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“… was too tall for the shelf, so it stood …”
Whoops! Got a bit carried away there.
Seriously though, a casual reference in an earlier post to a dramatic bathing incident involving my grandfather has lead to demands from my extensive fan base (OK, one person) for more information. So here goes …
RMS India (later HMS India) in happier days (Photo credit – photoship.co.uk)
On the afternoon of 8th August 1915, my grandfather was taking a bath on board the merchant cruiser HMS India, which was stationed just off the Norwegian coast where it was tasked with intercepting ships supplying iron ore to Germany.
U22 (Photo credit – uboat.net)
At 5:40 pm, torpedo tracks were sighted and the alarm was sounded. Before the development of underwater detection technologies, submarines were the sea-monsters of the industrial age: patrolling freely and attacking at will. Many British sailors of this period suffered from “sub-itis” – a terror of being attacked by submarines – and would often sleep on deck rather than risk sudden death at the hands of an undetected U boat.
My grandfather, however, was a professional sailor with 12 years’ service in the Royal Navy behind him and, in the finest traditions of the service, kept his head and finished his bath. After drying himself and getting dressed, he headed to the lifeboats, pausing only to collect an axe.
Although the lifeboats were quickly manned and lowered, they remained connected by rope to the rapidly sinking ship. Each time the movement of the ship tightened the connecting rope, my grandfather swung at it with his axe and in this way eventually cut the rope, enabling crew to row clear. Other boats remained attached and were crushed or sunk.
Transcripts of Admiralty records suggest that around 120 men were lost and between 138 and 189 survived (including those who jumped into the sea or went down with the ship and made their way back to the surface). The survivors were taken to nearby ports and then interned in (neutral) Norway for the rest of the War.
British internees in Norway – my grandfather is on the right (1917)
Some war stories are repeated many times; as far as I know, my grandfather only told the story of the sinking of the India once – it was simply too painful to bear repetition.
Photos: (Links added 23/07/2015)
Some interesting photos related to HMS India
https://www.flickr.com/photos/134512439@N08/ (includes many taken in and around the internment camp (with thanks to D Callaghan)
https://www.flickr.com/groups/2778364@N25/
Links: Account of the sinking of HMS India on 8th August 1915 List of victims and survivors (scroll down to 8th August) – my grandfather isn’t listed, so this may be incomplete U 22 (the U boat that sank HMS India) Walter James Farrier, MMR (1886-1915)
After Work 
HB, you may be interested to see this: http://www.naval-history.net/OWShips-WW1-08-HMS_India.htm
We included a link to your post here.
This is fascinating – thanks for the link.
My Great Grandfather unfortunately didn’t make it out, Frank E Aers. His name is on the memorial at Rye Church.
So sorry to hear about your Great Grandfather. It was a dreadful tragedy and knowing about individuals – their names – realising what the impact must have been on their family – really brings it home.
Hi. I am hoping that you still receive emails from this site. I am in the process of finishing off a book I am writing on my grandfather-in-law and his time on HMS India and as an internee in Norway. I would love to include photos of as many crew as possible and was wondering if you had any of your grandfather and would like it to be included. Please email me on rebecca@theclarkes.biz. Thanks!!
My grandfather went down with her he was a merchant seaman fireman rated we were told as donkyman his job was looking after the donkey boilers which supplied axillary power to the ship .my farther was given away to a woman who did not treat him well so his mother could remarry ,the only compensation was the death penny which I still have.they died for glory or so the death plack says small composition
Hi. I am hoping that you still receive emails from this site. I am in the process of finishing off a book I am writing on my grandfather-in-law and his time on HMS India and as an internee in Norway. I would love to include photos of as many crew as possible and was wondering if you had any of your grandfather and would like it to be included. Please email me on rebecca@theclarkes.biz. Thanks!!
You might be interest to know that my grandfather was also a survivor from HMS India. I have a photo album with dozens of photos of the Narvik camp – now very faded. One showing a panorama of the terrain, also the canvas tents, some costumed entertainment for and by the internees, and sadly a photo entitled ‘HMS India 10th Cruiser Squadron July 1915’. I believe it was taken at Glasgow less than a month prior to the sinking. Individuals are not named, but I assume that some would have been casualties.
Although the camp was bleak, in a perverse way it kept the survivors safe for the remaining duration of the war. Had they not been interned they would have been returned to the dangerous waters of the North Sea again.
Thanks for this – I’ve also been struck by the fact that the survivors were kept safe from the rest of the war – this was a particular irony for my grandfather who had been a regular before the war. I gather that conditions in the camp weren’t too bad – especially if the commandant was sympathetic to the British. Some internees (including my grandfather) were even given home leave, although they were honour bound to return to Norway.
Given the interest and resonance of this event for many “India” descendants, have you thought about putting cipies of the photos online? I only have a couple of photose, but have now uploaded them to Flickr https://www.flickr.com/gp/58839195@N02/W68d74
Hello
My grandad’s dad was a survivor. We have only just found this website, and have already found one photograph of Bill Cosgree in the football team. Are you able to send over some photos if you have them? My grandad is 82 and would to see some more photographs of his dad.
Thank you very much, my e-mail address is natasha.cosgree@hotmail.co.uk
Thanks for getting in touch – I will reply to you via a private email.
I am very interested in this blog because my great uncle, Stoker John Holman Tothill, was a survivor of this incident. I do not think he was interned as the family were getting used to the fact that he had been lost at sea when he arrived home! Apparently he did not give much of an account of what had happened to him but gave the impression that he had been rescued from a raft by ‘locals’ and referred to ‘India’ so the family thought he had been sunk in the Indian Ocean.
He visited the widow of one of his shipmates who was lost to express his condolences and ended up marrying her.
As it is almost a hundred years since the sinking of the India; to mark the event I am attempting to get a feature about her, and what happened to her crew, in the media.
I gather that it depended on the nationality of the rescue ship. If the ship had been British then the survivor would be returned to the UK. However, if the rescuer where to have been neutral then their survivors where returned to Norway. These were the internees.
You may be interested to see the photographs which one of the other contributers has posted on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/134512439@N08/
Hi. I am hoping that you still receive emails from this site. I am in the process of finishing off a book I am writing on my grandfather-in-law and his time on HMS India and as an internee in Norway. I would love to include photos of as many crew as possible and was wondering if you had any of your grandfather and would like it to be included. Please email me on rebecca@theclarkes.biz. Thanks!!
Thank you for your advice about putting the photos on line. I have now had some of them digitised, and I would like to add them to this site. Do you think that this would be a good place?
If you put your photos on Flikr, then we could set up a group which anyone could add their photos to. It’s probably as good a place as any because of the number of people who use it.
My father was one of the survivors. He said only that the torpedo struck (I think) just before dawn and that there were black fish swimming around them. He was interned in Norway. He came to New Zealand in the 1920s and lived out the rest of his life here. Loved the photos -kept wondering if my father was going to pop up on the screen.
Hi. I am hoping that you still receive emails from this site. I am in the process of finishing off a book I am writing on my grandfather-in-law and his time on HMS India and as an internee in Norway. I would love to include photos of as many crew as possible and was wondering if you had any of your grandfather and would like it to be included. Please email me on rebecca@theclarkes.biz. Thanks!!
My great uncle, Walter James Farrier, (mentioned in your text) was sadly a victim of the India’s sinking. I have written and posted an article or two regarding him and his brothers who fought -and died- in WW1, so coming across this excellent website is very interesting indeed.
Good effort, and very informative.
Best regards,
Mike Farrier
Escape – disguised as a pantomine elephant? ‘Escape’ from an internment camp, after one had given one”s parole, was simply not the done thing, and was regarded with contempt by both The Allies and The Germans, who were capable of handing down severe punishment to anyone infringing the privelege.
Some pictures here from my recent visit to the cemetery in Narvik during my motorcycle trip to Nordkapp
Thanks for sharing these pictures.
Hello again to this wonderful website!
I did comment recently about my great uncle Walter James Farrier going down with the ship but thought I would also ask if any of your readers remembered the HMS India website which was set up around 2001-ish? The website, if I remember correctly, was the brainchild of a Marie Barltrop (I think I’ve got her name right; apologies if not) and her brother or husband. Marie was the daughter of the India’s RN captain/commander Kennedy and the website was dedicated to the crew, the ship, the uboat U22 which sunk her, and countless gems of info regarding the ship and her crew. I remember sending in many items of India info at the very start of the website, and in return Marie sent me a wonderful set of drawing prints made by crew members at the time and a small bound book produced back at the time of the sinking too. I will treasure these forever.
Now, a question! As an artist of nautical and aviation subjects, I wondered if any reader of this website had any access to pictures of HMS India in her MILITARY GARB (is, her grey paint and her guns/armament fitted? I am very keen to paint the great ship both in her P&O colours AND her Royal Mercantile Marine (Royal Navy) grey colours. On that wonderful tool, the internet, there appear to be a few of her in her P&O colours but that’s about it! And I thought the internet had everything!!
AND FINALLY…. If anyone was interested, I am thinking of producing some A4-sized ink drawings of the India too. If anyone is interested in having a unique drawing of the great ship (particularly if, like me, you’ve got relatives who served on her), do please get in touch via the website.
Many thanks, and please keep up the great work, you could well be our only hope with regard to the SS/HMS India!
With very best regards,
Mike Farrier
Hertfordshire
Hello again! Anyone got those details of India’s colours?! Pleeeeease!!
I’m still trying to search out ANY useful reference drawings/colour details of the India and her four sisters but it’s slow going indeed! It’s almost as if they never existed! Phew!
Still nothing…
According to those nice people at P&O Heritage, India was most likely repainted in drab grey as were all the AMCs.
In addition, from my own notes – after she was requisitioned by the Admiralty for conversion to an armed merchant cruiser, eight 4.7 in guns were fitted. A rangefinder was installed on the bridge and her fore and aft holds were refitted as magazines. Half-inch steel plating was added to protect her steering gear and her interior cabin bulkheads and glass ventilators were removed to reduce damage from splinters. Her furniture was removed to make room for the mess decks needed to feed large numbers of troops and sailors and an operating room and sickbay were installed amidships.
Thanks for this info.
Many thanks for all your help on the subject of HMS India’s colourscheme and armament details. I’m a little confused seeing this here, as I had already replied to your personal email. If only I could now find someone with some outside blueprints of the India…or that elusive photo of her in her naval garb whilst in port in the East India Docks or up at Kirkwall as part of the 10th Cruiser Squadron…
From Cdr F H Grenfell’s diary: Early June 1915 – ‘India has a terrific bow wave painted on her stem that looks like nothing so much as snow clad hills and peaks.’
Pingback: HMS India – update | After Work
My grandfather was a survivor of the India too. He is not on the list attached to your blog, but he was on the list in a newspaper cutting that Barltrop put on their website. I managed to print most of what was on their website before it went down. I do not know what happened to the website. My grandfather was called John William Perkins. He was known as Bill or Will. After the War, he married my grandmother and they had three children – one being my Dad. After my dad was born, Bill went missing. He was never heard of again. I would love to find him. I have plans to start a blog or website about him and my family, but I need more time than I have at present. It was lovely coming across your blog and I am now following you. thank you.
Hi. I am hoping that you still receive emails from this site. I am in the process of finishing off a book I am writing on my grandfather-in-law and his time on HMS India and as an internee in Norway. I would love to include photos of as many crew as possible and was wondering if you had any of your grandfather and would like it to be included. Please email me on rebecca@theclarkes.biz. Thanks!!
Thanks for getting in touch and adding to the story of HMS India
Hello again!
I’ve already posted on your excellent website a few times, though am still in the hunt for some decent line drawings of the India for both artistic and modelling purposes. I’ve been keen on making a scale model of her but STILL cannot find any drawings online. Surely it can’t be possible that all information on this great ship has been deleted?! Does ANYONE out there know of a source of technical drawings (or even maybe a decent 3-view drawing) of the ship? I’d like to build the model in my great uncle’s memory.
Good to hear from you Mike – good hunting!
Hello again
This is a response to Mike Farrier’s latest comment looking for drawings of HMS India. I am fully aware of my technological failings, but I am nearly sure that I sent two line drawings to hb who hosts this site. One was pre 1914, and the other post 1914 in RNR garb.
It is possible that I sent them in a private email rather than directly to the site. Please can someone locate them as I think they may be useful.
In reply to Mr D. Callaghan’s VERY informative email, I would be VERY grateful if that email could be located! Thank you very much indeed for that notification Mr Callaghan (sorry, can’t see your first name anywhere). Is it possible if Mein Host could possibly point me in the right direction please? To say I’m very excited to hear this information would be an understatement; I’ve been waiting to find drawings of the India for around 40 years now. Many thanks. Thinking about it, I wonder if it’s possible to find Mr Cunningham’s email and drawings within the years of correspondence? Thanks again anyway. Interesting that 103 years after the sinking of the India, the relatives of the crew are still talking about her and her brave crew.
Mr D Cunningham, well, that was short and sweet! I’ve had a trawel through the historic emails referring to HMS/SS India, where I see many emails from you but can’t see any reference to those drawings of her. Would you still have access to them so I could view them please? I can PM you if you like.
Mr D Cunningham, well, that was short and sweet! I’ve had a trawel through the historic emails referring to HMS/SS India, where I see many emails from you but can’t see any reference to those drawings of her. Would you still have access to them so I could view them please? I can PM you if you like.
That’s strange! I’ve just sent an emailed reply to Mr D Callaghan but it seems to have gone astray as I can’t see it included here!
I’ll try again….
Mr D Callaghan,
I’ve just trawled through all historic emails regarding HMS/SS India but could not see any reference to your drawings of her. Would it be at all possible to post them again please? I can PM you if you’d prefer.
Many thanks,
Mike Farrier
Mike Farrier I fear you may be disappointed. You will have received the email from the site host. I don’t think the images are what you were looking for. On re-reading your request on this blog, the pictures I had were neither blueprints nor anything about the sailing colours. Nevertheless I wish you luck in your quest. Apologies for raising your hopes.
D Callaghan
Hello again!
I was just going through old emails (yet again!), trying to see if we ever came to a conclusion of whether any kind soul out there had some drawings & photographs of the Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS India (sunk on 8th August 1915 by u-boat U-22)? I was most interested in obtaining some copies of such reference material for preparation of a painting and model. I look forward to hearing from anyone who might be able to help. Many thanks.
Best regards,
Mike Farrier
I’m going to need some techno assistance to relocate the information – which is somewhere on this computer. I will get back to you as soon as I can. This may well take a number of days.
D Callaghan
Thanks fore interesting information about HMS India and its sailors.
This coming may, my sisters and I shall go to Lillehammer to see our grandfathers grave for the first time. Lieu´tenant Alltree was one of the survivors. He married in Nlarorway, and they had a daughter (our mother). Unfortunately, he died in 1918 as a victim of the spanish flue. During his stay in Jørstadmoen, he made humoristic drawings to a local paper describing life in the camp, and how they coped with norwegian way of life. I have a few of these drawings, but do not know how to post them.
Thanks for the information – that’s really interesting.
Such an interesting post by Lars Altree F-J. Has he seen the Flckr photographs on this site taken by my grandfather Charles Nelson? There are two that might be of particular interest to him.
1. Lt Altree and self (Charles Nelson) with girls at Skogel Hotel
2. Altree and Attwood.
His splendid cartoons bear a clear resemblance to the ‘birthday poster’ featuring my grandfather, at Jorstadmoen, also on this site. It must have been by Lt Altree’s hand. He was a talented artist.
Here is the promised link to lieutenant Altree`s drawings.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/186922824@N06/shares/5PzU3h
I hope it works
Hello, my grandfather-in-law (R.A Clarke) was an Engine Room Artificer on HMS India and survived the torpedo and was interned for the duration. We are fortunate enough to have a collection of over 50 letters from him written during his internment. He was miserable but aware of how fortunate he was to be alive. I have been surprised to see his letters and postcards for sale on eBay and other platforms for large amounts of money. I have been researching the whole episode in large detail as I am very interested in using all our primary sources (letters, postcards, photos, drawings, silver birch trunk paintings), together with the files from the National Archives to write a book about the incident. I am super interested in getting in contact with anyone else who might have information that might be useful and who wouldn’t mind me potentially using it. I do have a bit of time on my hands at the moment with all this isolating so I’m hoping to get cracking! I can be contacted on HMSINDIA@theclarkes.biz and my name is Rebecca Clarke.
Two of the interned seamen Clinton and Grigson managed to escape from Jørstadmoen camp.Lieu-tenant E W Alltree´s drawing brings us right to the dramatic scene of the escape. https://flic.kr/p/2iKWKJE
Hello again to all those who still visit this page. Some of you read my earlier comment about R. A Clarke and the book I am writing based around his letters and other research I’ve done on HMS India and the Jorstadmoen internment Camp. A worldwide pandemic has left me with considerable writing time and I am nearing the end of my first draft. I am wanting to include a chapter on what happened to some of the men who were interned or who survived and were returned to the UK. If any relatives would like to supply me with information or a paragraph or two about their grandfather/father/great uncle, etc. I would love to include their story. Please email me at rebecca@theclarkes.biz. I would also welcome photos. Thanks in advance for anyone who is able to send anything!
Oh and I would also welcome any stories about the camp itself! thanks
Making a last ditch effort to get in contact with any relatives of HMS India crew. I am very close to finishing my book (as outlined in earlier posts) and would love to include as many personal stories and photos as possible…..my email is rebecca@theclarkes.biz…..