Harpalion - Her final hours

Masters: 1910-15 WE Pope. 1915 Abraham Widdess

Crew 1910: Harper, S, 2^nd officer; Widdess, Abraham b.1853 died 1827 at Cardiff.

On a voyage from London for Newport News in ballast Harpalion was torpedoed by German submarine (U-8 Alfred Stob) & abandoned 6 miles west of Royal Sovereign Light Vessel on 24 February 1915. 3 of the Chinese firemen were killed & 2 severely scalded.

Lives lost February 1915: Ah Soo, fireman/trimmer; Sung Ching, fireman/trimmer.

The Merchant Seamen at War’ by L. Cope Cornford:

 ‘It was tea-time on board the steamship Harpalion proceeding up the Channel, on a voyage for the United States. The third officer went to the bridge-the master and the Trinity House pilot went down to the master's cabin to tea. The second officer sat at tea with the engineers-and here follows his account of what happened:

We had just sat down to tea at the engineers' table, and the chief engineer was saying Grace. He had just uttered the words ' For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful,' when there came an awful crash. I never saw such a smash as it caused. Cups and dishes were shattered to pieces, everything in the pantry was broken, and photographs screwed into the walls fell off.

So the second officer told The Times, from whose issue of 25 February 1915, the passage is quoted. Such was the event inside the ship. Now let us look at it from outside, from the bridge of a distant man-of-war. Her commanding officer, watching the Harpalion afar off, saw a column of water leap alongside her-then another, and heard the dull boom of an explosion, like the slamming of a heavy door in a vault, instantly followed by a second boom. He ordered full speed and steamed towards the Harpalion. On board her master, pilot, officers and crew had all tumbled up on deck, where, in a fog of steam and smoke, they were just in time to receive the descending fountain of the second explosion. The ship listed to port and began to settle by the head; it was reported to the master that three firemen had been killed below; and he saw to seaward the periscope of a submarine. He also beheld the comfortable spectacle of a King's ship tearing towards him with a bone in her mouth. The master ordered the boats to be got away. One was already in the water-filled with men by the time the man-of-war drew close alongside. Her commanding officer hailed the master, who instantly informed the naval officer of the presence of an enemy submarine. The naval officer assumed the conduct of affairs. He ordered the boat's crew then afloat to stand by to help save the rest of the crew; and immediately started in pursuit of the submarine, cruising at high speed about the Harpalion while her people were getting into the boats. Failing to find the submarine, the man-of-war returned, embarked the master, the pilot, the rest of the officers, the crew of thirty-nine  and three dead men, and let the boats drift. The naval officer and the master then took counsel together. The master thought the ship was sinking. The naval officer thought she was likely to keep afloat, but that, as the enemy submarine was probably hanging about, it would be unsafe to leave the crew in the Harpalion. It was therefore decided to land the crew. The naval officer signalled to the nearest naval station asking that a tug should be sent, and proposed that the Harpalion should be left anchored with lights burning, an arrangement which was not, in fact, carried into execution. The man-of-war went on to the nearest naval station and landed the living and the dead. She then reported events to her own naval station.

The ship was torpedoed at a little after five o'clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, 24 February 1915. By a quarter to six she was abandoned. For nearly twelve hours afterwards the Harpalion was lost. The naval officer was right; she was not sinking. If a tug was sent out that evening in response to the signal, she failed to find the Harpalion. But let it not be supposed that the Admiralty allows a ship to disappear without explanation.

That evening and the next day, Thursday, the Admiralty was asking every naval station in the vicinity of the loss, ‘Where is Harpalion? ‘

Station A reported trying to find Harpalion incidentally reporting at the same time that three other vessels had been put down. Station B reported her derelict, anchored lights burning, and later, ‘Cannot find-but searching.’ Station C replied, ‘Not in my district.’

Where was Harpalion? She was simply drifting about, masterless and miserable. She drifted from 5.45 pm on Wednesday to 4 pm on Thursday. Then she was sighted by the steamship Ariel, whose master promptly sent four men on board to investigate matters. It was clearly a salvage case; but in their deposition the four gallant seamen say simply, ‘We four men got on board as prize crew.’

To be precise, a prize crew is a crew placed by the captor on board a vessel captured by an act of war. Salvage is another affair. Any ship succouring another vessel, derelict or wrecked, is entitled to claim reward from the owners. In the case of the Ariel and Harpalion, it would seem that the men of the Ariel, considering their help to be in the nature of war service rather than a commercial transaction, preferred to call themselves a prize crew. But this is conjecture, for the four deponents, appearing for

a moment in the light of history, have gone again. There were the 1^st officer of the Ariel, two able seamen and one apprentice. They boarded the deserted Harpalion on Thursday afternoon, and their own ship, the Ariel, went on her way short, handed. What they did next is not revealed, except that they tried to take her to Cardiff. Their situation was dangerous enough. The ship was full of water forward, and listing to port. At any moment a questing submarine might have sent her to the bottom without warning. Presumably the Prize Crew tried to get steam on her, but there is nothing to show that they were successful. If they failed, the ship was not under control. If they succeeded, their progress must have been very slow. In any case, there were only four men instead of forty, one to work a ship of 3,669 tons register. The chief officer would be on the bridge, steering and conning the ship, one able seaman in the stokehold, one in the engine-room, leaving the apprentice for services as requisite, such as getting meals, carrying messages, and doing odd jobs. The full story of that night on board the Harpalion spent by the prize crew adrift in a ship which they believed to be sinking remains to be told. Perhaps it will never be told, like many another deed of the sea. Early on the Friday morning wind and sea began to rise. The Harpalion was then within about 20 miles of the spot upon which she had been torpedoed. The ship was heavily water, logged; the water was washing in and out of her, and the chief officer was unable to keep her head to the sea. They drifted helplessly before the gale in that dark and bitter February morning, until eight o'clock, the hour at which all over the world the white ensign is hoisted in the quarter, deck of his Majesty's ships. And at that hour the men of the Harpalion descried three men-of- war surging toward them through the smothering sea. Two flew the tricolour and one the white ensign. The British torpedo, boat drew near and hove a line on board the Harpalion. The prize crew hauled it in, hauled in a grass rope, hauled in a hawser and made it fast, and the little torpedo, boat began to tow the dead weight of the big cargo, boat. The weather grew worse, and the torpedo, boat, unable to make any way, was obliged to cast off.  ‘We still stuck to the Harpalion," the prize crew deposed. They stuck to her all that day, in wind and sea. A tug came, but so heavy was the weather she could not get the Harpalion in tow, and so stood by her. Night came, and still the prize crew stuck to their prize. Towards midnight the ship was settling dangerously, and the prize crew were forced to conclude that they could do no more. At 11.30 on that Friday night they went over the side into their boat, left the Harpalion and went on board the tug. They were not much too soon. Thirty-five minutes afterwards the Harpalion went down.

The tug landed the prize crew at Havre, where, before the vice, consul, they made a deposition of the shortest recording their adventure.

All that Friday the unseen eye of the Admiralty had been bent upon the Harpalion. Naval station D having reported ‘Cannot find Harpalion’ naval station B reported ‘Harpalion picked up by Ariel,’ and later ‘Abandoned by Ariel.’ Naval station A reported ‘Harpalion being towed.’ Finally, on Saturday, Lloyd's reported Harpalion sunk.’ But she had floated for 55 hours after having been torpedoed. So the naval officer was right in his estimate. Of that period, she was 23 hours derelict, 31 ½ hours in charge of the prize crew, and a final ½ hour again derelict in the storm.’

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