Heroic HMS Birkenhead Sinks

HMS Birkenhead is one of South Africa's most famous shipwrecks.  At 2 a.m. on the calm, clear night of 26 February 1852, she was wrecked on an uncharted reef off Danger Point, near Gansbaai – approximately 170 km (106 miles by road) east of Cape Town, South Africa. Tragically, there were eight lifeboats, but only three could be used. The soldiers famously stood fast, allowing the women and children to board safely. Of the Birkenhead’s approximately 643 passengers, only between 193 and 206 survived.

The troops' chivalry gave rise to the "women and children first" maritime protocol when abandoning ship, while the ‘Birkenhead Drill’ of Rudyard Kipling’s 1893 poem, Soldier an’ Sailor Too, became synonymous with supreme courage in the face of hopeless adversity. HMS Birkenhead was headed for Algoa Bay and the Buffalo River mouth with military stores, horses and troops that were to be deployed as reinforcements in Sir Harry Smith’s action against the Xhosa in the Eastern Cape’s 8th Frontier War.

"HMS Birkenhead" by Derrick Dickens

HMS Birkenhead, also referred to as HMS Troopship Birkenhead or Steam Frigate Birkenhead  was one of the first iron-hulled, combined sail and steam-powered ships, and also one of the last paddle steamers built for the Royal Navy. HMS Birkenhead was built at John Laird's shipyard at Birkenhead, near Liverpool and was initially known as the frigate, HMS Vulcan, but renamed soon after to HMS Birkenhead,  after the town where she was built in Cheshire, England. As a frigate, she had two masts, and was rigged as a brig, but during her conversion to a troopship, another mast was added and she was re-rigged as a barquentine. 

HMS Birkenhead was launched on 30 December 1845 by the Marchioness of Westminster and undertook her maiden voyage to Plymouth in 1846. By 1851 she had been converted to a troopship but never did service as a warship. 

At 6 a.m. on 25 February 1852, the HMS Birkenhead set sail for Algoa Bay and the Buffalo River Mouth with around 643 passengers on board - under instructions to reach her destination as quickly as possible. In order to make the best speed possible, Captain Salmond hugged the South-Western Cape coastline, setting a course of no more than three miles (4.8km) from the shore. Making optimal use of her paddle wheels, she managed to maintain a steady speed of 8.5 knots.

In early January 1852, under the command of Captain Robert Salmond, RN, HMS Birkenhead sailed out of Portsmouth harbour and headed for Queenstown (now Cobh) on the West Coast of Ireland. After picking up additional troops there on 5 January, she set sail for the Cape on 7 January 1852 with troops from 10 regiments, 25 military wives and 31 children. Of these women, three died giving birth to babies during the voyage and one died of consumption.

The HMS Birkenhead arrived in Simon’s Bay (now Simonstown) on 23 February 1852 after a voyage of 47 days – 10 days longer than the return voyage she’d made from the Cape in October 1850 when she set the fastest time ever for a troopship. 

After anchoring in Simon’s Bay, most of the women and children, as well as one officer and 18 sick soldiers disembarked. Over the next two days, water, coal and provisions, as well as nine cavalry horses and bales of hay were loaded for the final leg of her voyage to the Eastern Cape, where the 8th Frontier War (then referred to as the ‘8th Kaffir War’) was raging.

At 2 a.m. on 26 February 1852, HMS Birkenhead struck a submerged rock on an uncharted reef near Danger Point. A jagged pinnacle of rock (now know as Birkenhead Rock) tore into the bottom of the hull, instantly flooding the forward compartment of the lower troop deck and drowning more than 100 soldiers as they slept in their hammocks. Survivors of the initial impact and flooding assembled on deck - some barefoot and in their night clothes, others stark naked.

Distress rockets were fired in the hope that they would be seen, but HMS Birkenhead was too far off the usual shipping lanes. There was no lighthouse at Danger Point at the time and it was later reported that a light on shore had been mistaken for the Agulhas Lighthouse. It was also mooted that the light seen by the Birkenhead crew came from a fire set on a dune above Cape Mudge by fishermen who used it to guide their boats home. The truth may never be known.

Aware of their perilous position, Captain Salmond gave the order to abandon ship. Lt. Col. Seton, however countered his order with an instruction to “stand fast”. Several attempts were made to lower the lifeboats, but survivors later said the davits failed to function properly because of a lack of maintenance and a thick layer of paint and rust which clogged the mechanism.

After sustained efforts, two cutters and a gig were successfully launched and a small number of men and all of the women and children were later transferred to a schooner and safely reached the shore. Many tales of heroism emerged, one of which was that of teenager Ensign Alex C. Russell who was said to have given up his place in a lifeboat (and subsequently his life) for the father of one of the babies.  Another was the tale of a baby who fell from its mother’s arms and drowned along with the father who was trying to rescue it. The former was disproved while the latter appeared unlikely as all the women and children were apparently accounted for. 

HMS Birkenhead sank within 20 minutes after she’d struck the rock, leaving only the topmast and sails visible above the water. About 50 men were seen clinging to them, while the sea was alive with thrashing, wild-eyed horses and men desperately grasping for something with which to keep themselves afloat. Hundreds of men were drowned while scores were attacked by frenzied sharks in an area that to this day is notorious for its Great White Sharks.

BIRKENHEAD DRILL:

Lt. Col. Alexander Seton of the 74th Regiment of Foot realised that if the men rushed the lifeboats they would endanger the women and children by swamping their boat, so he ordered the men to stand fast. No one moved even though the ship was breaking up around them. As a result of the failure of the remaining lifeboats to launch, around 445 of the approximately 643 passengers perished, but because of the courage of the soldiers, all the women and children survived. 

The sacrifice by the troops who stood fast on deck while the women and children were lowered into one of the only three available lifeboats was an act of unparalleled selflessness and courage. It was from this wreck that the standard "Birkenhead Drill" protocol of "women and children first" was incorporated into maritime moral code.

Image:  "The Wreck of theBirkenhead" (ca 1892) by Thomas M Hemy

Over the next 12 hours, a few of the soldiers swam the approximately 1.5km (0.93 miles) to shore, while others managed to stay afloat by clinging to pieces of the wreck. Tragically, most of the passengers of the Birkenhead drowned, either because they could not swim or because they succumbed to exhaustion, hypothermia or their injuries. Many got entangled in the kelp, were crushed by falling debris or were trapped in, or sucked down by the sinking ship. An unfortunate number of victims suffered the gruesome fate of being torn apart and devoured by sharks. Lt. J.F. Girardot of the 43rd Light Infantry Regiment observed that the sharks appeared to target naked people. It was speculated that this could have been because the sharks were put off by flapping clothes or else mistook the naked men for seals.  

THE NEXT DAY:  The Rescue Mission 

By noon, the next day, several vessels, including the schooners, Lioness and Seahorse, and even a whaleboat involved in sealing on nearby Dyer Island, were frantically searching for survivors.

Of the approximately 643 people aboard the Birkenhead, only 80 found places on boats. The schooner, Lioness picked up survivors aboard two of these lifeboats as well as at least 40 men that she had found clinging to the Birkenhead's main mast. In total, she managed to save 116 men, women and children. The third lifeboat managed to beach at the mouth of the Bot River, in the vicinity of Fisherhaven, near Cape Hangklip where its occupants were given food and shelter by some local fishermen before joining other survivors who had been graciously taken in by the ex-Dragoon Guard, Captain Smales of the farm, Kleine Rivier, near Stanford. 

Apart from the Lioness, the schooner, Seahorse also deserves credit for rescuing 20 men who were clinging to the Birkenhead’s riggings. And not only did the whaleboat from Dyer Island help to clear away kelp that was hampering the lifeboats and rescue vessels, but it also managed to rescue four survivors. Other vessels also credited with taking part in the rescue of survivors were the Navy Flagship Castor, based at Simon’s Bay, the HMS Rhadamanthus, the schooner Megcsra and the HMS Corvette Amazon. 

Apart from the survivors in the lifeboats, 68 men survived icy waters, sharks and kelp by hanging on grimly to floating bits of the Birkenhead and were eventually carried ashore by the currents. Others were found, some dead, some alive, strapped to makeshift rafts. Over the next few days the coastline was thoroughly combed for bodies which were then interred nearby in shallow graves. Surprisingly few bodies were found and buried – most of them badly mutilated by sharks.

News of the disaster only reached Cape Town on Friday, 27 February after the heroic Dr. William Culhane, Assistant Surgeon on the Birkenhead, bravely galloped through the night on a borrowed horse. It took him 20 gruelling hours on horseback to reach Simon’s Bay. The first report to be published about the disaster appeared in the South African Commercial Advertiser of 28 February 1852. 

SURVIVORS AND CASUALTIES:

Sources contradict each other about the actual number of passengers that were aboard HMS Birkenhead . An initial tally of 693 was suggested when the ship left Ireland, but only 638 names were published in The Times of London after the sinking of the Birkenhead. The difference could possibly be accounted for by the women, children, sick soldiers and unknown others who disembarked at Simon’s Bay, or could simply have been the result of unreliable record-keeping. 

At the time of the sinking of the Birkenhead, there appear to have been 17 ship’s officers, 125 ship’s crew, one naval surgeon, one assistant surgeon, three military surgeons, one civilian, seven women, 13 children and around 476 army officers and drafted men aboard the Birkenhead, but these numbers also vary according to the source consulted.

It is generally thought that there were between 193 and 206 survivors of the Birkenhead disaster – comprised of 113 army personnel (all ranks), 6 Royal Marines, 54 seamen (all ranks), 7 women, 13 children, 1 male civilian and unknown others. However, these numbers cannot be absolute as muster rolls, ship’s books and logs went down with Captain Salmond and the approximately 445 brave men who stood fast on the decks of the HMS Birkenhead, as she sank. The name of the man who steered the Birkenhead to her date with destiny was ironically, Thomas Coffin.

The Wreck of the Birkenhead (1901) by Charles Dixon

MILITARY REGIMENTS ON BOARD HMS BIRKENHEAD

• 2nd Regiment of Foot (Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment), 1 officer, 1 sergeant and 50 men;
• 6th Royal Regiment of Foot (Royal Warwickshire Regiment), 1 officers, 1 sergeant and 60 men;
• 12th Lancers (9th/12th Royal Lancers) 2 officers, 1 sergeant and 5 men;
• 12th Regiment of Foot (Suffolk Regiment) 1 officer, 1 sergeant and 68 men;
• 43rd Light Infantry (1st Battalion Oxford) 1 officer, 40 men;
• 45th Regiment of Foot (1st Battalion Nottinghamshire) 1 officer, 1 sergeant and 15 men;
• 60th Rifles, 2nd Battalion, One sergeant and 40 men;
• 73rd Regiment of Foot (2nd Battalion Royal Highland Regiment) 3 officers, 1 sergeant and 70 men;
• 74th Regiment of Foot (2nd Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Regiment) 2 officers, 1 warrant officer and 60 men;
• 91st Regiment of Foot, 1 officer, 1 sergeant and 100 men.