A Brief History
On October 27, 1914, the virtually brand new British Super-Dreadnaught battleship, HMS Audacious, hit a mine off the North coast of Ireland and sunk without ever being used in combat. Of course, the British government did not tell the truth to the British people, a disturbing trend followed by governments all over the world throughout history.
Digging Deeper
Audacious was commissioned in August of 1913, a state of the art King George V class battleship, 598 feet long and displacing 23,400 metric (long) tons. Armed with a main battery of 10 X 13.5 inch guns in 5 twin turrets and a secondary battery of 16 X 4 inch guns to go with her 3 torpedo tubes, this 21 knot ship was a powerhouse of its day. The big guns fired a 1410 pound shell 22,000 meters.
Engaging in gunnery drills off Ireland at 0845 hrs on October 27, 1914, Audacious hit a mine near the engine rooms below the ship. Thinking the ship had been torpedoed, the submarine warning went up. The crew struggled to keep the ship afloat all day and into the night, but around 2100 the stricken ship rolled over and blew up, debris killing a man on another ship, the only casualty of the sinking! All 900 crew members survived, which has to be some sort of record for the sinking of such a large ship.
In spite of the numerous witnesses, including the crew of Audacious and the several naval vessels that assisted in trying to save the ship, as well as RMS Olympic (sister ship of the Titanic) which had also responded to assist, the British government kept the news of the sinking from the British people for the next 4 years, only announcing her loss after the war ended. This of course was ridiculous, as German intelligence determined the Audacious had been lost within a couple weeks of her sinking, and numerous Americans aboard the Olympic had witnessed the event. Photographs and even 1 moving picture film were made of the sinking.
Obviously, the British government did not trust the will of their own people to accept such a loss during wartime. You might expect totalitarian governments to lie and keep facts from their public, especially during wartime, but in a democracy this type of lying undermines the democratic process. This scenario is akin to the Nixon administration keeping the American people in the dark about operations in Cambodia and Laos during the Viet Nam War, although the enemy sure knew we were there!
Under the questionable cover of “state secrets” the public is kept from facts about many highly interesting and historically important events, even though it would seem an excessive amount of time has passed and the secret keeping seems no longer relevant. The US keeps information about the John F. Kennedy murder from the public, as well as information about the Martin Luther King, Jr. murder. The UK still keeps secrets from World War I and World War II (such as the Mata Hari case for crying out loud!).
Question for students (and subscribers): What are they hiding? Who are they protecting? Who’s reputation and legacy are they guarding? Don’t we deserve the truth? Tell us what you think about excessive government lying and secret keeping. Is it necessary, or just an excuse to cover things up? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more on this ship, please enjoy…
King, Andrew and Brown Sierra. “HMS Audacious.” Thalassocracy. Epiphany, 2008.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="12123 https://www.historyandheadlines.com/?p=12123">29 Comments
I understand that governments lie; however, this lie that the British government made was pretty pathetic! There was plenty of evidence, including both eye witnesses and moving picture films. I would have thought that if the government were to lie at all, then there should not be solid evidence against it.
I think that the government lying was a sign of weakness, not the actual sinking itself! Actually i think it was pretty amazing that almost everyone survived and I think that would be something to be proud of. I think that owning up to mistakes such as this and being honest with the people is a sign of strength. I honestly don’t understand why governments need to lie like this. It only makes people trust them less.
One casualty is pretty impressive for such a large ship to sink. I am surprised that the British government would keep this a secret from the English people when there were so many witnesses of the boat sinking.
I think the government lying can be okay to a certain degree. If they did it to protect the people during time of war and exposed the information after the war ended I could find this understandable. Sometimes the people do not need to know every detail. Especially when lucky enough for only one person to die during the sinking of a large ship.
Governments should never lie because when that happens that is when things can go downhill real quick. I agree with Ellen saying that it shows weakness. Fortunate only one life was taken, but this is why no one trusts the government because it has a tendency to lie.
I think it is amazing and really a miracle that one person died during the sinking. I would expect more causalities with such a tragic event. I always knew that there were government secrets that the public doesn’t know, but I had no idea there are so many of them. I wonder what the government is hiding today from us and how the world would be different if the public found out all those secrets.
We read again about another ship sinking from a non battle sistuation. So much money lost on ships that were pretty much for show because the ships never did much in battle.
Thinking about the government hiding info about cases that changed the course of history is mind blowing. You wonder if you’ll ever see the day that that information is released. Of course the government keeps it a secret because they’re at some sort of fault. Such a shame.
I absolutely believe the government hides secrets from the American public all the time. I understand why the government would think hiding some information was useful but it’s still not right. I’m sure the British government just didn’t want to damper their people’s spirits during wartime but being informed is more important than that especially since the enemy sure was informed of the sinking. I wonder if we’ll ever witness some conspiracy theories come to light in our lifetime. I for one want to know who killed Kennedy!
It is a tragedy that I am not in the least bit shocked by this cover up. Governments maintain their strength by giving off a certain picture of themselves to the public even if it is not quite close to true.
It’s sad that the one man died from debris, but truly a miracle that out of the 900 members on the battleship not one lost their live in this tragedy. And also a tragedy that a ship like this never got to see battle or its true potential. It’s also frightening to know that our government hides events and information from us people day in and day out.
Losing only one man in the sinking of a ship is a great feat. Losing only one man on a separate ship and zero out of 900 men on the sinking ship is something of a miracle! The sinking seems like a silly thing to hide especially considering the amount of witnesses the sinking had. I believe that governments should be able to keep some secrets from the public, but I think governments nowadays take secret keeping too far.
It is interesting that the British government did not want the people to know the truth. One would think that they would be honest and let the public know the ship sank. It was good that the crew all survived except the one man from another ship that died from debris.
This had to be devastating that such a powerful ship hit a mine and was destroyed before it could even be used in combat. It was wrong of the government to lie to the people, but understandable that the British government wanted to cover up the mishap.
In the case of the Audacious, the motive behind keeping the sinking a secret seemed to be the fact that the British government did not want the British people to lose will or panic. In this case, a secret may be good. Nevertheless, keeping a secret like this leaves way for governments to keep other secrets and try to justify them. It is hard to see the line between when it is necessary and when it is not to keep a secret. That is why it is ideal to keep all communication open in a democracy.
i don’t know why governments lie to their people, especially in this case when there were witnesses to the event and it wasn’t hard for other countries to figure out the Audacious had sunk. But lying to the people who support you should never be the answer as they usually find out the truth at some point and that will only be worse than if they would have found out earlier.
I hate how governments lie to the people of there country. Especially in America, we are supposed to be for the people and our government keeps secrets from us all the time. This is one thing that needs to change in the future. I can see why the British government chose to keep this from their people but it is still wrong.
I believe that there are two sides to every story. If the sinking of the ship did not endanger the British civilians than maybe it was ok to say nothing so that people were not unnecessarily worried. If there is an instance that could harm civilians than there is something that needs to be said.
Governments have no right to keep information from the public. Democracy is a government for the people and by the people. In this situation, the British government needed to tell the people about this incident. As the article stated, Germany was aware of the sinking long before the British people knew about it.
I think it is horrible that governments keep information from the people. I know it is obviously done for a reason, but in a democracy the people should know the truth and secrets should not be kept. I could not believe there was only 1 casualty from the Audacious and all 900 members of its crew survived.
This sinking seemed to be an accident of some sort. I do believe the government should have just told their people what exactly happened. All 900 members survived, it should not be such a big deal to hide something so small, just tell the truth!
While I greatly dislike the way governments lie to their people, I have to admit there are some situations that we as citizens should not know. But the area of determining that is extremely cloudy to say the least. For the Audacious, they should have told the people. It was not a big deal in retrospect, and might have encouraged the people to fight harder. Compare that to a government foiling a huge terrorist attack and not wanting to tell the people in an attempt to prevent public fears, that is a different story.
A government should never lie to its people, especially if only to conceal an embarrassment. Why purposely mislead people to displace anger when it should be focused elsewhere.
Covering up things like this is even worse than just lying. Come forward and take the consequences for your actions and move on.
I agree with a comment below here. Sometimes it may be necessary to delay or withhold information from the public if it is in the safety of the public to do so. Clearly that is not the case here, the British government should have reported on the sinking of the Audacious to the public.
Just be honest! Worse things happen to those who lie.
Having only one death is astounding. Even more astounding is that the guy was on another boat.
I always thought it was the millennial generation that had the theory the government was hiding things from the public, but it appears that this is a theory that even dates back to the early 1900’s.
I don’t understand why the government tries to hide things like this.