HMS Serpent (1887)
HMS Serpent was a third-class cruiser of the Royal Navy, built at Devonport between 1885 and 1888. Launched on 10 March 1887, she displaced 1,770 tons and was armed with 6 6-inch guns and 5 14-inch torpedo tubes.
On November 10, 1890, while sailing under the command of Royal Navy Commander Harry L. Ross, the ship sank off the Galician coast, killing 172 of its 175 crew members.
The ship
The Serpent belonged to the Archer class, a series of eight British Royal Navy torpedo cruisers in service from the 1880s to 1910, they were the first Royal Navy ships to use the Galvanized to protect the metal from exposure to salt water.
The weight of the ship's weapons made it sway dangerously with the waves.
Last trip
HMS Serpent, on June 24, 1890, despite being in reserve, was assigned to serve. It sailed from the port of Plymouth on Saturday, November 8, 1890. Its destination was to relieve its sister ship, HMS Archer, at the West Africa Station and to serve on the bases naval stations off the Cape of Good Hope and on the West African coast on the islands of Madeira and Accra (Sierra Leone).
He commanded the following officers:
- Commander Harry Leith Ross: Royal Navy veteran officer who joined in 1862. He had received the command of Serpent in the summer of 1890.
- First Lieutenant Guy Alnwic John Greville: Lieutenant since 1884 with several war actions in his history.
- Defeat Officer, Peter N. Richards: promoted to lieutenant in 1886, without experience of war. However, he knew the Galician coast as he was part of the escort of Alfredo, Duke of Edinburgh and second son of Queen Victoria of England.
- Torquil John Pollard Ross Macleod: He reached the rank of lieutenant in 1886, and had previously sailed with Greville.
Shipwreck
On Sunday, November 9, the Serpent was buffeted by a swell so strong that the crew thought the captain would order her back to the port of departure. For several hours, the ship hoves until the storm subsides. However, Lieutenant Richards is unable to sight the sun to accurately locate the ship on nautical charts.
On the morning of the 10th, Captain Ross discussed at length with his Course Officer about the position and course of the ship since, despite the fact that the weather was not helping, a coast had been sighted to port.
There was no fog, the drizzle and the clouds reduced visibility, and the boats that crossed their course with theirs, did not notice anything strange in their way of sailing. That afternoon, the sailor Onesipherous Oney Luxton was on first quarter watch, with express orders from the captain to maintain a south-west-mid-south course. The sailors Frederick Joseph Gould and Benjamin Burton were in charge of the soundings, but the captain did not order them to measure the depth of the bottom. At eight, Gould and Burton go on deck to stand watch until 12:00, whose officer will be Richards. However, the Commander will remain on the bridge, redoubling his vigilance.
At 9:00 p.m., the commanders discussed the position of the ship again, ordering a change of course to the west and asking the Commander that the lookout look for the light of the Cabo Villano lighthouse on the port side. But the night was pitch black and the port lookout didn't even hear the breakers. At ten-thirty at night, Gould and Burton rest on deck with their life jackets on. These garments were not in general use in the Navy at the time, counting the Serpent only with 25 vests for 175 men.
When the hull of the Serpent creaked as it wedged itself against Punta do Boi at a speed of about nine knots, most of the crew mistook it for a swell, until someone yelled that they had stuck. The commander ordered the watertight doors closed and the boats released, an order transmitted by Lieutenant Richards. Luxon woke up in his hammock, and his instincts made her grab one of the vests as he runs onto the deck. It is then that the Commander ordered to put the machines all the way back, which turned out to be impossible. Gould is the skipper of the port boat and was torn to splinters by the sea, swallowing all eight of the boat's sailors, except for Gould who was left clinging to the side of the ship. A swell throws Luxon into the water, separating him from the ship. Burton was ordered to drop anything that could float to help the survivors, but the other boat smashed against the rocks and the Commander gave up trying again, ordering the crew to climb the masts for their lives. A wave separates Burton from his teammates as he finds himself attached to the rigging. The sea once again threw him on the deck of the ship, a moment that the sailor takes advantage of to get rid of everything that could prevent him from swimming. When he falls back into the water, he is only wearing a jumper and life jacket.
Two hours later, the exhausted Burton makes it to shore. He walks among the corpses and the dying bodies of his companions until he finds Luxon badly injured: the rocks have smashed his right leg. Leaning on each other, the survivors walk towards a house they spot on the coast. After helping them regain their strength, the inhabitants accompany the sailors to the house of the parish priest of Javiña, who welcomes them. Gould, the third survivor, has reached the coast alone and only the mayor of Camariñas and his naval assistant find him.
The Court Martial, held on December 16, 1890, concluded that the loss of the Serpent was due to a navigation error.
Burial
From Tuesday the 11th, the rescue of the bodies of the Serpent began. Given the proximity to the coast of the point of the shipwreck, the sea spent many days throwing mutilated corpses onto the coast, which were buried on the beach, leaving the 172 victims buried in an improvised cemetery on the spot (known as Cemiterio two Englishmen), which was later consecrated on November 23.
During a visit by the English squadron to the Arosa estuary in 1896, the English Admiralty ordered the placement of a commemorative plaque on Mount Lobeira on the rock where a cross had been nailed to honor the memory of those who found death in the waters of the sea, to serve as a memory and tribute to the victims of the sinking, a plaque that still exists today.
Consequences
When the Navy learned that the only three survivors of the Serpent were wearing the life jacket, its use became general in the rest of the Royal Navy ships.
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