HMS Bulwark Explosion: 26th November 1914

HMS Bulwark was a pre-dreadnought battleship, completed in 1902. She initially served as the flagship to the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet, moving to the English Channel in 1907. Stood town to a reserve role in 1910, she served as part of the Home Fleet.

When war was declared, Bulwark was put into action again, and began her new service as patrolling the English Channel. In the autumn of 1914, however, with the threat of invasion along the Thames Corridor increasing, she was assigned to the North Kent Coast, guarding the key ports and defences there.

On the morning of 26^th November 1914, a massive internal explosion ripped through HMS Bulwark, tearing the ship apart and killing a total of 741 members of crew, including all of the ship’s officers. A subsequent enquiry concluded that the explosion was caused by the ignition of cordite charges that had been stowed incorrectly, detonating nearby shells, which then caused the aft magazine to explode.

Only 30 bodies were recovered after the blast, which was the second most catastrophic explosion of the First World War. Those that could be identified were buried in marked graves in the Naval section of Woodlands Cemetery, Gillingham, Kent. The rest were laid to rest in a mass grave in the same cemetery.