| Kruisers: Aboukir, Cressy en Hogue
Beroemde gebeurtenis uit de eerste Wereldoorlog waarbij de onderzeeer U-9 op 22
september 1914 in een zeer kort tijdbestek drie slagschepen tot zinken bracht.
Afhankelijk van andere schepen ter plekke wordt een van deze Kruisers bezocht.
Kanonnen steken uit het wrak. Veel grote vis, kabeljauwen van meer dan 1 meter en
mogelijkheid om door gedeelten van het wrak heen te zwemmen. De kruisers, lengte
130 en breedte 21 meter, liggen gedeeltelijk ondersteboven, getordeerd op de bodem.
Duikdiepte 25 -32 meter.
On the morning of 22 September, Cressy and her sisters, Aboukir and Hogue, were on
patrol without any escorting destroyers as these had been forced to seek shelter from
bad weather. The three sisters were steaming in line abreast about 2,000 yards (1,800
m) apart at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). They were not expecting submarine
attack, but had lookouts posted and one gun manned on each side to attack any
submarines sighted. The weather had moderated earlier that morning and Tyrwhitt
was en route to reinforce the cruisers with eight destroyers.[16]
U-9, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen, had been ordered to attack
British transports at Ostend, but had been forced to dive and take shelter from the
storm. On surfacing, she spotted the British ships and moved to attack. She fired one
torpedo at 06:20 at Aboukir which struck her on the starboard side; the ship's captain
thought he had struck a mine and ordered the other two ships to close to transfer his
wounded men. Aboukir quickly began listing and capsized around 06:55 despite
counterflooding compartments on the opposite side to right her.[17]
As Hogue approached her sinking sister, her captain, Wilmot Nicholson, realized that it
had been a submarine attack and signaled Cressy to look for a periscope although his
ship continued to close on Aboukir as her crew threw overboard anything that would
float to aid the survivors in the water. Having stopped and lowered all her boats,
Hogue was struck by two torpedoes around 06:55. The sudden weight loss of the two
torpedoes caused U-9 to broach the surface and Hogue's gunners opened fire without
effect before the submarine could submerge again. The cruiser capsized about ten
minutes after being torpedoed and sank at 07:15.[18]
Cressy attempted to ram the submarine, but did not succeed and resumed her rescue
efforts until she too was torpedoed at 07:20. Weddigen had fired two torpedoes from
his stern tubes, but only one hit. U-9 had to maneuver to bring her bow around with
her last torpedo and fired it at a range of about 550 yards (500 m) at 07:30. The
torpedo struck on the port side and ruptured several boilers, scalding the men in the
compartment. As her sisters had done, Cressy took on a heavy list and then capsized
before sinking at 07:55. Several Dutch ships began rescuing survivors at 08:30 and
were joined by British fishing trawlers before Tyrwhitt and his ships arrived at 10:45.
From all three ships 837 men were rescued and 62 officers and 1,397 enlisted men
lost:[19] 560 of those lost were from Cressy.[9]
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