Sinking of Courageous

17 September 1939, Western Approaches, south-west of Ireland

German success; the carrier Courageous sunk

In the first weeks of the war the Admiralty sent its carriers out with a few destroyers to hunt U-boats in the Western Approaches, a policy dropped after this. On the evening of 17 September 1939 two of Courageous's four destroyers had gone to help a merchant ship under attack when she turned into the wind to land her aircraft, straight across the bows of U-29. Otto Schuhart fired three torpedoes; two hit, and she rolled over and sank in about twenty minutes. 519 men were killed, among them her captain, W. T. Makeig-Jones, who stayed on the bridge. She was the first British warship lost in the war. U-29 got away after four hours of depth charging, and three days earlier Ark Royal had only just escaped the same fate from U-39.