Qualla: HMS Natal

HMS Natal: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Her crew called her the Sea Hearse, and the nickname proved grimly prophetic. HMS Natal was a 13,550-ton armoured cruiser built for the Royal Navy, completed in 1907 at a cost of over 1.2 million pounds -- funded largely by the inhabitants of the Colony of Natal in South Africa, whose name she bore. She escorted the royal yacht carrying King George V to the Delhi Durbar in 1911, and in 1912 she carried the body of the American Ambassador Whitelaw Reid home to New York. By December 1915, she lay at anchor in the Cromarty Firth with the 2nd Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet, having never fired her guns in anger during the war. She would never get the chance.

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

HMS Natal: A Winter Afternoon's Entertainment

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mariannebritsstrodl, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 30 December 1915, Captain Eric Back was hosting a film party aboard Natal. It was meant as a festive diversion during the monotony of wartime anchorage. He had invited the wives and children of his officers, a civilian friend with his family, and nurses from the nearby hospita...

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Image: Mariannebritsstrodl | CC BY-SA 3.0

HMS Natal: The Cause and the Cost

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mariannebritsstrodl, CC BY-SA 3.0. Initial speculation blamed a German U-boat or a submarine-laid mine, but divers found that the explosions originated internally -- in either the rear 9.2-inch shellroom or the 3-pounder and small arms magazine. The Admiralty court-martial concluded that faulty cordite was the lik...

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Image: Mariannebritsstrodl | CC BY-SA 3.0

HMS Natal: A Tradition of Remembrance

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JMK, CC BY-SA 3.0. Natal's hull remained visible at low water in the Cromarty Firth for decades. It became Royal Navy custom, maintained through to the Second World War, for every warship entering or leaving Cromarty to sound "Still" -- the order for all hands to come to attention -- as they passed...

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Image: JMK | CC BY-SA 3.0

HMS Natal: Before the Disaster

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JMK, CC BY-SA 3.0. Natal had led a noteworthy career even before tragedy found her. Powered by triple-expansion steam engines driving two shafts at 23,650 indicated horsepower, she could make 23 knots and carried six 9.2-inch Mark X guns in turrets, four 7.5-inch secondary guns, and twenty-six 3-po...

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Image: JMK | CC BY-SA 3.0