The Maloja Loss.

By Ralph Harris.

So far I can recall after all these years, the “Maloja” to which I had just been appointed as a “super” second officer, left Tilbury some time after noon on Saturday February 26th 1916 and anchored at the mouth of the Thames for the night. At that time ships were not permitted to pass through the Straits of Dover after dark.

While at anchor the commander Captain C. E. Irving R.N.R. held “fire and boat stations”, directed passengers to their boats and instructed them in the donning of lifebelts. Besides these elementary precautions all boats were lowered to the hurricane deck rail until such times as we should reach Port Said, which at the time was considered outside the danger area. As it turned out these precautions were invaluable.

About 8 a.m. we received permission to proceed and accordingly weighed anchor. A recent south-westerly gale had left something of a sea running in which the minesweepers had been out all night and had not really completed the job. The authorities however were impatient to pass shipping through and gave us orders to proceed. As we passed Dover the sweepers were still at work.

Having had breakfast I returned to my cabin and began a letter to my father, which in the normal course would have gone off with the pilot. Suddenly there was a loud explosion, which came from aft and gave me the impression that a bomb from an aircraft had exploded on board. From the officer’s deck, outside my cabin I glanced along the starboard side of the boat deck and upwards at masts and funnels to give me an indication of whether we or some other vessel had been damaged. All top hamper was intact. We had in fact been mined. At the time we were between Dover and Folkestone.

As I stood there I heard a “ripple” in the ships plating approaching from aft. It moved towards the point where I was standing on the officer’s deck and, increasing in intensity passed under my feet, shaking the deck on which I stood and moving forward to be lost in the fore part of the ship. I still hesitated – until the ship began to list, quite unmistakably, over to starboard, whereupon I immediately made for my boat (No.3, the second large boat from forward, not counting a small “accident” boat).

Realising that I had not got my lifebelt I hurried back for it but by the time I reached the cabin I could hardly enter owing to the severe list. However, I managed it and was compelled to force my way past other members of the crew on duty nearby who were also making for their lifebelts stored on the officer’s deck. When I regained my boat passengers and crew were already climbing into it and in a very short time we had the boat holding the maximum number of people for safety while still in the falls.

As I was about to cast off the lashings to allow the boat to swing out the other “super” second officer made a jump for it and managed to scramble into the forward end. His boat was No.4 on the port side and out of action due to the heavy list to starboard. I felt I had someone I could trust and asked him to unhook the forward fall as soon as I touched the water. Besides there being something of a sea running, the vessel was moving astern at about 4 knots, because Captain Irving had put the engines to “full astern” immediately after the explosion. When he had tried to stop the engines he had been unable to obtain a reply on the telegraph and a quartermaster had been sent to the engine room but it was found to be half-full of water.

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