Death
Lord Kitchener sailed from Scrabster to Scapa Flow on 5 June 1916 aboard HMS Oak before transferring to the armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire for his diplomatic mission to Russia. Shortly before 1930 hrs the same day, while en route to the Russian port of Arkhangelsk during a Force 9 gale, Hampshire struck a mine laid by the newly launched German U-boat U-75 (commanded by Curt Beitzen) and sank west of the Orkney Islands. Kitchener, his staff, and 643 of the crew of 655 were drowned or died of exposure. His body was never found. The survivors who caught sight of him in those last moments testified to his outward calm and resolution.
Not everyone mourned Kitchener's loss. C. P. Scott, editor of The Manchester Guardian, is said to have remarked that "as for the old man, he could not have done better than to have gone down, as he was a great impediment lately."
Blue plaques have been erected to mark where he lived in Westminster and Canterbury.
Read more about this topic: Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and mocking at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when I grow excited with wine,
Suddenly I meet your face.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)