Procedures into the
investigation of accidents and losses at sea during the Great War 1914-19
There
were procedural differences in regards to investigations during the Great War.
Local Shipping Masters or Customs Officers would have survivors fill in initial
enquiry forms, which were then transmitted to the Board of Trade in London.
After perusal by senior B.o.T. officials, they were
then passed onto the Admiralty’s Trade Division. A naval officer subsequently
made the decisions on formal enquiries: normally a captain R.N. These original
enquiry forms are held within the vast number of records which were removed by
the Naval Historical Branch to write the official histories. To say the least,
this is not an easy body of work to deal with. Although indexed, further
collections of documents have been subsequently added and the indexes of ships’
names are far from complete.
Additionally
and as already mentioned in the section on peacetime accidents at sea, there
are a number of ‘Confidential Circulars’ which deal with wartime losses. These
are within the Lloyd’s (of London) collection, at the Guildhall Library in the
City of London.
There
are also secondary ways of researching losses during the Great War, from such
sources as official histories of both sides, official
statistics and publications. Care should be exhibited in using these however.
There are a fair number of errors. In one sample case in the relevant volume of
Der Krieg zur
See: Der Handelskrieg mit U-Booten the British steamer HILDAWELL’s loss (around
20th December 1916) was attributed to mines laid by UC32 off
Sunderland on 14th December 1916. This has been uncritically
accepted and republished as fact elsewhere. However, she could not possibly
have been sunk off Sunderland that day. She had a maximum speed of 8 ½ knots
and an internal Lloyd’s document showed she was off Yarmouth on December 19th.
Whilst HILDAWELL disappeared on December 19-20th and was probably a
victim of mines, (British or German) it cannot be ascertained precisely where
or when she was destroyed.
Four examples of Great War ‘Confidential Circulars’
Go to Peacetime Accidents at Sea
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