Qualla: HMS Ulysses (1917)

HMS Ulysses (1917): Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Twelve days. That is how close HMS Ulysses came to surviving the First World War. On 29 October 1918, in fog in the Firth of Clyde, the Royal Navy destroyer struck the steamer SS Ellerie and sank. The Armistice would be signed on 11 November. There was no battle, no submarine, no shell — just fog and another ship in the wrong place at the wrong time. What separates this story from many other wartime losses is the count at the end: zero. Every officer and rating aboard Ulysses, all eighty-two of them, was rescued by the drifter Ivy III. The destroyer had escorted convoys between Britain and Scandinavia for nearly nineteen months. She had spotted submarines and dropped depth charges and never lost a man to the enemy. She was lost, instead, to weather.

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HMS Ulysses (1917): The Modified R-class

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Ulysses was one of eleven modified R-class destroyers ordered by the British Admiralty in March 1916 as part of the Eighth War Construction Programme. The R-class itself was an improvement on the earlier M-class, the main innovation being geared steam turbines that gave better fu...

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HMS Ulysses (1917): Specifications

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Ulysses measured 276 feet overall and 265 feet between perpendiculars, with a beam of 27 feet and a draught of 11 feet. Displacement was 1,035 long tons at normal load, 1,090 at deep load. Three Yarrow boilers fed two Parsons geared steam turbines rated at 27,000 shaft horsepower...

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HMS Ulysses (1917): Sunderland to the Grand Fleet

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

William Doxford & Sons built Ulysses at their yard in Sunderland on the River Wear. She was launched on 24 March 1917 and commissioned shortly after, joining the Fifteenth Destroyer Flotilla of the Grand Fleet based at Scapa Flow. By 31 March 1917 the flotilla had moved to Rosyth...

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HMS Ulysses (1917): Patrols Without Kills

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Between 15 and 24 June 1917, the flotilla took part in anti-submarine patrols. Sixty-one submarine sightings were reported during that operation. Twelve attacks were made. No submarines were sunk. The numbers tell a great deal about the difficulty of the work: a submerged submari...

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HMS Ulysses (1917): The End in Fog

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 29 October 1918, the war's end was already within sight. Germany had been seeking armistice terms since early October. Twelve days remained before the guns fell silent. In the Firth of Clyde that day, fog rolled in — the kind of dense Scottish fog that makes ship navigation a ...

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