HMS Royal Oak

HMS Royal Oak - WW1

With reference to HMS Royal Oak (08) in 1939

Written by Godfrey Dykes

© RN Communications Branch Museum/Library

Fourteen months after Jutland units of the Grand Fleet were anchored in Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. It was July 1917 and a small party of mainly officers had left the battleship ‘Vanguard’ to visit the battleship ‘Royal Oak’, invited there to witness a concert/film show. Whilst there, their massive ship was rent asunder in a terrible accident. Amongst the "survivors of the Vanguard" attending Royal Oak’s concert was a young midshipman who went on to survive the Royal Oak sinking in 1939: he was the commander, Commander and Executive Officer Reginald Frederick NICHOLLS Royal Navy. In addition the Commanding Officer Captain William Gordon BENN Royal Navy survived the sinking. The survivors of the Vanguard accident could be counted on one hand.

On the 9th July 1917 approximately half an hour short of midnight when the vast majority on board were fast asleep, Vanguard sank at its moorings after an almighty internal explosion. Only three of her on board crew were picked up with one dying two days later, three out of 845 men: only three was the same number of survivors from the Mighty Hood, sunk in May 1941 after a shoot-out with the Kriegsmarine battleship Bismarck. The losses could have been much worse had not approximately one hundred of her complement been granted home leave, these in addition to crew member visiting the Royal Oak, which later on in its life joined the Hood by having the word “Mighty” added to its name, ergo Mighty Hood and Mighty Oak. By comparison 834 were killed in Royal Oak at her torpedoing in 1939 at Scapa out of a total of 1200 men aboard so approximately 366 precious lives were saved by a Herculean effort mainly by local Orkney people with one man and his boat being hailed as a champion, a saviour. Both, unimaginably mega-tragedies, for literally thousands of people were affected, taking the large families of those days into account, with relatives, in-laws, neighbours, friends, former colleagues etc all in deep mourning. Royal Oak in Vanguards image, namely attacked at around midnight when most of them had turned-in wearing only underpants and vests or sweat shirts, ill prepared for a massive influx of near on ice cold water, snuggled down fearing nothing and enjoying a peaceful rest and sleep, far from the threat of the open seas wherein lurked UBoats inter alia! Who would have thought that a UBoat could sink a giant battleship inside a protected anchorage? Just like vulnerable street crossings for pedestrians wait until a few have been killed before the authorities act by laying-in a zebra crossing, then so too was the anchorage strengthened and fortified so such an attack was never again possible, ordered to be put in place immediately by Churchill, and were/are thereafter called the “Churchill Barriers”. Churchill was a man for getting things done, no more so that getting the fleet to seek out and dispose of the Bismarck in his famous edict “Sink the Bismarck” which was soon executed, literally! Royal Oak, built to a design drawn-up at the very beginning of WW1 was still a potent weapon twentyfive years later in 1939 with a fearsome armament array, but her propulsion system was archaic and rendered the vessel at sea incompatible with modern warfare. As such she was used as a base (in Scapa Flow) as an anti-aircraft vessel whilst the other ships based in the Orkneys were free and away from their moorings at sea. By the time the German UBoat had skilfully used the tides to manoeuvre into and again out of the Flow proper, Royal Oak was its only target, and a sitting duck target at that! She was ready in all respects to fight off the Luftwaffe expected at any time, but a UBoat ? - the very last adversary envisaged!

DETAIL from Captain Crawford MACLACHLAN RN full service record of note, and two mentions of the ships Executive Officer Commander George Knightley CHATWODE RN the two most senior officers in Royal Oak at the time of Jutland – the ship did not carry a flag belonging to the 3rd Division 4th Battle Squadron whose flag officer in HMS Superb was Rear Admiral Alexander Ludovic Duff.

1. Commissions held and dates

14-6-83 Midshipman – Age 16.
14-6-87 Acting SUB LIEUTENANT – Age 20.
31-12-90 LIEUTENANT – Age 23.
30-6-2003 COMMANDER. Note no Lt Cdr but a ‘Lt over 8 years seniority’ was paid a higher salary and come WW1
the Lt Cdr rank supplanted the Lt over 8 years title and pay – Age 41.
31-12-08 CAPTAIN – Age 46.
17-2-20 Rear Admiral – Age 53.
1-7-25 Vice Admiral – Age 58 .
1-4-30 Admiral – Age 63

2. Decorations and Awards Admiral Crawford Maclachlan was born on 11 July 1867. He died in 1952, unmarried.

He survived the sinking of the battleship King Edward VII of which he was the CO sunk on hitting a mine just north of John o’ Groats in the Pentland Firth NE Scotland.

He was awarded the Chevalier, Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur by France, the Order of the Rising Sun of Japan, the Order of St. Olaf of Norway. He held the office of Naval Aide-de-Camp to HM King George V between 1919 and 1920. He was Rear-Admiral of the Reserve Fleet between 1920 and 1921, and Senior Naval Officer of the Yangste(China) between 1921 and 1923.

For services in action as the CO of HMS Royal Oak at Jutland he was m-i-d and gazetted in London 3-6-18.

Commander Chatwode - For services in action as the XO of HMS Royal Oak at Jutland a m-i-d gazetted in London 3-6-18

For services in command of HMS Royal Oak (25th January 1916 (commissioned 1st May 1916) to 10th January 1919) Captain Maclachlan is appointed CB (Military) – also gazetted London 3-6-18. Investiture by HM The King on board HMS Queen Elizabeth 22-7-18.

In 1919 upon relinquishment of the command of the battleship Royal Oak after 3 years by routine and orderly replacement of the CO, there was a farewell event leading to much adulation and gratitude of a fine commanding officer.Despite his wonderful career he was never knighted and perhaps the reason might be found in Admiral Sir Percy Grants first sentence inhis summing up of his personality and character at the bottom of the Obit.

It is fitting here that as Maclachlan’s second in command the Executive of HMS Royal Oak, Commander Chatwode, also shared the near same adulation but left the ship upon promotion to captain RN.

All in all Maclachlan served in twenty five ships and was highly praised in all of them.

Outside of action in WW1, Royal Oak’s gunnery officer was Lieutenant Commander Lancelot Holland who joined the ship in May 1918 until 1920. During the war he served in the battleship HMS Industan joining in 1913 until April 1916, followed by a short command of a vessel before joining Royal Oak. His name is forever remembered as Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland Flag Office Battlecruisers who died in the sinking of HMS Hood in May 1941.

Captain Maclachlan R.N, inspecting the ship’s company of HMS Royal Oak during WW1

Times - Death Notice of Admiral Crawford Maclachlan.

This is his Times Obituary:-

For those of you unfamiliar with war/campaign medals, although today, in the latter part of the 20th century and the start of the 21st, one can’t miss that they seem to be dished out like lollipops, it is troubling almost as to how wars and hostilities are perceived and rewarded or recorded. It is almost unbelievable that the sea battles of WW1 were not acknowledged in medallic terms so if one is looking for a medal for the Battle of Jutland, the Battle of Dogger Bank and BOTH battles of Heligoland Bight(and they are four battles in the North Sea alone – with literally scores upon scores of other sea battles around the world – you will be bitterly disappointed. Yet all of those battles running into hundreds are recorded in the Admiralty until 1964 when it’s name changed to MOD (Navy) and fittingly each ship involved was given a medal known as a “Battle Honour” but none in their complement was given a personal medal. Truly it beggars belief, but it is the case. Additionally, one of the great battles the navy fought was in WW2 in the Mediterranean, particularly actions involving the Siege of Malta. The King gave the people of Malta a top notch medal called the George Cross, but what did our armed forces get who supplied and defended Malta. Rather embarrassingly a big fat zero, and these men had to accept the Africa Star as their medal, just as the army Desert Rats did, though they were at least in North Africa! I mention all this at this time in particular. In my time in the Royal Navy (1953-1984) I used to enjoy seeing the proverbial bronze oak leaves attached to a campaign medal denoting a MID = Mention in Despatches for special commendable service given during that campaign. Such an addition made that medal special so too the man wearing it and it has to be remembered that a MID is only just short of a DSC or a DSM. Above in para 2, I have mentioned that both the CO and the XO of the Royal Oak received a MID, the CO’s on the recommendation of the admiral commanding the 3rd DivisionAdmiral Duff, and the XO’s on the recommendation of the ships CO. Neither (repeated thousands of times in the 5 year war period (1914-1919) for millions of service personnel in the British forces, had a medal ribbon onto which an MID should have been attached, and had instead to attach their MID to the WW1 Victory Medal over two years later, again handed out to millions of people, armed forces plus civilians. Were I in a position of authority, I would change the rules for the award of a campaign medal to be that if a shot is fired in anger towards our forces from the ranks of the of the declared enemy, then a campaign medal should be struck, and any British serviceman in that theatre of hostility, should be eligible to wear it even after just one day in potential harms way, unlike the present rules of a qualifying period usually of 30 to 60 days and sometimes more. Under present rules, if one is killed during the first day of fighting, one is debarred from receiving that campaign medal even though his certificate will say “discharged dead as the result of enemy action.” Today, at least we are civilised, and just if not grateful for such a personal commitment, and such a name would be recorded on the NMA = National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.


Royal Oak	Lowestoft 1665 Passero 1718 Jutland 1916	Orfordness 1666 Chesapeake 1781	Velez Malaga 1704 The Saints 1792
Royal Prince	Lowestoft 1665	Four Days' Battle 1666
Royal Scotsman	North Africa 1942-43 Atlantic 1944	Sicily 1943	Salerno 1943
Royal Sovereign	Orfordness 1666 Cornwallis' Retreat 1795 Calabria 1940	Vigo 1702 Trafalgar 1805 Atlantic 1940-41	First of June 1794 Dunkirk 1940*

3. HMS Royal Oak is stranded (4th July 1917) and the CO Captain Maclachlan is court martialled 20th July 1917. He is given a Board Reprimand and it certainly didn’t affect his career prospects: few if any are for such an offence! This occurred half way through Captain Maclachlan’s command of the ship.

During WW1 (and at other times too) ships movements, defects which took ships out of operational service etc were denied to the enemy by not being published in naval documents and in the media. This annoyed the Government and the RN that they too were in the dark as to what was happening to its navy which caused this comment in the House of Commons:-

Oral Answers to Questions - Naval Courts-Martial

To this day the position of the stranding has never been revealed to the general public. It was probably on the dangerous navigation route in the vicinity of Drake’s Island in Plymouth Soundenroute to and from Devonport dockyard.

From the Fleet Air Arm Officer's Association Site (On this day 5 November 1918

There is purportedly an image doing the rounds on FLICKR (although we cannot find it) that shows to the left HMS Revenge, sinking in the middle HMS Campania, in the far distant background HMS Royal Oak and HMS Resolution close in on the right. If the Firth of Forth was so choppy (I would guess at Force 2 deteriorating to 3), what of the North Sea to seaward of this picture?

Captain Crawford Maclachlan in command of the vessel HMS Royal Oak for three years January 1916 to January 1919, lived in more exciting times, commanding this magnificent ship when brand new (state of the art) in an active and war-like manner than the hapless ship did in WW2 and betwixt wars ever did, simply by virtue of an out of date propulsion technology which come the mid 1930’s, saw her as the slow-coach or “slug” of the battle fleet.

A ship, from build to scrap, is an integral unit this despite the number of commissions the ‘old lady’ had endured. Just like a family, those who have lived in the ship, note NOT ON the ship, anymore than we don’t live on a house, are family members, in this case from first commissioning on the 1st May 1916 with no lives lost in action, to her loss on the 14th October 1939 with a dreadful death toll! We are one and the same vessel and living experience. God rest the soulsof the dead and reward the endeavours of those crew members who survived the ravages of WW1 and went on to prepare for the defences of the realm in WW2, but through circumstances beyond their control were denied that privilege, oft times the survivors of the 1939 sinking dying in other vessels trying to achieve that aim.

As I have shown above the captain of the vessel went on to achieve high office in the navy and so too did his executive officer Commander George Knightley Chetwood.

Lieutenant in December, 1899. 1907 awarded the Royal Humane Society's Bronze Medal for saving life from drowning. Commander 31 December, 1912. Royal Oak 30 January, 1916, to be her executive officer upon commissioning. He remained in her through until July, 1917, having then been promoted to the rank of Captain on 30 June 1917. At that time he was through-appointed to the 1st class cruiser HMS Blenheim as additional officer complement, to serve as Captain (D) of the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla on 15 August, 1917 to the Armistice.

June 1919 Chetwode was appointed to the British Naval Mission to Greece with the rank of Rear Admiral in the Royal Hellenic Navy, reverting back to the RN 26 January 1922. From there he took command of the battleship Queen Elizabeth in May 1925 and in March 1926 he took command of the battleship Warspite. Promoted rear admiral 13-6-28, vice admiral 1-1-33 and admiral on 22-7-1936 and was immediately placed on the retired list at his own request, a common gracious gesture by senior officers to allow those younger officers making their way up the ladder, room for high office avoiding the proverbial ‘dead mans shoes’ syndrome.

He was fined 40 pounds and 51/- in costs at Magistrate's Court in Portsmouth for an offence against the Rationing (General Provisions) Order 1942 for obtaining rationed food for household consumption otherwise than in accordance with the order. The First Sea Lord approved this notation in Chetwode's record. In total he had eleven sea commands and his final appointment was Admiral Commanding Reserves.