OT: Lucky or Unlucky?

[Dili]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenman_Wykeham-Musgrave

[RangerJoe]

When it is not your time, it is not your time.

[btd64]

Unlucky. Or just plain bad luck. I read this story a few years ago. At least the Dutch trawler wasn't torpedoed....GP

[fcooke]

I haven't read too much about those three cruisers getting whacking but I think at least one was trying to pick up survivors from the first when she got hit. Not sure how many sailors lost it that day but I would guess a fair many as all three ships went down.

[CV10]

If I remember correctly, the British thought the first ship had struck a mine. The other two closed in to take on survivors and were sitting ducks.

I'd say the guy had bad fortune but good luck. Almost 1500 officers and sailors were lost.

There was a sort of similar case involving a stoker named Arthur John Priest.He survived 5 ship sinkings in his career, including Titanic and Britannic.

[Sardaukar]

There was also a woman who survived both Titanic and Britannic...

[Shilka]

I think these armored cruisers were near the end of their life and heading to the scrapper, designed in 1900 or so and with a top speed of 21kt they weren't that useful except maybe in some colonial duties or patrolling at best. And still they carried a complement of over 700 which would've been better utilized in newer ships. Still, it was a massive catastrophe for the Royal Navy and a loss of skilled sailors.

Mine warfare was also much more utilized in WW1 and caused huge pain to the RN. Losing HMS Audacious was another major catastrophe, and it happened in the Irish sea. They adopted a policy of putting any German POWs to the bow compartments, so if they hit a mine they would be the first to go.

Another horrible event is the Battle of Dogger Bank where the German BC squadron included the slower Blücher armored cruiser. It got left behind, the British managed to slow it down, cripple and overtake it. As the rest of Hipper's battle cruisers escaped, Jellicoes BC squadron took their frustration on the Blücher, firing 10s or 100s of rounds of different caliber shells at point blank range on the cruiser. Still there was a few survivors and they produced an account of their experience aboard, which needless to say was a living hell. BC Seydlitz got a rear turret hit, which caused a flash fired and burned out the other rear turret next to it. The magazines were flooded with over 500 tonnes of water yet they managed to keep their speed and escape.
(https://www.amazon.com/Castles-Steel-Br ... B000FBJDG6 good book of all these events if interested).

[Denniss]

The hit to Seydlitz turret was both unlucky and lucky, they learnt from this and modified their turrets to prevent this from happening again. Royal Navy learnt this the hard way at Jutland with 2 BC exploding within 30 minutes and another one 2 hours later.

according to Wiki the old armored cruisers were manned by inexperienced reservists, don't know if the officers were of the same "quality". At least it would explain their actions.

[anarchyintheuk]

Aboukir et al. were unofficially known as the 'live bait squadron'.