TODAY – February 26 – marks 104 years since a hospital ship was sunk off the British coast - shortly after it left from Newport.

HMS Glenart Castle had reportedly been in Newport for three weeks of repairs before the fateful night of February 26, 1918.

The ship departed from Newport with 200 people on board in the early hours of the morning, with the destination of Brest in France. But, at around 4am, it was hit by two torpedoes off the coast of Lundy in Bristol fired by a German U-boat.

According to the National Archives, the boat – which was clearly identifiable as a hospital ship with its red crosses, chain of green lights, and deck and navigation lights and therefore was off limits to attack under the international treaty – sank within five to seven minutes after the torpedoes were fired from German U-Boat UC 56.

The Archives also said that the ship was also in a ‘free area’ at the time - meaning there was no firing under an international treaty.

South Wales Argus:

Newspaper reports at the time said that the helmsman Jacob Sheler noticed a suspicious light in the water and sounded the alarm for a lifeboat drill, but most of the crew – made up of the captain, Mercantile Marine crew, Royal Army Medical Corps medical staff, chaplains, nurses and patients – were asleep, and one of the torpedoes blasted a hole in the side of the ship’s hold causing an explosion.

Reports from other boats in the area state that a ‘previously heavily-illuminated ship’ immediately lost power, making it difficult to evacuate the vessel, which had begun listing.

It is said 29 survived the sinking, leaving 162 people dead, including 11 from Newport. Those from Newport who died were William Attwood, Frederick Clifford, Edgar Hopkins, John R Jackson, Edward James, William John Jenkins, John Clifford Kennie, Thomas Macaulay, Frederick Charles Rice, Henry John Wood and Wilfred Sidney Wyatt.

The sinking of the HMS Glenart Castle was deemed an outrage, and the day after the sinking, an Admiralty Court of Inquiry was held. The inquiry heard from some of the survivors – some of whom spoke about seeing the submarine after the sinking.

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Alfred Bale, a greaser on the ship, told the inquiry he was just starting his watch and had just reached the engine room when he heard a loud explosion and all the lights went out. He told how he made his way starboard to the after well deck, and then to the boat deck and helped to clear and lower the port forward lifeboat.

He said how the chief officer shouted "every man for himself" and he was thrown from the boat.

“When I came to the surface I saw a boat, bottom up with three men clinging to it and made my way towards it and hauled myself up on the keel," Mr Bale said.

“Soon after I saw what I took to be a schooner coming towards us and we all shouted together, a lot of men close to us in the water also shouted. A minute or two after, I saw it was not a schooner but a submarine on the surface and I said to the man next to me ‘we can expect nothing from him, it is the submarine’.”

Mr Bale told the inqury he got on a raft nearby to allow the other men clinging to the same boat to have more room and was later picked up by destroyer USS Parker after 10 hours in the water.

South Wales Argus:

A memorial stone to HMHS Glenart Castle in Hartland Point, Devon. Picture: Wikimedia/Etchacan1974 (under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Another survivor, Thomas Matthews, told the inquiry he saw seven lifeboats flee with people in them, and two empty ones float off. His own lifeboat remained in the area of the ship with 22 survivors - 19 crew and three from the Royal Army Medical Corps. The boat landed in Swansea after being picked up six miles north of Lundy by a French yawl.

Asked if there were orders for the nurses to be put on the boats first – all eight of the nurses on board died – Mr Matthews said there had been no time to rescue anyone due to the speed at which the boat sank. He said they only had the order to lower boats.

John Hill – a 2nd Hand on the Swansea Castle fishing trawler which was in the area at the time of the sinking – told the inquiry how he saw the moment the ship was hit.

“As we were steaming along, I look around with the glasses and away in the starboard rigging I saw the hospital ship with green lights all around her – around the saloon," he said.

“She had her red side lights shewing and mast-head light, and also another red light which I suppose was the Red Cross light.

“We were steaming north and she was going West by North. As we were steaming along, I did not know whether to alter course, but her speed took her across our head clear of us – she crossed our bow.

"When she got right ahead all her lights went out.

"When the lights went out, I turned around with the glasses in my hand to see that she went clear of us and I saw the vessel in the moonlight.

“Every light on board had suddenly disappeared. Of course that made me think that something was wrong and I remarked to my mate at the wheel that it was funny.”

He continued that he looked around again and saw something in the water with no lights – as did his mate. He looked again after a few seconds and it had disappeared.

“As soon as I saw that object disappear such a thing as a submarine was far from my mind but my mate said to me instantly “a submarine, Jack – call the skipper.”

He called the skipper who gave the orders for all hands to man the gun and safely navigated their way towards Lundy. He said that the hospital ship had gone clean out of sight and they did not look for her and that they did not hear an explosion, despite being just over a mile away.

A memorial to those who died on the hospital ship is placed at Hartland Point in Devon.