HMT Robert Bowen

9 February 1940     57 14.084N  01 48.853W     57 in 63 metres

Built:  1918 by Cook, Welton & Gemmell, Beverly

Construction:  steel, Castle Class Trawler, 290 grt, length  125ft (38m), beam  24ft (7.2m), draught 12ft (3.8m)

Propulsion: triple expansion, 61 NHP, machinery by Amos & Smith Ltd., Hull

Registered: Royal Navy

The Robert Bowen was registered by the Admiralty as a trawler in 1919.  On completion of her duties, in 1920, she was sold to the Britannic Trawling Company (London) and then had a series of owners before being requisitioned by the Royal Navy on 1st August, 1939 as a minesweeper and fitted with a 12-pounder gun and degaussing coil.  

She joined an Aberdeen based minesweeping group, together with HMT Fort Royal, 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 hit the Robert Bowen, which witness reports state was blown in two and sank immediately, there were no survivors.   The Fort Royal was lost on the second attack and the Ohm damaged before a group of British fighters arrived to chase off the German aircraft.

We discovered this wreck in 2022, the southerly mark in a group of three wrecks eight miles east of Balmedie.   We had dived and determined the westerly mark to be the Fort Royal just two weeks previously and had a strong suspicion that one of the remaining two marks would be the Robert Bowen.  We chose the larger of the two remaining wrecks to explore. 

We descended through a thick plankton  layer which disappeared at about 30m giving a lovely 10m visibility, we came on to the starboard side of an intact hull, the bridge area had gone and the boiler top was clearly visible, there is obvious bomb damage forward of this.  There must have been a direct hit in front of the bridge as the hull is blown outwards on both sides and the bow blown forward at a 45 degree angle, the prow is almost on the seabed.   The keel attaches the bow to the main section of the ship but looking at the devastation on this area, it's clear to see how eye witnesses could have thought the vessel was blown into two.  A broken and twisted gun platform leans at an angle blown forward, the gun and mount lie on the seabed by the port bow, trawled off many years ago.

The location is only 600 metres from the Fort Royal, her construction  and the obvious bomb damage confirms that this is the Robert Bowen.