FOULA HERITAGE

Foula - The Edge of the World

THE LOSS OF THE OCEANIC

A WELL-KNOWN PASSENGER STEAMER

From The Scotsman 10/09/1914.

The White Star liner Oceanic, which has been wrecked near the north coast of Scotland, was one of the most popular passenger steamers running between this country and New York. Her registered tonnage was 17,274, and she developed 4130 horse-power, with a speed of 21 knots. Her length was 685 feet, and she was built in 1899 by Messrs Harland and Wolff, Belfast.

The Oceanic leaving Lerwick Harbour on her last voyage

THE WRECK OF THE OCEANIC

OFFICERS AND CREW RESCUED BY A TRAWLER.

From The Scotsman 11/09/1914

The Glasgow steam trawler Glenogil, belonging to Mr John S. Boyle, Aberdeen and Glasgow, arrived at Aberdeen yesterday. Capitan Robert Armour reported that he had stood by the White Star liner Oceanic, which had been converted into an armed merchant cruiser, for several hours when that vessel went on the rocks, and had been instrumental in getting the whole of the officers and crew safely rescued and transferred to another vessel summoned by wireless. More than one trip by the trawler was necessary before the men were rescued. The trawler, as soon as the signals of distress had been observed, hastened to the rescue. The Oceanic, it is stated, could not be towed off, notwithstanding repeated attempts by vessels which went to render assistance, the hawsers parting more than once.

SKILFUL MANOEUVERING BY THE GLENOGIL

Another report states:-

Captain Armour, of the Aberdeen trawler Glenogil, had an interesting story to tell of the rescue of the crew of the converted armoured cruiser, Oceanic, on his arrival at Aberdeen yesterday. As the Glenogil lay at the Aberdeen Fishmarket it was difficult to believe that she had been the means of saving the lives of those on board the Oceanic so small did she look. It was her size and manageability that made her useful in taking off the Oceanic’s crew in the mist and darkness of Tuesday morning. The Glenogil was on her way home from the fishing when her skipper’s attention was attracted by signals of distress. It required careful seamanship before the Glenogil was brought near enough to discover the Oceanic on the rocks. By skilful manoeuvring the Glenogil was taken alongside the Oceanic, and ropes and ladders were lowered over the side of the liner, down which the crew scrambled on the deck of the trawler. In a short time the decks of the trawler were crowded with a closely packed mass of men, and when she could hold no more the Glenogil steamed off to another large steamer which could not get near the Oceanic owing to the dangerous waters. After transferring her human freight to the other steamer the Glenogil returned to the Oceanic and took off the remainder of the crew, who were similarly transferred to the other steamer. A third time the Glenogil was manoeuvred towards the Oceanic, and this time a large amount of bullion and valuable articles were transferred.

The work of rescue by the Glenogil was attended by great risk. The time was early morning, the Oceanic’s signals having been first observed at half-past one. It was dark and foggy. There was a heavy swell on the sea, and the coast at the place is extremely dangerous. The captain of the Oceanic, who was the last to leave the ship in a small boat, paid a high compliment to Captain Armour and his men for their splendid seamanship, which had transferred the crew from the Oceanic to the other vessel without one man having his feet wet.

The captain of the Oceanic, who is a survivor of the Titanic disaster, is hopeful that the liner may be salved.

WHITE STAR COMPANY’S NOTICE.

The following notice was yesterday exhibited at the London office of the White Star Line: - “In connection with the loss of the Oceanic, reported to-day, it should be stated that this steamer was requisitioned by the Government at the commencement of the war, being fitted out as an armed cruiser, and it was while acting in this capacity that she ran ashore, so that the White Star Line regular services to the United States and Canada are not in any way affected by the said loss.”

Oceanic aground on the Shaalds

STRANDING OF THE OCEANIC

A LIEUTENANT REPRIMANDED.

From The Scotsman 20/11/1914

At a Court-martial at Devonport yesterday, Lieutenant David Blair, R.N.R., of the Oceanic was found guilty on charges of stranding or suffering to be stranded H.M.S. Oceanic on Foula Island, Orkneys, and was ordered to be reprimanded. In his defence Lieutenant Blair submitted that the evidence of Captain Slayter and Commander Smith exonerated him as being under their supervision. The position he worked out was proved to be correct by expert navigators, and the stranding was due absolutely to the abnormal current. The sounding duties devolved on the navigating officer only, under the direction of the captain. Captain Slayter and Commander Smith did not suggest this and did not consider it necessary. Visibility extended over several miles beyond the foul ground. His duties were carried out under stress in a ship of exceptional magnitude in the narrowest waters on naval patrol work.

The court found that, after experiencing an abnormal deviation of the compass, the accused omitted to take proper precautions to sound on approaching Foula Island, and on unexpectedly sighting land did not suggest the ship should instantly be stopped.

A second Court-martial followed for the trial of Commander Henry Smith, R.N.R., H.M.S. Oceanic, against whom a similar charge was made. Evidence for the prosecution was practically the same as in the previous case, and the witnesses were cross-examined with a view to showing that the position of the accused on the Oceanic was not clearly defined by the naval authorities, and that he was understood to be acting simply in an advisory capacity.

The prosecution was completed, and the Court adjourned.

The defence will be opened to-day.

THE STRANDING OF THE OCEANIC

COMMANDER H. SMITH ACQUITED.

From The Scotsman 21/11/14

At Devonport yesterday, a Naval Court-martial acquitted Commander Henry Smith, R.N.R., who was charged with stranding the armed merchant cruiser Oceanic on September 8.

The accused said he was not entitled to assume command over Captain Slayter, and the Court found that in view of the directions contained in the King’s Regulations, and as the accused was borne on the Oceanic as additional for special or particular service, he had not received from the Admiralty authority to assume charge and command at any time, and was not officially in such charge or command on September 8.

In his defence the accused stated that he never received any communication from the Admiralty as to his duties. Though he commanded the Oceanic when employed in the merchant service, after the vessel was taken over by the Admiralty the position in which he found himself was practically that of a glorified lookout man.

The Court then heard the charge against Captain William Feth Slayter, R.N., of negligently or by default stranding or causing the Oceanic, which he commanded, to be stranded. A circumstantial letter alleged that he failed to leave orders as to the taking of soundings or altering courses.

For the prosecution it was stated that the accused was below when land was sighted, and came on the bridge just afterwards. The vessel stuck a few minutes later. The accused’s friend elicited that he did everything possible to save the ship.

After five hours the case was adjourned till to-day.

THE LOSS OF THE OCEANIC

CAPTAIN WILLIAM SLAYTER ACQUITTED BY COURT-MARTIAL

From The Scotsman 23/11/1914

The Court-martial at Devonport on Captain William Slayter, commanding the armed liner Oceanic, wrecked off Foula Island, Shetland, on September 8, on the charge of negligently, or by default, stranding that vessel, resulted on Saturday in his acquittal.

The accused regretted that while he was taking necessary rest below responsible officers on deck had not stopped the vessel when land was sighted and ascertained the Oceanic’s precise position. Had these precautions been taken, he said, the vessel would not have grounded.

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RMS OCEANIC

The RMS Oceanic(II) was a luxury ocean liner similar to the RMS Aquitania, the RMS Lusitania, the RMS Britannic, the RMS Mauritania, and the RMS Titanic, but was considered to be in a class of its own. Oceanic had two funnels, the keel was laid in 1897, and the ship was built under the supervision of its designer, Thomas Ismay, the shipwright and owner of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, the precursor to the famous White Star Line. The ship was named after the company, and was intended to be its flagship. The Oceanic, at 30,000 tons displacement, was to become known as the "Queen of the Ocean," costing one million pounds sterling, and even with the use of the most modern labour saving devices still required 1,500 shipwrights to complete, and was launched on the January 14, 1899. "Nothing but the very finest," was Ismay’s policy toward this new venture, and she was constructed at Harland and Wolff’s yard at Belfast, as was the tradition with White Star Line ships. At a comfortable speed of 12 knots, this ship was capable of circumnavigating the globe without refuelling. The Oceanic was built to accommodate slightly over 2,000 passengers, including the 349 crew. Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the Oceanic was included in a deal with the Admiralty, which made an annual grant toward the maintenance of any ship on the condition that it could be called upon for naval work, during times of war. Thus, such ships were built to particular naval specifications, so that, in the case of the Oceanic, her construction facilitated the quick and easy mounting of the 4'-7" guns she was to be given subsequently. "The greatest liner of its day" had thus been pressed into Naval service. On August 25, 1914, the newly-designated HMS Oceanic set out of Southampton for the last time, to begin a naval Service that was to last just two weeks. Oceanic's job was to patrol the waters from the North Scottish mainland to the Faroes, in particular the area around Shetland.

She was empowered to stop shipping at her Captain’s discretion, and to check cargoes and personnel for any potential German connections. The marines on board were to carry out these duties, although alongside the naval captain there was also the Merchant Master and many of his original crew. Thus, Oceanic steered directly for Scapa Flow in Orkney, Britain’s foremost naval anchorage, with easy access to the North Sea and the Atlantic. From here she proceeded north to Shetland travelling continuously on a standard zigzag course as a precaution against the potential targeting of U-boats. This difficult manoeuvering required extremely accurate navigation, especially with such a large vessel, and in the event it appears to have been woeful navigation rather than enemy submarines that was to be the doom of Oceanic. Under better circumstances, the disaster may not have occurred at all, as it was at the time there had been some confusion in navigation, hampered by thick fog. The newcomer, Captain R.N. William Slayter with overall charge, and Captain Henry Smith, with two years former service aboard the Oceanic, did not detect the navigators deviation from the scheduled course, although it had placed them on the wrong side of the Isle of Foula and directly in the path of a reef, until it was too late and they beached upon the "Terrible Shaalds." Despite an accurate fix on their position given by Navigator Davy Blair, the night before and everyone on the bridge thinking they were well to the southwest of the Isle of Foula, they were in fact an estimated 13 to 14 miles off course. Captain Slayter had retired after his night watch, unaware of the situation, with orders to steer to Foula. Captain Smith took over the morning watch, and with his former knowledge of the ship was only happy with her when the ship was in an open sea, and having previously disagreed with his naval superior about dodging around the island, he instructed the navigator to plot a course out to sea. Slayter must have felt the shift in direction and reappeared on the bridge to countermand Smith and make what turned out to be a hasty and ill-informed judgement of the situation, leading them directly onto the Shaalds, a major threat to shipping nearby that comes to within a few feet of the surface, but which in calm weather gives no warning sign to the unwary mariner. At the time of the disaster, it would not have been good form to publicise the event, being at the outset of the war with Germany, and the matter was hushed up. A world-famous 1st-class ship in perfect operational condition, without any enemy duress, in home waters whilst proceeding in calm seas, it still managed, within a fortnight of beginning its maiden tour of duty as a naval vessel, to run forward and become "incompetently parked" onto a charted reef. The revelation of such gross incompetence at this early stage of the war would have done nothing for national morale.

It has been reported a tradition for centuries that the captain of a ship, in overall command, would honour his position by taking full responsibility for any disaster regardless of the circumstance. This was not to be the case with Captain William Slayter, as he was quick to point out to his employers that he shared the responsibility with Captain Smith, who argued that technically having no orders, actual, oral or written, and with ultimate command being naval, despite all his experience of the ship he was to find himself but "a glorified look-out man".

At the court martial, both captains were exonerated with navigator and scapegoat Davy Blair reprimanded on a technicality. Unlike the RMS Titanic and the RMS Lusitania, the Oceanic did not suffer with any great loss of lives; she sat squarely on the reef, "almost as though in dry dock." An Aberdeen trawler, the Glenogil, was the first on the scene, and although she attempted to pull off the massive ship, it proved an impossible task, and with the hull already ruptured, Oceanic would not have stayed afloat long in open waters. Other ships in the area were called in to assist in the rescue operation that was to follow. The ships crew being delivered by the ships Lifeboats to the trawler were then ferried to the awaiting Alsation and Forward. The 573-ton Admiralty salvage vessel, the Lyons, was dispatched to the scene hurriedly, and in the words of the Laird of Foula, Professor Ian S. Holbourn, writing about the disaster in his book on the Isle of Foula: "The launch of the Lyons, a salvage boat which hurried to the scene, was capable of a speed of ten knots, yet was unable to make any headway against the tide although she tried for fifteen minutes. Even then it was not the top of the tide, and the officer in charge reckoned the full tide would be 12 knots, he confessed he would not have believed it had he been told". Of the Oceanic’s two Masters; Merchant Commander Smith is said to have come ashore at the remote island’s tiny pier, and on looking back out to sea toward his stranded ship two miles away, he commented that the ship would stay on the reef as a monument and nothing would move it. One of the Foula men, wise to the full power and fury of a Shetland storm, is said to have muttered with a cynicism not unknown in those parts ‘I‘ll give her two weeks’. (Isle of Foula: Holbourn).

Remarkably, following a heavy gale that had persisted throughout the night of the 29th September, just two weeks after the incident the islander’s discovered the following day that the ship had been entirely swallowed up by the sea. Where she remains to this day scattered as she fell apart under the pressure of the seas on the Shaalds. An ineffectual attempt at salvage was attempted in the 1920s, but the heavy diving apparatus employed then hampered any significant progress, and in 1924 it was given up as irretrievably lost.

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A model of the Oceanic in a Liverpool Museum

THE OTHER TITANIC By Simon Martin

As an ex-diver I confess to being hopelessly captivated by The Other Titanic. But wherever you are coming from and whichever way you approach the book it's a wonderful yarn. This reprint is long overdue.

As a boy I can remember my dad's stories of this fabulous sunken ocean liner which lay in the depths off Foula, her elegant state rooms and cabins ghostlike while huge conger eels lurked within. Such was my early fascination that I resolved to take up diving as a youth in the 1970s.

Since then I have visited the wreck site of the Oceanic often enough to appreciate the naivety of my boyhood image. As Simon Martin explains the ship didn't sink - she broke up. He goes on to say: "This was ideal for us as the fittings were either broken off or accessible - easy to salvage"

This "easy salvage" of 250 tons of non ferrous metal for scrap was to occupy Simon, his partner Alec Crawford and latterly Foula man John Andrew Ratter for all of five years. During this time they carried out just under 200 dives on the Shaalds - the extensive shallows which lie two miles east of Foula and rise in places to within a couple of metres of the surface.

The main hazard which defeated earlier salvage attempts was not the depth but the strong current which runs over the site and the maelstrom which results when wind and tide run against each other. Spring tides can reduce slack water, when a diver can work effectively, to around half an hour.

Alec and Simon began hauling up brass and copper over the side of a humble four metre inflatable and progressed to using two former fishing boats as salvage vessels - one of which was wrecked at her moorings. The story has all the trappings of a rags to riches tale, triumph over adversity - a tangle with the law courts, a daily tussle with the elements, loads of practical/technical challenges in detaching, lifting and transporting huge chunks of metal and sheer physical endeavour.

In every sense this is a bloke's book but Alec did get married at one point and the wedding in Foula is faithfully recorded. Simon noted an interesting exchange of correspondence with a passenger who travelled to New York on the vessel as a girl and recalls the loss of a propeller blade off Ireland - not quite Kate Winslet's jewels.

In other ways comparisons with the Titanic could be deemed a tad tenuous. The Titanic was 46,329 tons, the Oceanic a mere 17,274 tons. However, they were both built at Harland & Wolff in Belfast and shared design features - particularly in the opulence of their fittings. One ship's officer - C. H. Lightoller - served on both ships.

The circumstances of the Oceanic's stranding were equally ignominious and could both be blamed on human error. For the Titanic it was an iceberg, for the Oceanic a rock.

Commandeered by the Royal Navy in August 1914 and armed as a merchant cruiser, the Oceanic had the dubious advantage of having two captains - one from the Royal Navy and another from the Merchant Navy. Between them you might have thought they could have worked out where they were - but no. Mercifully there was no loss of life.

The circumstances of the stranding are well documented. Lots of spin and a cover up suspected. (Some things never change). There is little to fault Simon Martin's research which was clearly a labour of love

It is now 25 years since the first edition was published by David & Charles. The story of life in the 70s and especially in Foula is of interest for its own sake. I suspect that Foula folk no longer dodge inside when they see tourists and I doubt if the school bairns are still at their desks on 25th December - despite the tradition of old Christmas. Transport connections and energy supply may now be better organised though life at "the edge of the world" no doubt remains challenging.

What has markedly altered over the period is health and safety regulation. Fish farming, which barely existed in the late 70s, led to the advent of diving support services closely pursued in turn by stringent regulations. Simon acknowledges that the two-diver salvage operation of the Oceanic would not be permitted today. Particularly hazardous by contemporary standards was the virtual absence of proper communications between diver and the surface together with all that tons of heavy metal swinging around on the ends of improvised lifting rigs.

Copies of the earlier edition of the book are much sought after locally. The author has not altered the main body of the text. He has added many more photographs, amended the introduction, a further postscript and fresh appendices. The omission of an index is a minor irritation.

Simon Martin has a very accessible style - maybe due to his earlier training as a journalist. Alex was the technophobe who went on to achieve great things in the realms of deep sea salvage - see the recent Timewatch TV documentary on the wreck of the Persia, and that's another story.

If you haven't already got this book for Christmas, go out and buy it. You won't be disappointed.

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Delight as museum bags Oceanic's bell.

From The Shetland Times 13th January 2006

AN E-MAIL from a local diver has led to the acquisition of a rare artefact for the museum. Curator Tommy Watt opened an e-mail from local diver Kevin Thompson enclosing a link to look up. "It was unbelievable. It was something I certainly never thought I would see in my lifetime. There, on that auction site, was the bridge bell from the Oceanic wrecked on Foula in 1914." The Oceanic is one of Shetland's most famous wrecks and lies on the Hoevdi Grund off Foula. Almost undiveable because of the fierce tides, her story and subsequent salvage in the 1970s can be read in Simon Martin's recently republished The Other Titanic. Interestingly the bell was not mentioned in the book so was not part of Alec Crawford and Mr Martin's salvage. Mr Watt said he knew he had to get the bell back to Shetland and place it in prominent display it in the new museum and archives building. The museum already had a number of other important Oceanic artefacts in its collections, but there was nothing more unique or visual then a bell with the ship's name. So the wheels were set in motion to try and secure the bell for Shetland. First Mr Watt contacted the Receiver of Wreck to see if the bell had been declared and was not surprised to find that it had not been. Next Mark Fleming of Hay & Co was contacted to see if the company still held the rights to the wreck, which was indeed the case. At the same time he contacted the National Fund for Acquisitions administered by Hazel Williamson at the National Museums of Scotland. She confirmed that grant aid would indeed be available but that legal title had to be agreed. That meant a complicated round of discussions between all parties, finally agreeing that the bell was removed from auction and a private agreement entered into with the museum. The bell was delivered to the museum in late December. Mr Watt said: "This is an amazing artefact and we are delighted its back. However, its recovery from the wreck remains a mystery and we would be grateful if we could find out more. "We do know that the bell was discovered among the effects of a retired landlady who had it in her possession for a number of years, using it as a doorstop in her guest house, which is said to have been on the Isle of Skye and has passed through the hands of several antique dealers. "Now that the bell has been declared and we have legal title to it, we would dearly like to know more about its history."

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