swuklink: Sinking of the HMS Formidable

The 15,000-ton HMS Formidable was the first battleship to be sunk during the First World War.

A U-boat struck at the HMS Formidable in moonlight at midnight on New Year's Eve 1915 as the battleship sailed up the English Channel at Lyme Bay at the western end of the Dorset Coast. The battleship sank quickly as a storm blew up and overturned the boats of the escaping seamen. 550 men were killed in the attack.

It is said that this incident at the Pilot Boat Inn led to the writing of the "Lassie" television series.

Several of the bodies were washed ashore at Lyme Regis and these were taken to the Pilot Boat Inn which served as a make-shift mortuary. The landlord's dog, a cross-bred collie started to lick one of the bodies laid out in the public house and the dog's persistence led to the realisation that AB John Cowan was still breathing.

Captain Loxley of the HMS Formidable was claimed by the waters with his ship. He had his dog on the bridge when the battleship sank and its body was washed up on the beach at Abbotsbury to the west where it was buried in the churchyard.

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