903 Ghosts of HMS Defense

There is a truly moving installation of monuments to sailors that drowned in the ‘Battle of Jutland’ (Skagerrakschlacht for Germans) over two hellish days (31st May, 1st June of 1916.)  The toll was horrendous:


United Kingdom:

6,094 killed
674 wounded
177 captured
3 battlecruisers sunk
3 armoured cruisers sunk
8 destroyers sunk

German Empire:
2,551 killed
507 wounded
1 battlecruiser sunk
1 pre-dreadnought sunk
4 light cruisers sunk
5 torpedo-boats sunk

A memorial park at Thyborøn, a town in north west Denmark s close to where the battle was fought, erects one huge granite stone for each sunk boat. Each stone is surrounded by a cluster of ghost-like statuettes standing amongst the marram grass and dunes.  Each statuette represents 20- 25 dead souls. The example pictured is for the 903 sailors drowned when the HMS Defence was sunk.

The “Sea war Museum” next to the memorial park features various relicts of the battle that have been salvaged and lots of personal testimony of the sailors, doctors, nurses and researchers involved (http://www.jutlandbattlememorial.com/english.html).   I don’t go much for the war memorabilia, but this museum had a real human touch – it is erected on neutral ground and curated by an international team from both “sides”. Their stated aim was not to glorify war, more to tell the story of the human impacts of an obscene war so that we don’t ever forget.

One of the cameos in the museum’s story was about how the German sailors refused their generals order to go into one last battle against the British near the end of the war – their mutiny sparked the birth of the Weimar Republic in 1918.  Unfortunately, the war reparations imposed on Germany also sowed the seed s for the Second world War, 20 years later.  The museum and associated memorial park is well worth a visit.