Qualla: HMS Hermes (1898)

HMS Hermes (1898): Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ernest Hopkins, Public domain. Look down through thirty metres of grey-green Channel water near Ruylingen Bank and you will find her upside-down, a 372-foot protected cruiser flipped onto her back like a beetle. Eleven months before her last morning, HMS Hermes had been the most modern thing the Royal Navy possessed: a Victorian warship with a wooden rail-and-canvas flight deck bolted over her forecastle, lifting wood-and-wire seaplanes off the North Sea to look for enemy ships. She was the navy's first answer to a question nobody quite knew how to ask yet. On 31 October 1914, a German U-boat answered it for her.

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Image: Ernest Hopkins | Public domain

HMS Hermes (1898): An old hull, a strange experiment

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Basher Eyre, CC BY-SA 2.0. Hermes was already an antique by 1913. Built at Fairfield's Govan yard, launched in 1898 by Lady Kelvin, she had served as flagship on the West Indies, East Indies, and Cape of Good Hope stations - the kind of imperial cruising the Edwardian navy liked. She had eleven six-inch gu...

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Image: Basher Eyre | CC BY-SA 2.0

HMS Hermes (1898): Flight Context

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit photographer not identified., Public domain. Wreck site at 51.11N, 1.84E, in the Dover Strait roughly 7 nautical miles east-northeast of Dover. Lies upside down in about 30 m of water. Nearest airfields: Lydd (EGMD) and Manston (EGMH) on the English side; Calais-Dunkerque (LFAC) on the French side. Heavy ferry, container and tanker traffic through the Strait of Dover TSS - look for the unbroken procession of ships rounding South Foreland from cruising altitude. Frequent low cloud and visibility under 5 km on cold mornings.

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Image: photographer not identified. | Public domain

HMS Hermes (1898): Pretending to be a Zeppelin

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kurt von Schleinitz (1859-1928), Public domain. In the 1913 fleet manoeuvres, Vice-Admiral John Jellicoe's Red Fleet needed a Zeppelin to scout against, and Hermes was told to pretend. The Short Folder, weighted to its limit, could only carry a tiny wireless transmitter, so it would fly off, spot ships, and signal back to Herm...

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Image: Kurt von Schleinitz (1859-1928) | Public domain

HMS Hermes (1898): The last morning

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kurt von Schleinitz (1859-1928), Public domain. When the war began in August 1914 she was hurriedly recommissioned, this time as an aircraft ferry and depot ship for the Royal Naval Air Service. On 30 October she crossed to Dunkirk with a deck-load of seaplanes for the squadrons defending the Channel ports. The next morning sh...

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Image: Kurt von Schleinitz (1859-1928) | Public domain

HMS Hermes (1898): The wreck and the law

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar, Public domain. She is a war grave now, protected under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. In January 2017 two English divers were charged with failing to declare items they had brought up from her hull - a reminder that she is still down there in roughly thirty metres of water, upside...

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Image: Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar | Public domain