The centenaries of the Great War came to a close in November with commemorations of the 1918 Armistice. But one final British centenary associated with that conflict has just passed. Few people on the mainland will be aware of it, though it has certainly been marked in the Outer Hebrides. It is the commemoration of the worst peacetime naval disaster since the sinking of the Titanic. And one of the most terrible, poignant and final tragedies to have come from the Great War.
On the evening of 31 December 1918, a vessel was boarding passengers at the Kyle of Lochalsh. His Majesty’s Yacht Iolaire had been requisitioned by the Admiralty to transport some of the hundreds of Royal Naval Reservists heading back to the Isle of Lewis and Harris after four years of service. There were too many people at Kyle for this boat, and some of the people who marched onboard the steam yacht could not get a seat. But it was New Year’s Eve, the war was over, and the men were returning home.
Though it set off for Stornoway, the Iolaire never made it to harbour. In the early hours of New Year’s Day, the yacht arrived within sight of the lights of Stornoway, where the servicemen’s families and friends were waiting on the quay. But sometime around 2 a.m. the yacht took a wrong course and struck an infamous reef of rocks known locally as the Beasts of Holm. Of the 284 men reckoned to have boarded the Iolaire at Kyle, only 80 made it to land. Just seven of the ship’s 23-strong crew escaped. All four officers were drowned. Among the endless cruel ironies of that night was that the Iolaire was packed with island men who could have guided the vessel to Stornoway harbour with ease.
As John MacLeod recounts in his forensically detailed 2009 book When I Heard the Bell: the Loss of the Iolaire, the yacht hit the rocks at full speed.
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