up out of the deck, exposing its axle – the collapsing of the deck from the stem aft has thrust it upwards from its original position on the deck. There are empty holes in the deck where the other two capstans have been blasted out of the ship as she blew up. Thick teak deck planks still lined the fo’c’sle deck above what was the officer’s accommodation lit by a large centreline deck skylight that was still in place. A very different arrangement for officer accommodation from latter classes.
Just aft of the anchor hawse pipes, the sides of the ship flared out from the fo’c’sle, and one deck level down the upper deck begins, widening out to the full beam of the ship as you go aft. The sides of the ship here at the beginning of the upper deck, although still present, have been blown outwards and separated from the inner ship – the vertical armour belt plates on the starboard side are smoothly bent outwards by an incredible force.
The bow section just ends abruptly as the sloping deck reaches the seabed. The very end of the decking has a lip that angles abruptly downwards as a result of the centre of the ship lifting as she exploded. It appears that the bottom of the ship here at the bow has been blown out – and that the uppermost section of the bow has been detached and moved to end up sitting on the sand. The base of the stem is blown out allowing views inside through a sizeable hole.
Moving aft, as the bow section ends abruptly, it gives way to empty flat seabed that is scattered here and there with small sections of ship – the bow is seemingly isolated from the rest of the ship. Out at a 120-degree angle from the starboard side of the bow over scattered sticks of cordite there is an open expanse of seabed for some 20 metres before you arrive at the remains of A turret barbette, which lies on the seabed just as Frank Lilleker describes in Salvaging HMS Vanguard, 1958–59. The barbette lies on its side with the gunhouse deck to the north. The circular roller path on which the gunhouse turned is complete, but the gunhouse and barrels are missing.
Immediately aft of A turret barbette, and partly lying on top of it, is a section of tubular foremast along with the two tripod leg supports and the spotting top platform, which lies on its starboard side. The foremast leads down to an armoured chamber, and it is believed that most of the bridge is still here in the mass of structure in this area.
It appears that A turret barbette has been blown out of the ship – or that the ship around it has been totally destroyed. The barbette has landed on its side, whilst the lower sections of the bridge superstructure immediately abaft of it have been devastated and blown away, allowing the section of tripod mast and spotting top, high above it, to fall directly down.
After a long swim of about 50 metres out north-east, on the starboard side of the wreck what is believed to be the Q wing turret can be found – lying upside down and in isolation but amongst scattered small sections of ship.
The ship is largely gone here in the vicinity of P and Q turrets, which the Court of Inquiry appears to have correctly found to have been the centre of the explosion. There is a marked shallow depression in the seabed here, as though the seabed was excavated by the explosion. This may be ground zero, and is a similar effect to what I have seen when diving wrecks carrying munitions in Truk Lagoon that were catastrophically destroyed in a single secondary munitions explosion.
South of Q turret and the depression, the ship begins to reform – scattered large sections of plate and hull appear at first, before the tangled confusion of the innards of the battleship abaft P and Q turret appear. The sides of the ship with the vertical armour belt are gone – blown out and the armour plates salved. There is a large section of the port side of the ship, lined with a single row of portholes, which is angled back towards the stern and rests upright on the seabed.
Within the ragged outline of the ship as you move aft, the first of the sets of Babcock & Wilcox marine boilers start to be found. The boilers are more intact and stacked upon one another on the port side, whilst they are more distressed on the starboard side.
An upright bulkhead separates the boiler rooms from the turbine rooms. Of the two sets of Parsons steam turbines, the port side turbine is in good condition, barring the obvious scars of salvage work to free up the condensers. The turbines in the starboard set are shattered. This is the highest section of the mid part of the wreck, and moving out over free water to starboard, a long section of intact hull bottom leads aft over clean seabed towards the stern section. A number of 12-inch shells can be found on the seabed to starboard here.
Abaft the turbine rooms is the area where X and Y turrets were located. There are a large number of 5-foot-long flashproof brass Clarkson cases piled up together. Some are intact, whilst others are blown open and flattened by the magazine explosion.
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