The Naval Revolution: Triumph and Disaster

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Naval Revolution: Triumph and Disaster

Dan Snow’s History Hit | August 10, 2026

---

Overview

Main Theme:
Dan Snow, joined by maritime historians and wreck specialists Dan McCullen, Dave Wens, and Leo Fielding, explores the story of HMS Tiger—a revolutionary torpedo boat destroyer—and the tragic 1908 collision that ended her service. The episode interweaves the technological and tactical changes driving late-19th and early-20th-century naval innovation with the rediscovery of Tiger’s wreck, providing both a dramatic narrative of disaster and a celebration of historic endeavor beneath the seas.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: HMS Tiger and the Naval War Game

• The episode opens with a dramatic reconstruction of a Royal Navy night exercise circa 1908, in which new destroyers like HMS Tiger simulate torpedo attacks against battleships. The exercise ends in catastrophe when Tiger strikes the armored cruiser HMS Berwick in the darkness, splitting in two and sinking within minutes.
  • “The destroyer is cut in half, her hulls split pretty much clean in two. ... Nearly half her crew are gone. There had been no enemy, no shells fired, no torpedoes launched. Just one unexplained turn in the darkness and a tragedy that would haunt the Royal Navy for generations.” (Narrator, 02:46–05:12)

2. The Technological Revolution at Sea

• The torpedo’s impact: The introduction of fast, cheap torpedo boats threatened traditional battleships and forced the world’s navies, especially Britain’s, to innovate—or risk obsolescence.
  • “What the British Navy was worried about was that you’d have these very small surface craft that would be able to take on and put at risk even the largest capital ships. ... A bit like the kind of drone technology that we’re seeing today.” (Dan McCullen, 07:30)
• The destroyer (originally “torpedo boat destroyer”) emerges as the answer: fast, agile ships designed to counter torpedo boats, soon becoming essential multi-role vessels.
  • “So the story of HMS Tiger is really the story of how modern naval warfare came to be. It’s the story of technological revolution, of changing tactics, mounting international tensions, and extraordinary risks...” (Narrator, 05:15)

3. Life and Service Aboard a Destroyer

• Speed and capability: Tiger could reach over 30 knots—double the speed of older warships like HMS Warrior—and was heavily armed for both offense and defense.
  • “The main event was speed. It had to have the speed and they had to have enough speed to outrun the torpedo boats that they were designed to attack.” (Dave Wens, 11:43)
• Crew experience: Crews were small (about 57–58); living and working conditions were tough—cramped, wet, and sometimes dangerous, but destroyers were seen as a fast track to naval advancement.
  • “It must have been absolute hell to be crew on one of these boats. ... They were reputed to be extremely wet boats. They had to deal with intense heat, ... these boats were not good handling in rough weather.” (Dan McCullen, 15:36)
  • “Many of them died doing it again, so very, very small compared to the big people have heard of dreadnoughts... So these are very, very different. They’re going super fast, they’re armed in different ways.” (Dan Snow, 15:17)

4. The Fateful Night: April 1908

• During a night exercise, Tiger—following closely behind HMS Recruit—unexpectedly veered off and crossed in front of HMS Berwick, leading to a fatal collision.
  • “For reasons that nobody has ever explained, she didn’t [follow Recruit]. ... She’s under orders to follow HMS Recruit, the leader, and they couldn’t see Recruit, but they could see her wake and they tried to follow that. My own personal view is they just didn’t see the barrack coming.” (Dan McCullen, Dave Wens, 22:45–23:16)
• “It was a fatal error and as Liam says, we will never know what the real reason was. Maybe they were dazzled, maybe they just made a miscalculation, but it’s purely guesswork. We won’t know the truth, Dan.” (Dave Wens, 23:16)
• The size disparity made the outcome inevitable: Berwick at ~10,000 tons and Tiger under 500 tons.
• The aftermath was chaos—fractured hull, rapid sinking, and few survivors, with no command crew left to give testimony.
  • “From the initial point of collision... it only took three minutes for the stern to disappear below the waves. ... There was in total 35 men lost below decks and that included Lt. William Middleton as well.” (Leo Fielding, 26:21)

5. The Hunt and Rediscovery of HMS Tiger

• Over a century later, the History Hit team joins wreck finders Dan, Dave, and Leo as they locate and dive on Tiger’s wreck—an intact time capsule at 62 meters depth.
  • “I mean, for me, the adrenaline was incredible. ... The first thing that I saw was the fourth Norman boiler on the stern just looming out of the darkness. And at that point, I knew immediately we were on a 13 knotter. We were on Tiger, and the adrenaline was just incredible.” (Dan McCullen, 31:27)
• Detailed survey and artifact finds (engine telegraph, compasses, nameplate bell) tell the story of the collision: evidence suggests there was no opportunity to take evasive action.
  • “On the stern telegraph, the pointer was still around to full speed ahead, so she didn’t try to slow down. Also, the rudder indicator... was also still pretty much straight ahead.” (Leo Fielding, 32:12)

6. Legacy and Lessons Learned

• National reaction was intense: news headlines, royal condolences, and Parliamentary inquiry.
  • “You had King Edward VII personally telegraphed his sympathies, questions were asked in Parliament. ... And it was headline news for weeks.” (Dan McCullen, 27:40)
• Practical reforms: After Tiger’s loss, signal flares were banned during night exercises as it was believed they dazzled bridge crews, increasing the risk of accidents.
  • “Admiral Fanshawe, in the aftermath of the sinking, immediately banned the use of signal flares from night exercises. ... So there were practical reforms that we saw that were born from this tragedy.” (Dan McCullen, 28:31)

7. The Human Element of Shipwreck Exploration

• Personal and collective significance for the team in recovering the Tiger and the story it still tells about courage, innovation, and tragedy at sea.
  • “To find this particular wreck in such a fantastic condition with absolutely everything still in place. It really is quite an exceptional find.” (Dave Wens, 35:58)
  • “We just hoped that we’d done enough because at that time we didn’t have time to review the pictures or anything like that, the video footage. So yeah, it was super exciting. But as all projects that look for wrecks, there is always the next one.” (Leo Fielding, 36:25)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Technological Change:
  • “Talk about asymmetric warfare. You mentioned drones. ... Now you’ve got these weapon systems and they can be delivered. They don’t need a big battleship to fire a torpedo. ... You can do it from a very small platform. Can you?” (Dan Snow, 08:10)
• On the Disaster:
  • “By the time one ship see the other, there is no time to react. ... The destroyer is cut in half, her hulls split pretty much clean in two.” (Narrator, 02:46)
• On Discovering the Wreck:
  • “We found four [fluid compasses], so well preserved, was really impressive for me.” (Dan McCullen, 34:04)
  • “We were able to see the inscription HMS on the bell and later review of the photos that we were able to gather. We believe that we can see the letters IGE as well just below the hms.” (Leo Fielding, 35:32)
• On the Emotions of Discovery:
  • “It was lovely when you got back on the boat and put your dive kit away and we’re able to have a few whiskies and celebrate your great achievement.” (Dan Snow, 36:58)

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

• [00:42] Dramatic scene-setting: Royal Navy night exercise, collision, and loss of HMS Tiger
• [07:04] Introduction of guests; setting the period (1885–WWI) and technical context
• [09:30] The torpedo threat and arms race; emergence of destroyers
• [12:47] Tiger’s specifications, armament, and interior conditions
• [14:18] The destroyer’s roles, crew size, and challenging life aboard
• [19:27] The 1908 night exercise: setup and tactical aims
• [22:00] Description of the fatal maneuver, the collision, and why it likely happened
• [25:36] First-hand accounts from survivors and analysis of the sinking
• [27:40] National response, aftermath, and lessons learned post-disaster
• [29:52] The search for Tiger’s wreck and why it mattered to historians/divers
• [31:27] Diving the wreck: discovery moments and key findings
• [32:12] Evidence from instruments and artifacts about Tiger’s last moments
• [34:58] Examining artifacts, confirming the ship’s identity
• [36:58] Reflecting on historical significance and the human side of discovery

---

Conclusion

This episode masterfully weaves together a turning point in naval history—the birth of the destroyer—with an exploration of loss, innovation, and remembrance. Through technical insight, first-hand underwater discovery, and a palpable sense of adventure and respect, Dan Snow and his guests bring a forgotten tragedy and naval revolution vividly to life.

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

Have you been enjoying my podcast and

[Narrator]

now want even more history?

[Dan Snow]

Sign up to History and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like

[Narrator]

how William conquered England, what it was like to live in the Georgian era, and you can even hear the voice of Richard iii.

[Dan Snow]

We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, and

[Narrator]

there's always something more to discover.

[Dan Snow]

Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyit.com subscribe.

[Narrator]

The night is almost completely black. Somewhere off the southern coast of the Isle of Wight, the ships of the Royal Navy's Home Fleet are moving silently through the darkness. Every navigation light has been extinguished. The hulking battleships and cruisers are little more than shadows on the water, their presence betrayed perhaps by the faint glow, the churn of their propellers leaving behind the speck of foamy water and the sound of the deep, rhythmic beat of the steam engines propelling those thousands of tons of steel through the night. This isn't a war, but it's meant to feel as close to one as possible. Hidden somewhere ahead are the attackers, a handful of fast, agile torpedo boat destroyers. Their task is to launch one of the newest and most terrifying weapons of war at sea. They're going to slip through the fleet, screen, evade detection and launch a simulated torpedo attack, and then try and escape before the heavy ships can respond. It's a dangerous game of cat and mouse, played at speed in darkness, with almost no margin for error. It matters, because the future of naval warfare, and perhaps the fate of Britain, is at stake. Among those torpedo boat destroyers that night is the little HMS Tiger. She darts through the blackness. She's one of the Royal Navy's latest weapons. She's small, she's extraordinarily fast, and she's built for exactly this kind of work. Around her, towering warships loom in and out of the darkness like cliffs, their outlines briefly discernible before they disappear into the night. Officers strain to make out those silhouettes. Lookouts peer into the gloom, searching for movement. No one dares utter a sound. Every decision has to be made in seconds, every call. Alteration carries a risk. But for the Tiger, at the moment, everything appears to be going according to plan. Tiger has penetrated deep into the British fleet. She slipped past ships many times her size.

[Dan Snow]

The destroyer ahead of her has launched,

[Narrator]

well, simulated a launch of its torpedoes. The exercise is almost over. But then something changes. Tiger veers off course. Why she turns, no one will ever know, because suddenly, emerging from the darkness just a few meters away, is the Bow of the armored cruiser HMS Berry. She is enormous compared to Tiger, weighing thousands of tons more. Driving relentlessly forward. By the time one ship see the other, there is no time to react. On HMS Barrick, the engine was thrown astern, but her momentum was unforgiving. The inevitable collision is devastating. Beric's steel bow tears into Tiger amidships with incredible force. The destroyer is cut in half, her hulls split pretty much clean in two. Steam erupts into the night with a deafening roar. Steel BUCKLES AND SCREAM Men are hurled from their feet as the deck beneath them simply disappears. The forward half of Taiga vanishes beneath the surface almost immediately. For a few desperate moments, the stern remains afloat. Survivors scramble across the twisted wreckage, some throwing themselves into freezing water. Others cling to anything that will float around them. The darkness that concealed the fleet only moments before now swallows up the men calling for help. Within minutes, the it's over. The sea closes over the wreck of HMS Tiger. Nearly half her crew are gone. There had been no enemy, no shells fired, no torpedoes launch. Just one unexplained turn in the darkness and a tragedy that would haunt the Royal Navy for generations. But the story of HMS Tiger is about more than just this one single tragic accident. It is the story of a revolution in war at sea. She was a new type of warship that would transform naval warfare forever. Built to hunt tiny torpedo boats that it was thought threatened the world's battleships, she was a torpedo boat destroyer. It was one of the most important innovations of modern naval warfare. Over time, the name was shortened simply to destroyer, and these ships would go on to become a backbone of 20th century fleets. They'd escort convoys, they'd hunt submarines, they'd

[Dan Snow]

defend aircraft carriers, and they would evolve

[Narrator]

into sophisticated guided missile destroyers that still serve in navies around the world today. So the story of HMS Tiger is really the story of how modern naval warfare came to be. It's the story of technological revolution, of changing tactics, mounting international tensions, and extraordinary risks that sailors were expected to accept long before the First World War ever began. And I got to learn all about those risks recently on a very special mission.

[Dan Snow]

I got to head out into the,

[Narrator]

really the middle of the English Channel, into those waters off the Isle of Wight. With wonderful maritime historians and wreck specialists,

[Dan Snow]

Dan McCullen, Dave Wens and Leo Fielding, they are the trio that lead the

[Narrator]

merry band that try and find lost shipwrecks. And they set out to find the wreck of HMS Tiger. More than a century after she disappeared beneath the waves. They believe that they have identified the site of Tiger. And I went to join them as they went to try and take a dive on that wreck.

[Dan Snow]

As you know, folks, I love the sea.

[Narrator]

I love naval history. I love finding shipwrecks. This was a dream opportunity for me and team History Hit. There will be a documentary on the History Hit channel coming soon. And this wreck in particular offers a remarkable connection to one of the Royal Navy's most haunting peacetime disasters. So today we're going to retrace Tiger's final hours. We're going to explore why the destroyer changed naval history.

[Dan Snow]

I'm going to hear from Dan and

[Narrator]

Leo, part of Project Explore. Go and check them out. They're trying to look for shipwrecks all over the place. Fantastic stuff.

[Dan Snow]

And Dave, about what it's like to

[Narrator]

descend into the depths and visit a shipwreck that has lain forgotten on the seabed for more than 100 years. Enjoy.

[Dan Snow]

Leo, Dan and Dave, good to have you on the podcast.

[Dave Wens]

Good evening. Thank you.

[Leo Fielding]

Hello. How are you?

[Dan Snow]

Well, guys, I'm very excited. It's great to be talking about, well, this topic. And then, of course, we're going to come to this remarkable wreck. So lots going on in this episode. First of all, just give me a sense of this period, 1885 to the start of the First World War. A lot is changing in naval history. Just give me a sense of the new platforms, the new weapon systems, new technology that's coming into play in this period.

[Dan McCullen]

Yeah, sure. So the main event of this period was the development of the torpedo, of course, which posed a serious threats to the British Navy. What the British Navy was worried about was that you'd have these very small surface craft that would be able to take on and put at risk even the largest capital ships. A bit like the kind of drone technology that we're seeing today. And so what the Navy needed was ships that could go very fast and they could track down and catch these torpedo boats before they could put at risk capital ships.

[Dan Snow]

Talk about asymmetric warfare. You mentioned drones. Interesting, isn't it? Because they're about 1% the price of a battleship, but they can sink a battleship. Right. Whereas previously, to sink a battleship, you need another battleship with big guns and thick armor and they just exchange broadsides and that's that. Now you've got these weapon systems and they can be delivered. They don't need a big battleship to fire a torpedo. Presumably, you can do it from a very small platform. Can you?

[Dan McCullen]

Yeah, exactly. Small platforms, fast ships, ships that can attack in numbers. They can catch up to battleships, cruisers fire their torpedoes and be away before they can be caught. So, yeah, it was a major. Seen as a major threat to the fleet at the time.

[Dan Snow]

And I guess if you're the world's biggest navy or all the world's biggest battleships, everyone else therefore thinks, hang on, maybe we don't have to build those. Maybe we could build a whole fleet of much smaller, cheaper vessels carrying these torpedoes and we sort of avoid the expense of trying to compete with Britain on a like, for, like, basis. You can see how the rest of the world would have thought this was quite exciting.

[Dan McCullen]

Yeah, absolutely. It's very appealing as a. As a shipbuilding strategy. And it's really what triggered what you could see as an arms race essentially in the 1880s, 1890s, to develop both the torpedo boats themselves and the technology and the boats that could catch those torpedo boats and disable them before they did any damage.

[Dave Wens]

The Admiralty were very much aware of the emerging threat of these fast, agile torpedo boats, because they could just zip in and out of with the enemy torpedo, a capital ship, and zoom away again. So the development of a torpedo boat destroyer was to destroy the torpedo boats. So these new torpedo boat destroyers, particularly the 30 knotters, had to be as agile and faster and more heavily armed in order to counter and deter the threat. And that's what we've seen now with the Tiger and our sifter ships came about.

[Dan Snow]

It's so interesting. Is it? So if you're in France, you think, hang on a minute, let's not build massively expensive battleships to fight the Brits. Let's fill up the English Channel with these fast boats that attack at night. They go extremely quickly. They're taking advantage of this new technology and we can build loads of them. We can have absolutely loads of them. We can swarm the whole channel with them. I mean, it must have been causing nightmares for British planners.

[Leo Fielding]

Yeah. Just following on from what Dave and Leo said as well. There was a really famous quote by Admiral Mountbatten at the time, and it was a large hole in the ship below the waterline is obviously far more likely to be able to sink that ship rather than a hole above the waterline. So it sort of explains why these torpedoes at this sort of era in warfare were so dangerous.

[Dan Snow]

So this fear of these torpedo boats spawns an entirely new class of warship, one that's still with us today, fascinatingly. And what is that called?

[Dave Wens]

The destroyer.

[Dan Snow]

So that begins life as a torpedo boat destroyer, does it?

[Dave Wens]

Yeah. But then that now they're, they're referred to merely as destroyers, but they were torpedo boat destroyers. And I think the Admiralty round about the turn of the century, around about the 1890s, decided that they needed fast 30 knot destroyers and the tender went out to other shipbuilders. If you want to build any of our destroyers, they've got to achieve a speed of 30 knots. And that's where the Tigra comes into it.

[Dan Snow]

Dave, take me through. You're a professional mariner. 30 knots is pretty quick today, isn't it? I mean, how fast was that back in 1900?

[Dave Wens]

Well, it's phenomenally fast. This was powered by steam engines, steam engines producing just over 30 knots of speed. It's incredible for the period. And the beauty of steam was that they're very quiet. You could stand next to a steam engine going at full speed and have a conversation. Apart from the vibration of the machinery, the actual noise of the engine was quiet, contrasting with the diesel and oil engines of today, where you couldn't possibly stand next to them and have a conversation. But that was a side issue really. The main event was speed. It had to have the speed and they had to have enough speed to outrun the torpedo boats that they were designed to attack.

[Dan Snow]

So just for people at home, people who might have heard of HMS Warrior, which I've made several podcasts on, and the top speed of HMS Warrior in 1860, odd, was about 14 knots. Forty years later, this is twice as fast as that. So it just shows how quickly technology is moving. So we got an engine. The whole thing's built around the engine, presumably. What are they carrying aboard? What are the tools they've got to do their job to destroy?

[Leo Fielding]

Yeah. So she was heavily armed to intercept these torpedo boats and chasers. Her primary armament was one 12 pounder quick firing 1200 weight gun which was mounted just forward of the bridge on the Turtle deck. Her second armament was she had five Hotchkiss six pounders. They were staggered across the ship. So he had two directly behind the bow next to the bridge section. And then you had one on the port and one on the starboard side near the center section of the ship. And then you also had one in the center line right at the stern of the ship. And then obviously along with the main shell firing armaments, she had two 18 inch torpedo tubes which fired Whitehead torpedoes. And this was all just jam packed into the ship. As we mentioned before, the ship was incredibly fast. She was powered by four Norman boilers, she had three funnels, she had an incredible shaft horsepower of like 6400. And she carried a weight of coal of 86 tons. So the ship was literally jam packed full of armaments or fuel or machinery.

[Dan Snow]

So it can fire torpedoes as well, but it's got these pretty punchy guns on its deck as well. So it can sink any ships that it's able to overhaul. And so it sounds to me like a pretty, a pretty versatile boat as well. And it will end up doing all sorts of jobs, not just chasing down torpedo boats, but it'll end up doing all sorts of jobs for the rest of the 20th century, won't it?

[Dan McCullen]

Yeah, so absolutely, Dan. They were used not just for chasing down torpedo boats, but also on coastal patrols. Bearing in mind this is sort of pre radio era, so figuring out where the enemy fleet actually is was quite an analog process. And having a boat that could deploy rapidly along the coast was very much part of the intel gathering process for the British fleet.

[Dan Snow]

They weren't very large boats, were they? How many crew might be on a destroyer?

[Dave Wens]

Well, the Tiger had a complement of about 57 or 58 men, which was pretty well standard throughout that period, which is remarkable really, when you look at the size of the ship and the size of the machinery, the room they had to operate in was very restricted. There wasn't much room for them to move within the confines of the ship. They were obviously a well oiled crew. They knew exactly what they were doing, they were skilled at their jobs and many of them died doing it again,

[Dan Snow]

so very, very small compared to the big people have heard of dreadnoughts, the super dreadnought battleships that we had built a few years later, over a thousand people on board those. So these are very, very different. They're going super fast, they're armed in different ways. Would there have been an informality aboard? Would it felt like a bit of a different navy to serving on some of those larger, very hierarchical ships?

[Dan McCullen]

I think that's absolutely right, Dan. I think the crews on these destroyers had a reputation for being rough and tough, as we've heard. You know, the living space was really tiny by modern standards. And it must have been absolute hell to be crew on one of these boats. They were reputed to be extremely wet boats. They had to deal with intense heat, they had to deal with vibration, they had to deal with just the fact that these boats were not good handling in rough weather. They had very poor seakeeping. And so this is really, I think, an example of the Navy pushing ship building, both the equipment and the crew, to the absolute limits of what was

[Dan Snow]

do we know if it was desirable to be on board? Was this an exciting place to be and did it feel like the cutting edge?

[Dan McCullen]

I think so. I think if you just reading the. The memoirs, a lot of the senior admirals at the time, particularly during the First World War, a lot of these guys cut their teeth on destroyers. And so it was seen as being a good place to learn the trade.

[Dan Snow]

Just a bit more freedom people lower down the pecking or a bit more responsibility. Probably a bit more exciting than being on a battleship.

[Dave Wens]

I don't know really when anyone enlisted in the Navy, whether they had much choice in where they served. I guess they could volunteer for certain parts of the service, but certainly if you're allocated to be a stoker and Leo alluded to them being a bit rough and ready. These were men that were in the stokehold attending to the boilers, shoveling coal into the boilers in order to keep the furnaces burning to provide steam for the engines. And this was a hot, sweaty job. And so of course they were rough and ready, they were strong, they were used to using their muscles to keep the coal flowing into the boilers.

[Dan Snow]

It's a tough job, I mean, no question, and I imagine it's even tougher on a tiny little vessel like a destroyer where you're going to feel every wave as well. They used to get battered around in the rough seas.

[Dan McCullen]

Yeah, that's right. I think that the speed was known informally. It was sort of an in joke among engineers in the navy at the time that the faster these ships ran on their speed trials, the more likely they were to break down or the worst, their track record later on, because running them at full speed actually for any period of time would cause damage, structural damage to the hull. So these things were literally sort of falling apart the moment they were running at full pace.

[Narrator]

Listen to Dan to Note's history.

[Dan Snow]

We're looking for HMS Tiger. More after this. Now let's come on to the Tiger itself because this is such an important story and it is such an important vessel because it's a snapshot of this whole period of time really. She. Where was she built?

[Dan McCullen]

So she was built in Scotland at. It was the Clyde bank yard of JNG Thompson. So she was built over the course of about a year under an order. It was 1898, 1899 that she was ordered and then completed in June 1901.

[Dan Snow]

And so she enters the navy. Presumably they're serving in the Channel, they're not being sent out to the far flung corners of Britain's empire. This Is a destroyer prepared to take on, well, perhaps the French, perhaps the Germans in waters around Britain?

[Dave Wens]

Yeah, she did. She also operated out of Portland and Devonport, but latterly her home port was Portsmouth.

[Dan Snow]

And what kind of service would she have been seeing in those first few years?

[Dave Wens]

A lot of training, for sure, a lot of exercises. I don't think there were any wars that they got involved in as such during that period. But they were there to defend the nation and to prepare in the event of war, which, as we know, came soon after in 1914.

[Dan Snow]

Tell me about the exercises that she took part in in 1908. What was the point of these exercises?

[Dan McCullen]

So the idea was that you'd have a dozen destroyers that left Portsmouth to practice night attacks against battleships and cruisers that were heading to Portland. So it was designed as a training exercise at night, everyone screening their lights. There's total darkness, no moon. And so the destroyers were practicing torpedo attacks on these big ships.

[Dan Snow]

And presumably it's a dangerous business not using lights. I mean, there's no gps, there's no identify friend or foe, there's no AIs systems. I mean, but you've got to make them as realistic as possible.

[Dan McCullen]

That's right. And interestingly, only a few years before, Tiger had been involved in a near miss collision, also during a simulated night attack, also with light screens to preserve stealth. So this was a dangerous exercise with lots of ships, big ships maneuvering in large numbers in total darkness.

[Dave Wens]

I think it's worth remembering as well that these guys were operating from an open bridge. They were exposed to the weather. There would have been a canvas screen around, some stanchions to keep the spray off them, but otherwise they were completely in the open and relied totally on their eyesight and their wits and their skills, as you say, Dan, no radar, no gps, no radio. They just had to navigate with compass sextant, although sextant wasn't a great deal of use at night and dead reckoning. And so it's hardly surprising that there were accidents.

[Dan Snow]

Amazing, isn't it, just yet worth repeating that people will be familiar with movies of the bridge with screens lit up and windows, waves breaking over them. This is a bridge that is open to the elements, not like our boats

[Dave Wens]

today with a wheelhouse where you can be out of the wind and waves. They were completely in the open and

[Dan Snow]

toughness, I suppose, was the point. They believed that a war was imminent by 1908. That war is most likely going to be made to the Germans. The Germans have got a very capable navy indeed. There was presumably the desire to train up the men and prepare them for that eventuality.

[Dave Wens]

Absolutely, yeah. Training was absolutely essential because when the real thing comes along, they are prepared and ready. Absolutely. Right.

[Dan Snow]

Right, let's come back to that night, that fateful night of April 1908. So we've got a division of the Royal Navy steaming west down the English Channel, south of The Alawite, about 20 miles south, the Alawite heading towards Portland, huge important harbour at Portland. And then you've got these destroyers that are imitating really, what, torpedo boats? So just this attacking force of destroyers hoping to get amongst them and cause havoc.

[Leo Fielding]

Yeah. So the torpedo boat destroyers were basically there to simulate the night attack exercise on the larger fleet, the Home Fleet, and they did so by using flares. So when they simulated a torpedo to be fired, they would use a flare to fire that up.

[Dan Snow]

Wow. So, okay, so the idea is you try and come up undetected and then fire flares, meaning torpedoes away. Look at this. Look how close we are. We got you.

[Leo Fielding]

Yeah, that's right, yeah. So it was a stealth exercise. You know, they didn't want to give it away and make it easy for everybody involved. They wanted to try and simulate this as realistic as possible.

[Dan Snow]

So that night you've got HMS Recruit and HMS Tiger, and they actually, they're trying to sneak in up on these bigger ships, the Royal Navy, and they succeed. They do pretty well.

[Dan McCullen]

Yes, that's right. So HMS Recruit that Tiger was following got in amongst the big ships and fired their Varus light. Tiger was supposed to be following the recruit, following her leader, but for reasons that nobody has ever explained, she didn't.

[Dan Snow]

So Tiger seemingly veered to port, so veered to left for everyone who's not familiar with the maritime expressions, and ended up cutting straight across the track of this line of bigger Royal Navy vessels. Is that right, Dave?

[Dave Wens]

Yeah. She's under orders to follow HMS Recruit, the leader, and they couldn't see Recruit, but they could see her wake and they tried to follow that. My own personal view is they just didn't see the barrack coming. They couldn't have seen the bow wave, which would have shown up as white foam. They just didn't see it. That's my own personal opinion, otherwise they wouldn't have turned directly across such a massive ship which is bearing down upon them. It was a fatal error and as Liam says, we will never know what the real reason was. Maybe they were dazzled, maybe they just made a miscalculation, but it's purely as guesswork. We won't know the truth, Dan.

[Dan Snow]

We hear Dave talking about the massive ship HMS Barrack. Give us a sense of how big that was compared to the Tiger.

[Leo Fielding]

Yeah, so I think the barrack was 10,000 tons, is that correct?

[Dave Wens]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Leo Fielding]

The Tiger itself, it was 380 tons light and 425 tons fully loaded, you know, so you've got like over 20 to 25 times the size in mass. And with that such armored bow and ram on the front of the barrack, it just literally sliced through the ship like a hot knife through butter.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. And you mentioned the armour. We forget now, but that was also thought to have been potentially a futuristic weapon of war, was actually crashing into other ships, wasn't it, at close range and slicing them open. So this bow of Berwick and this ram at the front, that was actually. It was a job that it was prepared to do.

[Dan McCullen]

Yeah, exactly. I think it's one of the ironies, sort of poignant ironies about this story, that Beric had been specifically equipped with a ram bow. So we're talking here about, you know, a heavily reinforced underwater forward extension on her bow that had been designed as a weapon to sink enemy ships. And in this case, you know, it's proved lethal to a friendly ship during an accident.

[Dan Snow]

How long would the crew have had, do you think, Dave, as a man who's spent a lot of time in these waters on boats, and how long do you think the crew of the Tiger would have had to respond to the Berwick's bow just coming out of the darkness?

[Dave Wens]

Well, virtually no time. I think when the Berwick first sighted the Tiger, they were about 100 yards off, so seconds to react and then you've got to try and alert all your mates below deck. It's just not enough time. They were doomed the moment they made the maneuver to cross the bows of the barrack. Even though it wasn't their intention, the disaster was just inevitable.

[Dan Snow]

What do we know about that moment of collision? What do the sources tell us?

[Dave Wens]

Well, the sources say that one of the men was below decks and just became aware of a wall of steel passing in front of his face. As the barracks SL through, he watched the floor plates buckle up. It instantly tried to escape, but found his escape hatch above. His head had been distorted, but he was nevertheless able to get through. But for everybody else down below, very difficult to try and escape. And in particular the men in the bow section, because the vessel parted, started to sink straight away. So the men in the forward part of the ship that were down below just didn't stand a chance.

[Dan Snow]

Dan, tell us how many men did manage to survive and how do you survive a crash like that? It's extraordinary.

[Leo Fielding]

From the initial point of collision at quarter past eight in the evening, it only took three minutes for the stern to disappear below the waves. As you can imagine, the sense of total fear would have been amongst them. Sailors, unfortunately, below decks. And then after the stern disappeared, there was only another one to two minutes before the bow disappeared below the waves. And yeah, it was gone forever. For 118 years, there was in total 35 men lost below decks and that included Lt. William Middleton as well.

[Dan Snow]

No one from the bridge survived. Right. So none of the command team, if you like. So actually no one was ever really able to unpack exactly what had happened in those last few seconds of the life of Tiger.

[Dan McCullen]

Yeah, it's a great unanswered question. What really happened? The court martial couldn't explain it. The commanding officer, Lieutenant Middleton, didn't make it, so he couldn't testify. None of the surviving crew members knew why the order was given. So that's why it remains a mystery to this day.

[Dan Snow]

This is Dan Snow's history. HMS Tiger has been found.

[Narrator]

Well, after this. Don't go away.

[Dan Snow]

This was obviously a peacetime tragedy. How big a deal was this at the time?

[Dan McCullen]

So this was major national news at the time. You had King Edward VII personally telegraphed his sympathies, questions were asked in Parliament. There was a lot of scrutiny about why this had happened. Again, pre First World War, you know, national maritime tragedies on this scale the public not accustomed to. And it was headline news for weeks. And it shows in the fact that there was this massive search and salvage operation run by the Navy over several days. They sent multiple cruisers, multiple tug salvage vessels to see if they could find any sign of the wreckage. But they never found the wreck and eventually gave up and called it practically impossible.

[Dan Snow]

Did those men die in vain or were they useful? I mean, it sounds callous, but were there lessons learned that you think may have helped prevent future tragedies like this?

[Dan McCullen]

Well, one of the developments that we've talked about is the fact that Admiral Fanshawe, in the aftermath of the sinking, immediately banned the use of signal flares from night exercises. So he speculated that they were too brilliant and they had dazzled the destroyer crews. And he recommended alternatives that would be visible to the target ships but wouldn't be binding to the attackers. So there were practical reforms that we saw that were born from this tragedy.

[Dan Snow]

But I guess it also just highlights that these kind of destroyer operations at night, they are dangerous. And funnily enough, in the Battle of Jutland, less than 10 years later, during the first war, when it was a very, very real shooting war at sea, there were collisions at night in much the same way. I mean, it's fascinating how this does presage the type of warfare that's going to come.

[Dan McCullen]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think also just picking up the theme about sea keeping abilities of these boats, you know, Tiger herself had quite a checkered history in terms of engine failures, collisions with other ships crashing into the breakwater at Portland, and she was repaired and returned to service each time. But you get this sense that she was always living on borrowed time, taking part in these exercises.

[Dan Snow]

These new platforms, they can be difficult for navies to absorb, I suppose. Dan, why did you want to find the wreck of Tiger?

[Leo Fielding]

So as a project, we really wanted to find the wreck of the Tiger, not only because it was the last 30 knot torpedo port destroyer missing in the channel, but we also felt like it was a really important target to find as well, because as a project we run by three pillars, remembrance, conservation and documentation. And we felt like if we found the wreck, we would be able to do it justice by extensive documentation and also to remember the sailors that unfortunately lost their lives.

[Dan Snow]

Dave, you've found more wrecks than I've had hot dinners. And you've dived on them in a channel, one of the biggest graveyards of ships in the world. What was it about this one in particular? Because this has been a lifelong mission for you?

[Dave Wens]

Yeah, I've done a lot of research on wrecks. One, I'm not diving on them, I'm researching them through the winter. And I'd always known about the Tiger, but didn't know exactly where it was. I knew it was offshore. And to try and go offshore to find a wreck, it takes a lot of time, money and effort and grim determination, particularly if the weather's not favorable. And I always thought this was an important wreck to find simply because the story is so dramatic. Loss of life was peacetime. Loss of life was absolutely appalling. And now, as we know, we found it.

[Dan Snow]

Well, we have Leo. We were out on Dave's boat the other day and it was a very, very special day indeed. You've spent a huge amount of time in the archive. What was it like going down that, that shot line, that rope down to the seabed and seeing Tiger for the first time?

[Dan McCullen]

I mean, for me, the adrenaline was incredible. So she's 62 meters deep, which is deep enough that you're on specialist rebreather equipment. You've got a limited time available to you on the bottom. The first thing that I saw was the fourth Norman boiler on the stern just looming out of the darkness. And at that point, I knew immediately we were on a 13 knotter. We were on Tiger, and the adrenaline was just incredible.

[Dan Snow]

What have you learned, Dan and Leo? What did you learn from diving? Obviously, diving is a great adventure, and you've got amazing pictures and scans. What are we able to learn that adds to our knowledge of that accident that night back in 1908?

[Leo Fielding]

So during the dive, we managed to uncover several artifacts which give us historical insight into actually what happened during the snapshot of time when the barracks sliced into the Tiger. And one of them things was that she didn't alter speed nor course. So on the stern telegraph, the pointer was still around to full speed ahead, so she didn't try to slow down. Also, the rudder indicator as well, which we managed to document on the bow section, that was also still pretty much straight ahead. It was a slight indication that she was going 5 degrees, maybe 5 to 7 degrees to starboard at the time. However, you know, we could never be sure if that was 100% accurate at the time.

[Dan Snow]

So isn't that amazing? So the engine telegraph, so that's the way that they communicated from the bridge to the engine room. People be familiar with the famous one in the Titanic movie. You know, you ring it and it rings a bell and you can say full astern, everything. So that was going full ahead. So they did not have any time to adjust the speed and potentially not even adjust the steering. It was that sudden. I mean, that's just terrifying, isn't it?

[Leo Fielding]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when they did see the Berwick off the starboard side, it was literally 100 to 150 yards away. So they literally had seconds to react, and I don't think they had time to react in that instance.

[Dave Wens]

All the chains and the cables which went from the controls on the bridge to the stern would have been severed. So even if the signal had been made, it wouldn't have gone anywhere. It wouldn't have reached anyone. I think one of the engineers reported that after the ship had been cut in two, he did go back down and shut the steam off. But in the event, it made no difference to the outcome whatsoever.

[Dan Snow]

Give me some of the highlights, guys. You both came up so excited from that dive, but give me some of the other highlights, the things you saw down there.

[Dan McCullen]

I think one of the Highlights for me was seeing these incredibly ornate fluid compasses. So Denton co London fluid compasses used for navigation and they had these highly decorated 128 point cards, graduated cards showing direction with a fleur de lis that was pointing north and with the name Dent visible through the glass. And seeing those, we found four of those, so well preserved, was really impressive for me.

[Leo Fielding]

It was some of the smaller details, for example the rudder indicator on the helm that was inside the conning tower and some of the room label tags as well. So we found a really nice brass label to the 12 pound shell room and that was just amazing to see that in situ. It was frozen in time.

[Dan Snow]

Well, no one's been anywhere near that wreck ever. And I mean talk about time capsule. Totally untouched, steering wheel in place, never been looted. What an incredibly special find that is guys.

[Dave Wens]

I haven't dived it myself, but the guy's come up and told me there were six telegraphs on the bridge section, two or three compasses, oil lamps, portholes, steering pedestals, you know, staggering. And not to mention of course, the prize find, the ship's bell was discovered.

[Dan Snow]

So guys, you know, you found the right wreck. It's got the name Tiger on it, has it?

[Leo Fielding]

Yeah. So the bell itself, we were able to see the inscription HMS on the bell and later review of the photos that we were able to gather. We believe that we can see the letters IGE as well just below the hms.

[Dan Snow]

I think we can credit you with the HMS Tiger here, guys. I feel feel there's enough evidence. Dave, what's it mean to you that you've been chasing down this wreck for decades?

[Dave Wens]

Well, it's the culmination really of years and years and years of research and diving and to find this particular wreck in such a fantastic condition with absolutely everything still in place. It really is quite an exceptional find.

[Dan Snow]

What a moment, guys. Do you take a minute to celebrate and congratulate yourselves or are you thinking about the next adventure?

[Dave Wens]

Not yet. We're going to live off this one for a while I think.

[Leo Fielding]

Yeah, we did. When we got back on board Dave's boat there was a lot of excitement, you know that all the hard work, the time in the archive, the time at sea scanning, it all paid off and we just hoped that we'd done enough because at that time we didn't have time to review the pictures or anything like that, the video footage. So yeah, it was super exciting. But as all projects that look for wrecks, there is always the next one and the following week after that we were off up to Scotland to to try and find our next target.

[Dan Snow]

It was lovely when you got back on the boat and put your dive kit away and we're able to have a few whiskies and and celebrate your great achievement. Leo, Dan, Dave, thank you for coming on the podcast. Another huge congratulations for this finding this complete and stunning wreck but one that really gives us a snapshot into this absolutely essential period of British naval history.

[Leo Fielding]

Thank you.

[Dan Snow]

Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? Sign up to History and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like

[Narrator]

how William conquered England, what it was like to live in the Georgian era and you can even hear the voice of Richard iii.

[Dan Snow]

We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries plus new releases every week and

[Narrator]

there's always something more to discover.

[Dan Snow]

Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyit.com subscribe.