizontal armour deck deep within the ship, designed to protect the machinery and magazines at the very bottom of the ship. In all, some 35–40 per cent of the weight of a battleship was made up of armour.

When the first generations of dreadnoughts were developed, the less powerful guns of the day fired in a relatively flat trajectory from relatively close range. Until 1905, normal battle range for capital ships was about 6,000 yards (3–4 miles) with long-range engagements perhaps out to 10,000 yards, or 6 miles. At both these ranges, the shell of a high-velocity gun would strike its target’s side. For this reason, a capital ship’s armour was concentrated on its vertical main belt along the hull side at the waterline and designed to protect the ship’s vital areas, such as magazines, boilers and turbines.

The thickest part of the main belt ran from forward of the forward turrets to aft of the aftmost turrets, whilst thinner armour protected the hull forward and aft of the citadel. At short range, a horizontally fired shell would not be able to strike the deck of the enemy ship – and so, to save unnecessary weight, decks were more lightly armoured than the vertical side armour belt.

As battleship design developed, however, successive generations of new and improved big guns were able to hurl their shells further and further. Soon, shells were being fired with a range of 21,000 yards – some 12 miles. More powerful guns, firing from greater distances, increased the height of the shell’s trajectory and produced a new phenomenon, ‘plunging fire’ or ‘falling shot’. This was more likely to strike the lightly armoured deck of a battleship rather than the thick vertical side armour belt.

As the great naval arms race developed, Audacious was laid down at Cammell Laird’s shipyard at Birkenhead, Merseyside on 23 March 1911. She was launched on 14 September 1912, and after fitting out afloat and the addition of her vertical armour belt plates, she was completed in August 1913. She was commissioned on 15 October 1913 and joined her sister ships in the 2nd Battle Squadron.

Audacious carried ten of the new Mk V 13.5-inch guns set in five twin turrets on her centre line: a super-firing forward pair called A and B turrets; a super-firing aft pair, X and Y turrets; and Q turret amidships. The staggered wing formation on earlier dreadnoughts, where P and Q turrets had been situated either side of the bridge superstructure allowing only 8 guns to fire in a broadside, had been abandoned – all turrets were now on the centre line and all 10 guns could now fire in a broadside. The new 13.5-inch gun could also fire an increased weight 1,400lb shell some 23,800 yards – about 13.5 miles. B turret was a super-firing turret, situated aft and above of A turret, whilst X turret was a super-firing turret forward and above the aftmost Y turret. The increased 1,400lb shell required four 106lb quarter charges of rod- based cordite. Each gun had its own magazine in the bowels of the ship that held 112 rounds per gun.

In addition to her main armament, Audacious was fitted with 16 breech-loading (BL) rapid fire Mark VII 4-inch secondary guns, set eight along either side in a mixture of casemate mounts and deckhouses, which were designed to target fast-moving torpedo boats that might close for a beam shot. These guns however proved to be ineffectual, being too light to deal with the newer and larger torpedo boats and destroyers and the increasing range of torpedoes. The casemates set in the forward superstructure were also found to be ineffectual in any kind of sea. The BL Mark VII 4-inch guns were removed in 1915 and substituted by 12 deck- mounted 4-inch guns. Three 21-inch submerged torpedo tubes were fitted, one in either beam and a third in the stern. She was protected by a 12-inch thick vertical waterline armour belt and an 8-inch upper belt.

The British Grand Fleet, formed in August 1914, was composed of the 1st Fleet and part of the 2nd Fleet; it comprised 35–40 capital ships (battleships and battlecruisers) along with supporting cruisers, destroyers and lighter naval units. It would be based in the great natural harbour of at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, off the north of Scotland.

As the war began, German submarines initially had little success, but as we saw in the preceding chapter, things changed dramatically on 1 September 1914 with the sinking of HMS Pathfinder by a German submarine in the Forth. Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, in command of the Grand Fleet, became very concerned about the threat of submarine attack and the consequent safety of the Grand Fleet in Scapa Flow. The same day that Pathfinder was sunk, he ordered the Grand Fleet to weigh anchor and move out of Scapa Flow to sea. Audacious was at this point in HM Dockyard, Devonport, being refitted – she would rejoin the Grand Fleet at the beginning of October 1914.

The Grand Fleet began to move around the west coast of Scotland and the northern coast of Ireland, marking time until Scapa Flow could be made safe enough to take the fleet there. Initially the fleet laid up in the alternative anchorage of Loch Ewe on Scotland’s north-west coast for 17 days, before returning to Scapa Flow.

A month later, on 17 October 1914, the fleet put to sea again from Scapa Flow, but this time Loch Ewe was regarded as unsafe because a submarine had been reported near there 10 days earlier. The Grand Fleet thus retreated even further from the enemy, to Lough Swilly in the north of Ireland, where the 2nd Battle Squadron, including the recently refitted Audacious, would be based for some months.

As we saw in the preceding chapter, the loss of Pathfinder was quickly followed by the sinking of the three armoured cruisers Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy, with great loss of life by a single submarine, U 9, on 22 September 1914. Then, on 15 October 1914, the same German submarine, U 9, sank the British protected cruiser HMS Hawke with the loss of some 500 men.

By now, every report of a submarine was causing grave consternation. In Scapa Flow, the Grand Fleet had been thought safe from attack – but lookouts, now on full alert, began to see German submarines all around, and constant alarms were being raised.

Now fully aware of the potential of the submarine threat, when the Admiralty examined the anti-submarine defences at Scapa Flow, naval commanders were staggered to find just how poor the defences were for the fleet. The astonishing success of the German submarine would subsequently cause the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, to change his view about utilising submarines in the Royal Navy.

On 2 November 1914, Churchill issued a list of decisions taken by the Admiralty. In amongst a raft of war preparations it was provided that extra numbers of destroyers and armed merchant cruisers, along with 48 armed trawlers and three yachts with guns, would be sent to Scapa Flow. Attempts were made to fortify and block all but a few of the main sea entrances into the Flow. In addition to sea defences, coastal defence gun emplacements were installed at strategic locations covering the sounds, and powerful searchlights were installed that could sweep across the water.

In the water, impenetrable anti-submarine netting made from thick interwoven sections of wire cable was suspended on floating wooden booms strung across parts of Scapa Flow and the larger channels into the Flow such as Hoxa Sound, which were not going to be completely closed off. Any fast-moving enemy torpedo boat or destroyer would suffer extensive damage if it hit the boom, allowing shore batteries to fire on it. Moving sections of the boom, much like gates, were incorporated so that they could be opened and closed to allow British vessels to pass.

Because of the tidal race in the smaller sounds, mining was not feasible and it wasn’t necessary to keep these channels open for navigation like the other larger channels. The water depths in the four sounds between the islands to the east of Scapa Flow and also in Burra Sound to the west, ranged up to maximum depths of about 15 metres at most – perfect to be blocked by intentionally scuttled sunken ships: Blockships.

These blockships were redundant, old or damaged vessels at the end of their lives that had no great commercial value – but which had great strategic value. They were stripped of anything valuable before being towed into position, their holds often filled with large boulders to make them sink quickly. Their hulls were then blasted open to the sea by explosives to finally sink them.

As the British Admiralty moved to make Scapa Flow safe and secure, German intelligence became aware of the deployment of the British 2nd Battle Squadron to Lough Swilly, and sent the converted liner Berlin to lay a 200-strong minefield in the shipping areas outside the lough. The North Channel of the Irish Sea lies between Northern Ireland and the west coast of Scotland, and was essentially a busy Atlantic highway for shipping moving through the Irish Sea to and from Liverpool for foreign ports. Whereas it would have been suicide for Berlin to actually sail through the North Channel into the Irish Sea, German Intelligence believed that a successful mining operation could be carried out in the open waters of the Atlantic to the west of the North Channel.

The first victim of the mines laid by Berlin was the freighter Manchester Commerce, sunk on 26 October 1914. The following day, 27 October 1914, the news of her loss had not yet reached the Admiralty – and no minefield was suspected so far west. The 2nd Battle Squadron super-dreadnoughts King George V, Ajax, Centurion, Monarch, Thunderer, Orion and Audacious left Lough Swilly with their escorts to conduct gunnery exercises at sea.

At 0840, in the middle of a turn, Audacious struck one of the Berlin’s mines off Tory Island. The mine exploded under the ship at the rear of the port engine room, which soon flooded, along with the machine room, X turret shell room and the compartments below. The ship rapidly took on a list of 10–15 degrees to port. Thinking that the battleship had been torpedoed, the captain hoisted the submarine warning signal flag.

Audacious lists to port as crew begin to abandon ship – other crew line the high starboard-side rail. (IWM)

With the Hogue, Aboukir and Cressy tragedy a month earlier still very much in his thoughts – and no doubt fearing a similar torpedo attack on the other ships of the squadron – Admiral Jellicoe ordered the 2nd Battle Squadron to leave the area. The light cruiser HMS Liverpool, four 2nd flotilla destroyers and a number of lighter vessels would remain on the scene to assist the damaged battleship.

By deliberate counter-flooding of compartments on the opposite starboard side of Audacious, her list was successfully reduced. The central and starboard side engine rooms were still operating and with the ship still able to make 9 knots she headed for land on her centre shafts.

Water continued to flood the ship, however, such that at 1000 the central engine room had to be abandoned. Shortly afterwards, the starboard engine also had to be closed down and the room secured. Audacious now had no propulsion whatsoever.

At 1030, the captain of the light cruiser HMS Liverpool spotted the White Star liner RMS Olympic on a return crossing from New York, and ordered her to assist in the evacuation of the 900-strong crew of the Audacious. By 1100, as the immobile Audacious rolled with the swell, her port side main deck had begun to dip under the water. Two hours later, all but 250 of the battleship’s crew had been taken off, and arrangements had been agreed to take the damaged battleship in tow to safety. The small and nimble destroyer HMS Fury set up a cable between Audacious and the larger and more powerful Olympic – and by 1400, the tow was secured and ready to begin.

Initially, progress was encouraging and the Olympic slowly began to make way, dragging the sluggish weight of Audacious westwards towards safety, flanked by other rescue vessels that were standing by. But when Olympic was required to alter course to south-south-east, to head towards Lough Swilly, things began to unravel. The seas were starting to rise and as the steering gear of Audacious was no longer operational, she became increasingly unmanageable. Eventually, she sheared off into the wind and the towline parted.

Another attempt at a tow was made at 1530, this time by HMS Liverpool. HMS Fury once again attached a cable, but after only 15 minutes, it became fouled in the cruiser’s propellers, and it too parted.

By 1600, Audacious was well settled down into the water, with only 4 feet clear at the bow and one foot clear at the stern. HMS Fury took over a third tow cable for yet another attempt, but as this cable was being tightened, it broke. Olympic was ordered to stand by and be ready to make another attempt.

By 1700, the quarterdeck of Audacious was awash and the decision was made to evacuate the majority of the remaining crew. During their evacuation, due to the heavy weather and deteriorating conditions aboard Audacious, it was decided to abandon her completely until the next morning. By 1830, despite her heavy rolling, the remaining crew of the stricken battleship had been safely taken aboard Olympic and Liverpool. Liverpool stood by for the night, whilst the remainder of the ships departed for Lough Swilly.

Audacious is further down by the stern and her quarter deck is now awash. The bulk of the remaining crew are now being evacuated to small boats whilst three destroyers stand by. (IWM)

At 2055, Audacious capsized and turned turtle, floating upside down for a short period. At about 2100, a series of massive explosions in the vicinity of the forward shell rooms and magazines, which served A and B turrets, blew out her bow from about the bridge forward. Large sections of the ship were sent spiralling through the air. Within minutes, the battleship sank stern first.

Olympic had steamed back to Lough Swilly earlier that evening when Audacious was abandoned for the night, to disembark the rescued crew. For security reasons, Olympic was ordered to remain out of sight of the Grand Fleet vessels, so that none of her paying passengers, with perhaps pro-German sympathies, would be able to observe the fleet’s activities. There were quite a number of German-born Americans aboard Olympic who had witnessed Audacious sinking – and it was felt that they could not be relied upon to keep quiet.

British military authorities then refused to permit Olympic’s civilian passengers to disembark and refused to allow the ship herself to leave Lough Swilly. The only people permitted off the ship were the rescued naval crew of the Audacious and Olympic’s chief surgeon Dr John Beaumont, who was being transferred to the SS Celtic.

The White Star Line was reluctant to risk moving its flagship, Olympic, whilst there was such danger at sea. But finally, on 2 November, after ship and her civilian passengers had been held aboard for six days, Olympic was allowed to leave Lough Swilly and complete her voyage – not to Greenock as originally planned, but to Belfast. She disembarked her passengers there the following day.

For security reasons, the Admiralty tried to cover up the sinking, but despite its best attempts, speculation about the possible sinking of the Audacious got into the public domain. In an effort to hide the disaster that had befallen a new dreadnought from a single mine, the Admiralty went as far as modifying the SS Mountclan to resemble the lost battleship and published her ‘movements’. They also kept Audacious on the Grand Fleet’s order of battle.

The British media kept largely quiet about the sinking to begin with – refraining from aiding the enemy. But the large number of witnesses to the sinking and the inevitable loose tongues made the task of keeping the secret all but impossible. It proved difficult enough to persuade the neutral passengers who had been aboard the Olympic during the attempts to save the battleship to keep silent – but some of the crew themselves also let the cat out of the bag.

The Daily Mail published a letter proclaiming that a masseur from the Olympic had openly boasted to his barber that he had seen Audacious sink – and that the authorities had ordered everyone to say nothing. The publication of this letter led to the Admiralty being deluged with enquiries from anxious relatives of the Audacious’ crew. If the deception were to be maintained then the fears of the families would have to be assuaged.

None of the crew of Audacious had been lost during the sinking – so when an enquiry was received the Admiralty could reply with a reasonable degree of truth: According to the latest information, 85 is well and serving with the Fleet.’

All enquiries about Audacious herself were ignored.

As images of the stricken battleship taken by the Olympic’s passengers were published beyond the Empire and free from constraints placed on the British press, Germany knew by mid-November that Audacious had been sunk.

The only casualty during the entire momentous incident had been the unfortunate Petty Officer William Burgess on the cruiser HMS Liverpool. He was killed whilst standing on her crowded deck some 800 yards away, when he was hit by a 2ft × 3ft fragment of armour plate as Audacious blew up.

Audacious was the only British dreadnought battleship lost to enemy action during World War I. HMS Vanguard blew up at anchor in Scapa Flow from a magazine explosion in 1917, and the Royal Navy’s other capital ship losses were either battlecruisers or pre-dreadnoughts.

Three days after the Armistice was called in November 1918, the Admiralty officially admitted the loss of Audacious in what it called ‘a delayed announcement’.

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Location chart for the wreck of HMS Audacious. Nearby are the famous wrecks of SS Empire Heritage and RMS Justicia.

Today, Audacious lies far out from Malin Head into the Atlantic, and a dive on her requires careful planning because of her depth and because it is a very exposed site, where the weather can turn quickly.

The wreck lies in an area of water which has become renowned for its consistently crystal- clear underwater visibility. She lies in 67 metres of water, a lovely depth for today’s technical divers that allows long bottom times – more than 30 minutes or so – down on the wreck for relatively modest decompression times.

Malin Head on the Donegal coast has become known as one of the world’s hot spots for technical diving because, in addition to the crystal-clear Atlantic water, there are a number of classic tek dives that are on every tek diver’s bucket list. Not far away from Audacious lies the large 512-foot long, 15,702grt SS Empire Heritage, which was torpedoed and sunk by U-482 on 8 September 1944. She is famous in diving circles for her deck cargo of tens of Sherman tanks that are spilled out onto the seabed.

A little further out to the north lies the wreck of the massive 32,234-ton White Star liner RMS Justicia, sunk by two German submarines on 19 July 1918 on a voyage from Belfast to New York. You may be aware that all White Star liners ended their name with ‘ic’, as in Titanic, Britannic, Laurentic etc. Justicia was to have been a Cunard liner; their ships’ names largely ending with ‘ia’, as in Campania, Carpathia, Aquitania, Mauretania etc.

However, as Cunard didn’t have a crew available, the British government handed the Justicia to the White Star Line to manage, as their crew of the newly sunk White Star liner Britannic were now available.

To add to these fine ships there are also the wrecks of the 14,892grt Laurentic, which sunk on 25 January 1917 after hitting two mines, along with the 13,580grt liner Athenia, sunk by a U-boat during World War II on a passage from Liverpool to Montreal.

In addition to these and countless other wrecks, at the end of World War II there were 156 German submarines surrendered to the Allies, of which 116 were scuttled during Operation Deadlight after the war. The U-boats were to be towed out, ostensibly to three defined areas about 100 miles north-west of Ireland where they would be scuttled. Many of the U-boats however were found to be in poor condition from a prolonged period waiting in exposed harbours for their fate to be determined – and this, allied to poor weather, meant that some 56 of them sank under tow before they reached the designated scuttling areas. Many of these have been relocated over the last 20 years or so, lying in perfect technical diving depths: pristine, virtually intact examples of several types of World War II U-boats. You can see why Malin Head is so popular with technical divers.

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About 20 miles offshore, above the grave of Audacious, I was about to dive another famous warship that was high on my wish list. Clad in my black drysuit, rebreather on my back, cylinders of deep and shallow bailout gases under either arm and with my underwater scooter clipped to my crotch D-ring and propped up on its nose, I stood at the dive gate through the gunwale, straining to support the 85kg of kit whilst I waited for the skipper to position his boat in the right place, directly beside and slightly up current of the shotline buoy. I was ready and eager to splash.

At the skipper’s signal, I strode off the dive boat and dropped down into languid blue water. The sea was calm and the sun, already high in the sky, beat directly down. A lot of light would be pouring down onto the wreck far below.

Once in the water, I looked around me and, as ever at Malin Head, I was impressed by being able to see for at least 100 feet in any one direction. The visibility was fantastic, a stunning opposite to the dark, cloudy waters of my usual east coast dive sites. This wreck was going to be a joy to dive today.

My dive buddy and I dropped down slowly beside the shotline, peering below as we slowly descended. Finally, when we were some 35 metres down, the uniform deep blue beneath us started to acquire a form – blurred, indistinct, ragged lines began to materialise out of the darkness below. Something manmade lay beneath us.

We pressed on down, feeling the squeeze of the water pressure on our ears, on our body – our drysuits compressing and nipping at our skin until we bled some air into them to relieve the squeeze.

We eventually passed through a visibility horizon – one minute we were seeing blurry lines beneath us – the next, an upturned World War I dreadnought battleship lay beneath us. It looked magnificent: a massive manmade island set on an underwater desert of clean white sand and shale.

Our shotline had landed just off the wreck amidships – the wreck was so big I couldn’t tell initially which way was forward and which way astern. So, picking one direction at random we gunned the motors of our underwater scooters and headed off. Soon, up ahead I could see the wreck beginning to lose its shape, and it became clear that we were heading towards the bow. I checked my depth gauge; it read 63 metres. In old money, that meant there was more than 200 feet of water above us – it was a long, long way back up to the surface.

The wreck of HMS Audacious now lies upside down in 67 metres of water. The secondary explosion (forward) has destroyed her bow section. B turret lies upside down with what is believed to be the base of the conning tower abaft. The armoured barbette for B turret lies on the seabed nearby. A long section of her starboard side runs outwards from the wreck to the bow, which still has two anchors held in their hawses. Her four props remain on the wreck.

As we made our way towards the bow, the upturned flat bottom of the battleship, lined with docking keels and with a bilge keel running down either side suddenly petered out – the whole bow section is missing, from the conning tower area forward.

The hull just stops abruptly in the vicinity of the conning tower and descends into a scattered debris field on the seabed. Parts of ship, winches, secondary casemate guns, cordite propellant charges and 13.5-inch shells for the main guns lie scattered around amidst sheared plates and sections of ship.

Some 100 feet of the bow section is missing – blown off in the magazine explosion that sank her as she hung upside down on the surface. The hull has been blown open, and the massively strong 12-inch thick vertical armour belt on either beam, is peeled back like a banana skin. The stem, the very tip of the bow, still with its two starboard anchors held snug in their hawses, now lies almost halfway down the wreck on the starboard side. It is staggering to think how seemingly effortlessly the 12-inch thick plates of her Krupp cemented armour have been blown apart.

I spotted what appeared to be the upside-down cylindrical base of the conning tower. On top lay a 4-inch barrel of one of her secondary guns, the barrel itself smoothly and apparently easily bent over the armoured base of the conning tower.

Further out forward of the conning tower, lying upside down and almost alone on the seabed, is a 13.5-inch gun turret with its massive twin barrels flat on the seabed. It is believed that this is B turret – and perhaps 30 feet away out to starboard and almost separate from the wreck itself, lies an upturned barbette for one of the main twin 13.5-inch gun turrets, most probably B turret barbette.

Barbettes are huge armoured cylinders that were integral to the structure of the ship, and ran down from the gun turret on the deck to the internal horizontal armour deck above the magazines and shell rooms. On Audacious, the cylindrical walls of the barbette were fashioned of 10-inch-thick Krupp cemented armour at their maximum, tapering to 5 inches or less where armoured decks gave some protection. The barbettes housed the ammunition hoists that lifted shells and propellant from the magazines below to the transfer room, directly beneath the turret itself. Whereas the barbette was fixed in position inside the structure of the ship, the ammunition hoists inside the barbette turned as the gun turret above turned.

If this was B turret and B turret barbette, there was no obvious sign of A turret and barbette in this area. It is believed that A turret fell downwards as the magazine explosion took place on the surface and that the ship has possibly come to rest upon it.

From B turret forward, the ship itself is largely missing. The massive explosion has split the ship open and the bow section has been blown back on itself. Scattered all around the seabed are dozens of her 13.5-inch shells, fallen from the forward shell rooms.

After exploring around the bow area for some time, we turned our scooters and headed aft. Past the upturned conning tower, the hull reformed to its full shape. The hull amidships is sagging – I suspect that it is being held up by the amidships Q turret barbette and turret. The 12-inch thick vertical armour belt of the citadel and the internal horizontal armour deck are immensely strong and, allied to Q turret barbette, seem to be holding the wreck together here, as with the German World War I battleships at Scapa Flow.

The stern of Audacious still has both rudders upright and displays the aft submerged torpedo tube. © Barry McGill

The bottom of a battleship is unarmoured – just simple 1-inch-thick steel plating. It was so deep in the water that it was safe from any enemy shell or torpedo, the only danger seemingly being from running aground. Battleships were constructed with strong double bottom frames, the double bottom spaces holding oil and water.

As we sped aft down the upturned hull we soon arrived at perhaps the most visually stunning area of this wreck – the stern. Audacious has a small, almost delicate, stern with the upturned quarterdeck sitting flat on the sand. Both large rudders still stand upright, rising from the underside of the stern – and at the very stern itself is the aperture for her submerged stern torpedo tube.

The very aftmost section of the stern is broken off from the rest of the ship, leaving a small gap, and just forward of the gap here, on either side of the keel bar, are set her four high-speed propellers. The long sections of free propeller shaft run forward from their support bearings and disappear into the shaft tubes before running forward inside the wreck to the turbine rooms.

For a battleship weighing in at some 25,000 tons you’d think the props would be massive – the props on the far smaller 10,850-ton armoured cruiser Hampshire at Scapa Flow are large 43-ton affairs, which dwarf a diver. But the props on Audacious aren’t of that scale – these were small high-speed propellers, designed for high revs.

All too soon, our 35-minute bottom time was up – and it was time to head back to the downline to ascend, rising up as we moved forward, the blink of our strobes easily visible far ahead in the beautiful visibility.