EDINBURGH, Scotland — NPR reports that a shipwreck found off the coast of Scotland in the North Sea may be the HMS Hawk, a Royal Navy warship that was sunk by a German torpedo fired by a U-boat in October 1914 at the start of World War I. The HMS Hawk caught fire and sank in less than eight minutes, killing more than 500 crew members. The ship is 360 feet below the surface and is largely intact, according to diver Paul Downs of Lost in Waters Deep, an organization that searches for World War I shipwrecks in Scottish waters. Downs explained that the ship's guns, decks, brass portholes, and some of the interior equipment, such as a clock and wall-mounted barometer, have been preserved, suggesting that the depth of the wreck likely protected it from North Sea storms. The Royal Navy is currently working to identify the ship, but it will likely be classified as a war graveyard. For an examination of the Gallipoli battlefields of World War I, see Letters from Turkey: The Next Anzac Chapter.
Part of the wreckage of HMS Hawk
Source link
