New information comes to light 110 years after the Bombardment of Scarborough
New research has shown the full impact of the First World War off the Scarborough coast.
The bombardment of Scarborough by German battle cruisers on 16 December 1914 was one of the iconic moments of the Great War.
A day when modern warfare crashed into the streets and houses of a peaceful seaside town.
Over a century on that powerful message lingers in the cultural memory, but who now remembers the ships and sailors lost to a sea mining operation that ran concurrently with the bombardment?
Whilst eighteen people were killed in the streets of Scarborough, between December 1914 and March 1915, seven times that number lost their lives off Cayton Bay.
A German minefield sank twenty ships, resulting in the deaths of 135 sailors, often little more than a mile from the coastline.
Dr. David Pendleton has spent over a year exploring the ships and crews lost and has joined with the Scarborough Sub Aqua Club and Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre to produce a new exhibition, starting on December 4 and running until March 2 2025.
In this exhibition he reveals the names of all the crew members lost, including some from India and Scandinavia.
A sole survivor of one sinking was Joseph O’Toole, a 26 year old Irishman, who was aboard the ship ‘Tangistan' carrying iron ore to Middlesbrough.
He clung to a large wooden box in the freezing North Sea but was rescued by a passing steamer.
Local fishermen worked on trawlers converted into minesweepers and several of these vessels were damaged or lost during the mine clearance activity.
The majority of the 135 sailors who lost their lives have no known grave but the sea.
Some of their names are etched on memorials scattered across Britain and her former empire.
There are only five graves on land, two in Scarborough’s Dean Road Cemetery, the others in Bridlington, Cleethorpes and South Shields.
Dr Pendleton will be giving a one-hour lecture about his findings to the Scarborough Archaeological and Historical Society in the Salvation Army Hall on Monday December 16 at 7.30pm, entrance £3.
For more information contact Dr Pendleton on: 07516 888 315 or email [email protected].