HMT Fort Royal

Fort Royal (A171) before requisition by the Admiralty

9 February 1940 57 14.233N 01 49.390W 56 in 63 metres

Built: 1931 by John Lewis & Sons, Aberdeen

Construction: steel, trawler, 351 grt, length 140ft (42.7m), beam 24ft (7.3m), draught 14ft (4m)

Propulsion: triple expansion, 79 NHP

Registered: Aberdeen (A171), Royal Navy FY 771

The Fort Royal was built as a trawler for John Lewis Ltd, Aberdeen, and in 1939 requisitioned by the Admiralty for minesweeping duties. She joined an Aberdeen based minesweeping group, together with HMT Robert Bowen, HMT Ohm and HMT Thomas Altoft. The group was assigned the task of sweeping the north east coast of Scotland.

She was on operations with her group on 9 February 1940 when they were attacked with bombs and machine-gun fire by two Heinkel He111's of KG26 (X Air Corps) . The first strike missed the Fort Royal but hit the Robert Bowen, which witness reports state was blown in two and sank immediately, there were no survivors. The Fort Royal eluded this strike but her captain, Lieutenant Commander E. King was killed by a bullet from the attacking aircraft. The aircraft regrouped for a second strike, this time the Fort Royal was not so lucky and was hit simultaneously by two bombs and sank in just a few minutes, meanwhile the Ohm was slightly damaged by near misses. Overall the attack lasted less than ten minutes and the German aircraft beat a hasty retreat as soon as the RAF appeared on the scene.

Four officers and 18 ratings were lost in both ships.

We discovered this wreck in July 2022, it is the westerly mark in a group of three wrecks lying about 8 miles east of Balmedie. A rare week of calm weather allowed us to focus on the southerly marks on our target list. We dived her on a neap flood slack so the underwater visibility was very good for this area at around 8mts. The vessel is upright, largely intact but with badly degrade superstructure, her rudder and prop are intact, there is stern accommodation, a triple expansion engine still under engine room skylights. Forward of this is a broken area where her bridge would have been with her telegraph lying on the deck. Beyond this are distinctive fish holds then a frame and platform for the 12-pounder gun - we did not see the firing mechanism or barrel but there is a wooden box of shell cases lying nearby. The bow is covered, a cross between a forecastle and a whaleback and she has a distinctive fixing point on the hull about 2 metres back from the bow. We later discovered that the fixing was the mounting point for the sheerleg to deploy the Kango Acoustic Hammer used for detonating acoustic mines. There was also a ridge running around her hull, this is the degaussing loop which would have demagnetised the ship so that she did not set off magnetic mines.

We had clearly found a WW2 era converted minesweeper - but was she the Fort Royal or the Robert Bowen ? Both lost within sight of each other. The Fort Royal was the larger of the two vessels, and this is the largest mark of the three in the area. We also discovered that the Fort Royal was fitted with a turtle back forecastle, which matches the structure we saw on the wreck. Having now found and dived the Robert Bowen which lies 600 metres to the east, our assumption is that this wreck is that of HMT Fort Royal.