HMS Royal Edward


The Times report

The British Transport Royal Edward was sunk by an enemy submarine in the AegeanSea
on Saturday 13th August 1915.

According to the information at present available, the transport had on board32
officers and 1350 troops, in addition to the ship's crew of 220 officers andmen.
The troops consisted mainly of reinforcements for the 29th Division Royal ArmyMedical Corps.

Full information has not yet been received, but it is known that about 600 menhave been
saved which leaves 1000 to be accounted for.

The 'Royal Edward' was a large ship of the Royal Line, her port of registrybeing Bristol.
Before the war she was engaged in the Canadian Service, sailing betweenAvonmouth and Montreal.

Built in 1908 by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company,Glasgow,her gross tonnage
was 11,117, 5669 net and she was 526 feet long, and had a speed of 19 knots.


Those drowned were listed as -

2nd Hampshires 207 & 5 officers

1st Essex regiment 107

Royal Army Medical Corps 143 & 4 officers

RASC 119 & 2 officers,

1st Border Regiment 59

2nd South Wales Borderers 53

1st Kings Own Scottish Borderers 48

1st Lancashire. Fusiliers 27 & 1 officer (Temp. Major Cuthbert Bromley,V.C.),

Royal Engineers 1

1/Essex lost 174 O.R's, but 172 of them were volunteers who'd transfer from theNorfolk's
(3rd Special Reserve) based at Felixstowe, 100 on 23 June and 200 on 24 July.


A passage from the History of Norfolk Regiment tells the rest of thestory:

Colonel Tonge refers to the loss of 300 men, the best draft that ever leftFelixstowe.
These men volunteered to join the Essex Regiment and appear to have constitutedthe drafts of June 23/July 24 1915.

They were part of the reinforcements carried by the transport "Royal Edward"which was torpedoed and sunk in the Aegean Sea on August 14th 1915.
She sank two and a half minutes after the torpedo struck her.Of the 1,400 menshe carried only 600 were saved,and the drowned included all but 18
of the 300 Norfolk men. The men who had had a route march just before leavingAlexandria, were waiting on deck for foot inspection at about 9.20 am.
Their lifebelts were down below, and when the ship was unexpectedly struck mostof them ran below to fetch the belts. Owing to the ship's
sudden heeling over and sinking, these never got up again. Those who escapedwere picked up by a hospital ship which responded to the s.o.s. signal.
To partly replace this sad loss, another draft of 150 men to the Essex Regimentwas dispatched on September 29, 1915.



Addenda 1994 From: "Men of Gallipoli"(David &Charles,1988) by kind permission of the publishers.

One of the features of the Cape Helles monument is the rows of names of mendrowned in the torpedoing of the Royal Edward,which sank in the
Eastern Mediterranean on 13th August with a loss of over 850 lives. A.T.Fraserin the Border Regiment, was in a deckchair on the afterdeck
starboard side when suddenly dozens of men ran past him from port to starboard.The explosion came before he had time to ask what was the matter.

"The ship had no escort and we had not been ordered to have our life-beltswith us. The hundreds on deck ran below to get their life-belts
and hundreds below would have met them on their way up. I shared a cabinaccessible from the deck I was on and I raced there to get my life-belt
and ran to my life-boat station which was on the star- board side. As the menarrived they fell in two ranks. Already the ship was listing and
this prevented our boats from being lowered,so we were ordered to jump for it.I saw no panic,but of course one could imagine what was happening
on the inside stairs. I swam away from the ship and turned to see the funnelsleaning towards me. When they reached the sea, all the soot was
belched out, there was a loud whoosh and the ship sank. No explosion, no surge.So I was alone. The little waves were such that in the trough
you saw nothing, on the crest you saw a few yards.The water was warm.I wonderedif there were sharks ".

Fraser found some wood to rest on and he was joined by a seaman, an older manwho had twice previously been torpedoed. This brought the young Scotconfidence.
An up turned Royal Edward lifeboat was to provide 17 of the survivors with alittle more security though in what Fraser calls half-hourly recurringturbulence,
the boat turned over, offering them conventional but completely waterloggedaccommodation every alternate half hour but at least providing them withsomething to do.
There was no singing and little conversation. The first ship that passed hailedthe scattered men and promised to signal for help.

It could not stop as it had high explosives for Lemnos. Some of the men becamedepressed and showed unwillingness to clamber back in the life boat when itoverturned,
but on each occasion all were persuaded. Finally the hospital ship SOUDAINarrived to pick them up in her life-boats,and at 2 o'clock Fraser was safelyaboard her
after just under five hours in the sea. He remembers that " a large numberof men lost their false teeth as we were constantly sick in the sea -
and these men were sent back to England. We the younger ones, were clothed andkitted and on another ship three days later for Gallipoli. "


further links -

http://www.geocities.com/heartland/acres/5564/norfolkgallipoli.html
(a Norfolk site well worth a visit) -

http://www.cemsearch.co.uk/royal/royal.html

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/5564/royaledward.html