Today I came across some very interesting information, with regard to maritime disasters. On continuing my search, good old Wikipedia came up trumps again, with a list of maritime disasters from so many different periods.

To my mind I found it quite staggering to see the facts written down infront of me.

The next paragraph is copy and paste from Wikipedia, just as a tiny example. Approx 4,000 men were lost from 4 vessels on one day. Mind blowing and largly inconceivable, but we know it to be true. There are, I'm sure, many other ships which have been totally forgotten about and no trace. For whatever reason,the sea is a very cruel place to be part of, at times and on 31st May 1916 I imagine it would not have been blue!.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maritime_disasters#Peacetime_disasters

• HMS Queen Mary (Great Britain) – a battlecruiser which exploded and sank during the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916, with the loss of 1,245 men.
HMS Invincible (Great Britain) – a British battlecruiser which exploded and sunk during the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916; 1,026 men were lost, there were six survivors.
• HMS Indefatigable (Great Britain) – Battlecruiser, she sank during the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916, with the loss of 1,015 men, there were only two survivors.
• HMS Defence (Great Britain) – Armoured Cruiser, exploded during the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916, 903 men were lost, there were no survivors


And so the list goes on......from many nations

Only last week I was looking at the fleet lists of Cunard and Harrison Line to try and identify some of their ships that were on the river in 1913 (the Seacombe Prom postcard post).

It was amazing to see the losses incurred by these large fleets during WW1. That was just the ships, I wasn't looking at passengers and crew. Terrible losses..

not to mention the lads the stormed the beaches on d-day, now thats a blood staining event, one german machine gunner stpped counting at 1500 kills and that took him all day to get to as well

Nice one Granny. They suffered terrible, mind you, so did the miners and dockers. Unsafe times

Musta been so sodding scary. Just can't imagine it...

our experience or many of us anyway (none serving) only get a bit of a taste of what it might have been like from big hollywood blockbusters. unimaginable i would say really.god bless them.

interesting granny