A maritime disaster is an event which usually involves a ship or ships and can involve military action. Because of the nature of maritime travel, there is often a substantial loss of life. This list covers those disasters in which 30 or more lives were lost during World War I.
| data-sort-type="number" | Year | Country | Description | data-sort-type="number" | Lives lost | Use | Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1918 |  | USS San Diego - On 19 July, San Diego was steaming northeast of the Fire Island Lightship when an explosion occurred on the cruiser's port side adjacent to the port engine room and well below the waterline. had earlier laid a number of mines along the south shore of Long Island. She sank in 28 minutes with the loss of six lives, the only major warship lost by the United States after its involvement in World War I. | 6 | Navy | |||
| 1916 | HMHS Britannic - On the 21st of November 1916, in the early hours of the morning, the hospital ship which was formally an ocean liner and was also a part of the famous White Star Line company, was sailing near Kea in the Aegean Sea until its passengers and crew were awoken and shook as the ship experiences an explosion caused by a naval mine of one of the 329 Imperial German Navy submarines, the SM U-73 near the Greek island of Kea and sank 55 minutes later, killing 30 people. | 30 | Hospital | ||||
| 1916 | – On 8 June the steamship and another transport were carrying troops escorted by four Regia Marina destroyers and one scout cruiser. The Austro-Hungarian torpedoed her[1] and she sank quickly, killing 1,926 of the 2,821 men aboard. | 1,926 | Military | ||||
| 1914 | , & – In the action of 22 September 1914, three British ships were sunk by . After Aboukir was torpedoed it was mistakenly thought that the ship had hit a mine and the remaining ships approached to rescue the crew. Hogue and then Cressy were then torpedoed and sunk. 1,397 men were lost; 837 were rescued. | 1,397 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 |  | – The troop ship was carrying more than 2,000 French and Serbian troops and a cargo of artillery and ammunition to Greece. She was unescorted, and on 8 October torpedoed her in the Mediterranean between Sardinia and Tunisia. Her munitions exploded and she sank in 15 minutes. Survivors were rescued from the water the next day.[2] | 1,338 | Military | |||
| 1916 | – the battlecruiser exploded and sank in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May, killing 1,245 men. | 1,245 | Navy | ||||
| 1915 | – The passenger liner was torpedoed by on 7 May. She sank in just 18 minutes 8nmi off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland killing 1,198 out of the 1,959 of the people aboard. | 1,198 | Civilian | ||||
| 1916 | – a British battlecruiser that exploded and sank in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May. 1,026 men were lost; six survived. | 1,026 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | – Battlecruiser, she sank in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May, killing 1,015 men. There were two survivors. | 1,015 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | | – on 26 February the French auxiliary cruiser was taking troops from France to Salonika when sank her in the Mediterranean south of Cape Matapan. Nearly 1,000 men were lost.[3] | 1,000 maximum | Military | |||
| 1915 | – a submarine sank the troop ship on 13 August, killing 935 people. | 935 | Military | ||||
| 1916 | – Armoured Cruiser, exploded in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May. 903 men were lost, there were no survivors. | 903 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – She was sunk on 1 November off the Chilean coast along with in the Battle of Coronel by the German armoured cruisers and . Her entire complement of 900 was lost. | 900 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – On 11 May the troop ship was off Capo Peloro in Sicily and heading for Libya, when torpedoed and sank her. She sank quickly, killing 880 of about 3,000 troops aboard. | 880 | Military | ||||
| 1917 | – On 15 February the troop transport was carrying Italian, Serbian and French troops from Taranto to Salonica, was torpedoed and sunk by off Cape Matapan. 870 men were lost. | 870 | Military | ||||
| 1916 | – Armoured Cruiser, was sunk in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May, with the loss of 857 men, the entire crew. | 857 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – German armoured cruiser sunk in the Battle of the Falkland Islands by the British battlecruiser, killing all 860 occupants aboard, including Admiral Maximilian von Spee. | 860 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | – Just before midnight on 9 July at Scapa Flow, the battleship suffered an explosion, probably caused by an unnoticed stokehold fire heating cordite stored against an adjacent bulkhead in one of the two magazines that served the amidships gun turrets "P" and "Q". She sank almost instantly, killing an estimated 843 men; there were two survivors. | 843 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | – Pre Dreadnought, she was torpedoed by the destroyer, exploded and sank at the Battle of Jutland on the early morning hours of 1 June with her entire crew of 839 men. | 839 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – the pre-dreadnought battleship exploded at her moorings on the Medway off Kingsnorth, Kent, on 26 November, killing all but nine of her 805 men.[4] | 794 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | | – torpedoed on 17 February by, 180nmi south east of Malta. The ship sank in 14 minutes, killing 754 of the 1,950 aboard. | 754 | Military | |||
| 1915 | – At the Battle of Dogger Bank on 24 January the German warship, under heavy fire from British ships, was sunk and British destroyers began recovering the survivors. However, the destroyers withdrew when a German zeppelin began bombing them mistaking the sinking Blücher for a British battlecruiser. The number of casualties is unknown with figures ranging from 747 to around 1,000. | 747-1,000 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – On 19 March the Austro-Hungarian steamship struck a mine and quickly sank off Shëngjin, Albania. 970 to 1,003 people (including 413 Italian POWs) were registered as being aboard, but sources stated that also hundreds of unregistered Austro-Hungarian soldiers on leave had boarded her. At least 685 were lost. Other sources put the number of dead from more than 700 to more than 1,000. | 685-1000 | Military | ||||
| 1915 | | – This troopship with some 800 soldiers on board was torpedoed on 4 November by German submarine between Marseille and Oran. There were only 55 survivors. | 740 | Military | |||
| 1915 | | – On the night of 27 April the French cruiser was patrolling in the Ionian Sea 15nmi south of Santa Maria di Leuca. The Austro-Hungarian hit her with two torpedoes and she sank in 10 minutes. Of 821 men aboard 684 including Contre-amiral Victor Baptistin Sénès were lost along with all officers. There were 137 survivors. | 684 | Navy | |||
| 1916 | – On 11 December the Italian pre-dreadnought battleship struck two mines, capsized and quickly sank in the gulf of Valona, Albania. 678 of the 949 people aboard (37 officers, 760 enlisted men and 162 officers and soldiers traveling as passengers), including the former commander of the Italian expeditionary corps in Albania, lieutenant general Oreste Baldini, were lost. | 678 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – the armoured cruiser was sunk on 1 November off the Chilean coast along with in the Battle of Coronel. There were no survivors from Monmouths complement of 678. | 678 | Navy | ||||
| 1915 | – On 2 July, the British submarine torpedoed and badly damaged Prinz Adalbert near Gotland. On 23 October, torpedoed Prinz Adalbert 20miles west of Libau. The magazine exploded and the ship sank, killing 672 crew. There were three survivors. | 672 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | | – The battleship was returning to Lorient for a refit when on 26 November, off the Portuguese coast near Lisbon, she was torpedoed by . The torpedo detonated a magazine and Suffren sank within seconds, taking the crew of 648 with her. | 648 | Navy | |||
| 1917 | – On 21 February the passenger ship was taking members of the 5th Battalion, South African Native Labour Corps, to France. At 05:00 hrs, while under the escort of the destroyer, Mendi was struck and cut almost in half by SS Darro. Of 823 people aboard, 646 were lost. | 646 | Military | ||||
| 1918 | – On 12 July the Japanese battleship suffered an explosion in her ammunition magazine. Two minutes later she began to list to starboard and capsized four minutes after the explosion. Over a thousand men were aboard Kawachi at the time of the explosion and 621 of them were lost; 433 survived. | 621 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | – On 30 December torpedoed the troop ship off Alexandria, Egypt. Her escort, the destroyer, rescued 300 to 400 survivors but then UC-34 sank her as well. Of 2,700 personnel and crew aboard Aragon, 610 were lost in the two attacks. | 610 | Military | ||||
| 1918 | | – This troopship, traveling from Marseille over Bizerte to Salonica, with 2,025 soldiers on board was torpedoed on 11 May by German submarine . There were 605 casualties. | 605 | Military | |||
| 1915 | | – Sunk by a mine in the Dardanelles Campaign on 18 March. The battleship capsized and sank within two minutes, taking more than 600 crew with her. | 600 | Navy | |||
| 1916 | – On 5 June the cruiser was in a heavy sea about 1.5nmi off Orkney between Brough of Birsay and Marwick Head, when she suffered an explosion that holed her between her bows and bridge. She heeled to starboard. When her lifeboats were lowered, the heavy sea smashed them against her side. About 15 minutes after the explosion she sank by her bow. Of more than 600 men, only 12 on two Carley floats reached the shore. | 600 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – On 11 October Pallada was torpedoed by . The exploding torpedo set off the ship's ammunition and within a few minutes the cruiser sank along with her entire crew of 597. She was the first Russian warship sunk in World War I. | 597 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – A sister ship of SMS Scharnhorst, she was sunk in the same battle as her sister, by British cruisers, taking 596 men with her. | 596 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | – In the Battle of Jutland on 1 June a shell from hit the German light cruiser, exploded in her engine room and disabled her. Light cruisers of the British 3rd and 4th Light Cruiser Squadrons also battered her with their main guns. The ship sank sometime between 01:45 and 02:45 hrs. One crew member survived; 589 were lost. | 589 | Navy | ||||
| 1915 | – On the night of 12–13 May, Goliath was anchored in Morto Bay off Cape Helles when she was torpedoed. Goliath began to capsize almost immediately, she rolled over and began to sink by the bow, taking 570 of the 700-strong crew to the bottom. | 570 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – On 11 August the Austro-Hungarian troopship was torpedoed and sunk by the Italian submarine SMG F-7 off Pag Island. 555 of the 1,000 Austro-Hungarian troops aboard were lost. | 555 | Military | ||||
| 1915 | – On 1 January, the pre-dreadnought battleship was torpedoed by, she capsized and sank in the English Channel. Of her 780 complement, 35 officers and 512 men were lost. | 547 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – torpedoed in the North Sea off Aberdeen by on 15 October with the loss of 524 out of 594 officers and crew. | 524 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – The ferry was torpedoed and sunk by on 10 October, while bound for Holyhead. More than 500 people were lost: the greatest single loss of life in the Irish Sea. | 500 | Military | ||||
| 1914 | – the light cruiser was sunk in the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28 August, killing 485 people. | 485 | Navy | ||||
| 1919 | | – On 15 January, 2 months after the end of the War, the passenger steamer hit a mine in the Street of Messina, laid 3 months before by . The ship sank and 476 people were killed. | 476 | Civilian | |||
| 1915 | – On 27 September the pre-dreadnought battleship was blown up by Austro-Hungarian sabotage in Brindisi harbor. 454 officers and crew were lost, including Rear Admiral Rubin de Cervin; 387 survived. | 454 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | | – This troopship, traveling from Marseille to Madagascar, with 745 soldiers on board was torpedoed on 14 July by German submarine . There were 435 casualties. | 435 | Military | |||
| 1918 | – was a passenger liner rebuilt as a troopship. On 6 October, while sailing in poor visibility in the rough seas, she collided with another liner turned troopship, the Cashmir. Otranto then struck and was grounded. With heavy seas pounding her against the rocks she eventually broke up and sank, killing 431 people. | 431 | Military | ||||
| 1916 | | – On 8 February the French cruiser was torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea off Beirut by the Austro-Hungarian submarine and sank in two minutes. There was one survivor from her crew of 427.[5] | 426 | Navy | |||
| 1918 | | – The troopship, traveling from Marseille to Corsica, with 519 passengers on board was torpedoed on 16 August by German submarine . There were 417 casualties. | 417 | Military | |||
| 1917 | – The ship was torpedoed and sunk in the Gulf of Genoa on 4 May by . She was carrying Allied troops to Egypt; 412 people were killed. | 412 | Military | ||||
| 1914 | – on 4 November the German cruiser accidentally ran into a German minefield and was sunk; killing several hundred people. | 400 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | – On 30 December the armored cruiser and her squadron were at anchor in Cromarty Firth. A series of violent explosions tore through her after part and in five minutes she capsized with loss of 394 crew and civilians. The Admiralty court-martial into the cause of her loss concluded that it was an internal ammunition explosion possibly due to faulty cordite. | 390-421 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – On 28 August at the Battle of Heligoland Bight, the German light cruiser was hit several times by British battlecruisers' main guns but managed to escape in the haze. She inadvertently turned back toward them and was quickly disabled when battle resumed. Her crew abandoned her as she capsized and sank but German vessels did not search the area for three days. One of her 367 men survived. | 366 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | – The ship struck two mines off Lough Swilly in northwest Ireland on 25 January and sank within an hour. 354 aboard were killed; 121 survived. | 354 | Military | ||||
| 1914 | – The minelayer exploded and sank off Sheerness, Kent killing 352 people. | 352 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | | – This troopship, traveling from Oran to Port Vendres, with 575 soldiers on board was torpedoed on 11 May by German submarine . There were 344 casualties. | 344 | Military | |||
| 1915 | – The P&O liner was torpedoed and sunk without warning off Crete on 30 December by . She sank in 5–10 minutes, killing 343 of the 519 aboard. | 343 | Civilian | ||||
| 1914 | – In the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December the light cruiser was sunk by . Of 334 aboard, seven survived. | 327 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | – In the Battle of Jutland the German cruiser was hit by a torpedo from that cut her power and caused serious flooding. British 6inches shellfire set Frauenlobs deck afire. She quickly capsized and sank, killing 12 officers and 308 men. | 320 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | | – On 4 March the Proteus-class collier left Barbados carrying manganese ore from Brazil. She was due in Baltimore on 13 March but never arrived. She and 306 people aboard were declared missing, and no wreckage or bodies were ever identified. This is the US Navy's single largest loss of life not directly involving combat. Her loss was never explained, but one sister ship later developed structural faults and two others, and, vanished at sea in World War II. Also, Cyclops starboard engine was out of action, she may have been overloaded, and on 10 March there was a storm off the Virginia Capes. | 306 | Navy | |||
| 1917 | – On 14 January the Japanese cruiser exploded while in port at Yokosuka and sank with a loss of 305 men. The cause was later attributed to a fire in an ammunition magazine. | 305 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – On 1 November two men of the Regia Marina rode a primitive manned torpedo (nicknamed the Mignatta or "leech") into the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Pola. Using limpet mines they then sank the battleship with the loss of 300–400 men. | 300-400 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | Brindisi – On 6 January the Italian steamship was sunk off Shëngjin, Albania by a mine laid by a German submarine . 300 Italian crew and 540 Serbian and Montenegrin troops (who had been enlisted among Serbian and Montenegrin émigrées in the US and Canada) were killed, only 145 crew and passengers survived. The ship left Halifax harbor for Europe in December 1915. | 300 | Military | ||||
| 1917 | | – She was torpedoed by, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Robert Moraht on 19 March, south-west of Sardinia. The battleship was bound for the Greek island of Corfu to join the Allied blockade of the Strait of Otranto. The ship sank in 45 minutes. 806 men were rescued by the destroyer Massue, but 296, including Captain Delage, went down with the ship. | 296 | Navy | |||
| 1915 | HMS Viknor – The naval auxiliary was with the 10th Cruiser Squadron commanded by Commander EO Ballantyne with 22 officers and 273 ratings. She sank with all hands on 13 January while patrolling in heavy seas off Tory Island, Ireland. It is thought she struck a German naval mine. | 295 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – On 4 October, the Japanese liner had left Liverpool for Yokohama with 340 crew and passengers and general cargo on board. She was torpedoed in the Irish Sea during a strong hail by, killing 292 people. | 292 | Civilian | ||||
| 1917 | – On 15 April, en route from Salonica to Alexandria, the troop ship was sunk in the Aegean Sea 26nmi off Milos by, killing 279 people. | 279 | Military | ||||
| 1916 | – On 20 June, the ship on a voyage from Ochakov to Odessa struck a mine, laid by, and sank in the Black Sea 13nmi off Odessa with the loss of 272 lives. | 272 | Civilian | ||||
| 1914 | – The cruiser was struck by three torpedoes launched by an Imperial German Navy S90 torpedo boat on 14 October in the Battle of Tsingtao. She sank with the loss of 271 men. | 271 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | Tripoli – The Italian passenger steamship was torpedoed and sunk on 17 March off Sardinia by . She sank slowly, but 268 out of the 457 people aboard were killed. Other sources report 288 killed and 189 survivors, or more than 300 victims. | 268-288 | Civilian | ||||
| 1914 | – was a light cruiser that was sunk in action at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, 8 December with the loss of 268 men. | 268 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – On 5 September British cruiser was sunk off St. Abbs Head, Berwickshire, Scotland by . A torpedo struck one of her magazines, which exploded, sinking her within minutes and killing 259 men. | 259 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | and – During the action of 29 February 1916, German merchant raider and British armed merchant cruiser sank each other northeast of Shetland. An estimated 187 Germans perished along with 72 Britons. | 259 | Navy | ||||
| 1915 | Heireddin Barbarossa – The battleship was sunk on 8 August in the Dardanelles by the British submarine with the loss of 253 men. | 253 | Navy | ||||
| 1915 | – On 17 December the light cruiser, with the torpedo boat, ran into a Russian minefield. Bremen struck two mines off Windau and sank as did V191. 250 men – the majority of Bremens crew – were killed. | 250 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | – the Italian battleship saw no action but was sunk by a magazine explosion on 2 August killing 21 officers and 227 enlisted men out of a crew of 1,156. The Italians blamed Austro-Hungarian saboteurs for her loss but it may have been caused by unstable propellant. | 248 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 |  Canada | – On 27 June, the Canadian hospital ship was torpedoed off southern Ireland by . When her crew took to the lifeboats, U-86 surfaced, ran down all but one of her lifeboats and shot at people in the water. Only the 24 people in the remaining lifeboat survived. 234 people were killed. | 234 | Navy | |||
| 1918 | Bregenz – On 13 May the Austro-Hungarian troop transport was torpedoed and sunk by the Italian motor torpedo boat MAS 99 in Durazzo harbour. 234 of the 1,192 troops and crew aboard were lost, and 958 were rescued. | 234 | Military | ||||
| 1914 | – en route to attack shipping lanes to Barbados on 4 November a spontaneous internal explosion destroyed the ship and killed most of the crew. The survivors used one of Karlsruhe's colliers to return to Germany in December 1914. Of the 373 aboard 140 survived. | 233 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | – On 20 October while she was at anchor off Sevastopol fire was discovered in her forward powder magazine, which exploded before any efforts could be made to fight it. Sailors had flooded the forward magazine before the explosion at the cost of their own lives. About 40 minutes after the first explosion a second occurred in the area of her torpedo flat that destroyed the watertightness in the rest of her forward bulkheads. She began to sink by her bow and listed to starboard. She capsized a few minutes later, taking 228 sailors with her. The subsequent investigation determined that the explosion was probably caused by spontaneous combustion of the ship's nitrocellulose-based propellant as it decomposed. | 228 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | Perseo - On 4 May the troop transport, sailing from Messina to Cephalonia, was torpedoed and sunk by the Austro-Hungarian submarine, killing 227 men. | 227 | Military | ||||
| 1918 | HMS Louvain – on 21 January the Armed boarding steamer was torpedoed by in the Aegean Sea, sailing from Malta to Mudros. She sank quickly, killing 224 people. | 224 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | HMT Cameronia – on 15 April she was torpedoed by while en route from Marseille, France, to Alexandria, Egypt. She was serving as a troopship, carrying about 2,650 soldiers. She sank in 40 minutes, 150nmi east of Malta, killing 210 people. | 210 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | HMT Tuscania – The British troopship was torpedoed on 5 February by while taking US troops to Europe, and sank killing 210 people.[6] | 210 | Military | ||||
| 1917 | | Sequana – On 8 June, the troopship sailing between Dakar and Bordeaux was torpedoed and sunk 5 miles from the Île d'Yeu by with the loss of 207 lives. Most casualties were Senegalese soldiers.[7] | 207 | Military | |||
| 1915 | – An Italian passenger steamship that was torpedoed and sunk on 8 November near the Gulf of Cagliari by, causing a diplomatic crisis. Of the 446 passengers and 163 crew, 206 people were lost. | 206 | Civilian | ||||
| 1917 | | – On 28 January, the troopship on its way to the Salonika front was torpedoed and sunk west of Antikythera, Greece (35.8167°N 22°W) by with the loss of 203 lives.[8] | 203 | Military | |||
| 1914 | – On 28 August in the Battle of Heligoland Bight the German light cruiser was attacked and sunk by two British battlecruisers. About 200 of her men were lost; 59 survived. | 200 | Navy | ||||
| 1915 | HMS Bayano – The naval auxiliary was with the 10th Cruiser Squadron when on 11 March she was torpedoed by SM U-27 off Corsewall Point, near Stranraer, Schotland. She sank within minutes killing 196 of its crew. Only 26 men survived. | 196 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | and – On 12 January the two destroyers were on night patrol in the Pentland Firth in a snow storm when they ran aground on the Pentland Skerries and were wrecked. A total of 188 from the two ships were lost. One survivor from Opal was found. Most of the dead were never found. | 188 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – On 16 August the cruiser was sunk by gunfire in the Battle of Antivari off the coast of Bar, Montenegro, killing 179 people. | 179 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – On 13 August the Austro-Hungarian passenger steamship accidentally struck an Austro-Hungarian mine and quickly sank off Rovigno, Istria. The most reported figures are 177 people lost and 159 saved, but other sources state 120–160 lost and 190 saved out of 310–350 people (245–285 passengers and 65 crew) plus children, who were not registered, or more than 200 victims. She was carrying both civilians and Austro-Hungarian troops. | 177 | Civilian | ||||
| 1914 | – The first British loss in World War I, the scout cruiser struck a mine while on pre-arranged plan of search. About 150 of her men were lost, plus 18 of German POWs rescued from the minelayer . | 168 | Navy | ||||
| 1915 | – Troopship torpedoed and sunk in the Aegean Sea 36nmi south of Salonica, Greece on 23 October by, with the loss of 167 lives,[9] [10] (29 Crew, 10 Nurses, 128 Troops)[11] out of 741 people on board. | 167 | Military | ||||
| 1917 | – On 4 January the Russian battleship caught fire and sank after striking two mines, one forward and the other abreast a boiler room, north of Port Said, Egypt. Of 771 aboard 167 were killed. | 167 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – On 26 February the hospital ship was hit and sunk by a torpedo from .[12] Evidence suggested the submarine crew may have shot at initial survivors of the sinking in an effort to cover up the sinking. The body of one of her junior officers, recovered from the sea near where she sank, had two gunshot wounds.[13] His body also wore a life vest indicating he was shot while trying to abandon ship. Few survivors were reported; 162 people were killed. | 162 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – On 3 October, while travelling as part of a convoy in the Irish Sea in bad weather, the steamship was struck on the port side by the stern of City of Calcutta and is said to have sunk within 10 minutes. The two vessels were travelling in separate convoys and, in accordance with Admiralty orders, were steaming without lights. About 160 people were killed. | 160 | Civilian | ||||
| 1915 | HMS India - hired by the Admiralty on 13 March as an armed merchant cruiser and serving in the 10th Cruiser Squadron. On 8 August she stopped off Helligvaer, near Bodø, Norway, to inspect a suspected blockade runner and was torpedoed by . She sank with the loss of 10 officers and 150 ratings. The surviving 22 officers and 119 men were taken to Narvik. | 160 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | Letimbro – On 29 July the steamship was sailing from Benghazi to Syracuse, Sicily when shelled and torpedoed her. Of at least 208 people aboard, 52 survived. Other source does not include the 80+ soldiers among the 150 passengers, increasing the number of people aboard to at least 288 and the number of victims to at least 236. | 156+ | Civilian | ||||
| 1917 | – The Eloby was carrying French troops from Italy to the Salonika front when she was torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea 75 nautical miles (139 km) south east by east of Malta (35°11′N 15°38′E) by (Kaiserliche Marine) with the loss of over 156 lives : 56 British crew and more than 100 French soldiers from the 1st Regiment Mountain Artillery. | 156+ | Military | ||||
| 1916 | – the P&O passenger liner sank after striking a mine in the English Channel off Dover. She ran her engines astern to stop herself, but then could not stop them again as her engine room flooded. Numerous vessels came to assist, but her evacuation and rescue were hampered by her 75 degree list and her continuing to run astern. 155 passengers, officers and Lascar crew were killed. | 155 | Civilian | ||||
| 1915 | – Sank after striking a mine while engaged in battle in the Dardanelles on 18 March. 150 of her men were lost. | 150 | Navy | ||||
| 1915 | – On 17 November the British hospital ship was returning from Calais to Dover, carrying 390 wounded officers and men. At around 1230 hrs, 1nmi east of Folkestone Gate, Anglia struck a mine. The nearby torpedo gunboat helped evacuate the passengers and crew. Despite the assistance of the nearby collier Lusitania 134 people were lost.[14] [15] | 134 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – On 9 November the German cruiser was heavily damaged in the Battle of Cocos and was run aground to prevent her sinking. Of the 376 aboard 133 were killed in the battle. | 133 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | United States | USCGC Tampa - on 26 September, sailing independently having departed convoy HG-107 after successfully escorting it from Gibraltar into the North Sea, Tampa was spotted by UB-91 and torpedoed in the Bay of Bristol. All 111 Coast Guardsmen, 4 U.S. Navy personnel, and 16 British personnel were lost.[16] | 131 | U.S. Coast Guard | |||
| 1917 | – On 10 April, while returning to pick up wounded at the port of Le Havre, France, the British hospital ship struck a mine 1nmi north of the entrance to the dam. A huge explosion smashed her hull near the stern in her engine room and hold number three. She listed to starboard and she sank within 10 minutes. Of 205 people aboard, 79 were lost. The British patrol boat HMS P-26 tried to come alongside to assist but also struck a mine and sank. | 130 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – On 20 January, while the battleships and were absent, Raglan and other members of the Detached Squadron of the Aegean Squadron were attacked by the Turkish battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim, light cruiser Midilli and four destroyers. Raglan was sunk, killing 127 people. | 127 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | – The pre-dreadnought battleship was off Malta early on 27 April when she struck two mines laid by . Fire broke out in her after part and the order abandon ship was given. There was an explosion near her after 12inches turret and she took on a dangerous list, but she sank slowly letting most of her crew escape. 27 officers and 98 ratings were lost.[17] | 125 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – The troop ship was serving as a hospital ship, and was accordingly painted white with a green waistband and large red crosses. Nevertheless, on 3 August when she was taking wounded soldiers from Le Havre, France, to Southampton, England, she was torpedoed by .[18] As with a number of other hospital ships torpedoed in the war, Germany claimed she was also carrying arms.[19] She sank in about two hours, and of the 801 people aboard 123 were killed.[20] | 123 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | – Troopship transporting more than 2400 British soldiers from Marseille to Alexandria, torpedoed and sunk 58nmi south-east of Cape Matapan, Greece on 1 January by, with the loss of 120 lives,[21] (35 crew, 85 troops). | 120 | Military | ||||
| 1918 | | – This troopship, travelling from Marseille over Bizerte to Salonika was torpedoed on 27 August by German submarine . There were 117 casualties. | 117 | Military | |||
| 1918 | – On 16 November off Lisignano in Istria the Italian scout cruiser struck a mine that almost instantly tore her in two. Her bow quickly sank vertically while her severely stern rose out of the water and drifted for before sinking. 18 other ships arrived at the site but most of her crew were trapped in her hull and went down with the ship. Seven officers and 93 petty officers and ratings were lost; 34 survived. | 100 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | HS Portugal – On 30 March the Russian hospital ship was towing a string of small flat-bottomed boats to ferry wounded from the shore. Off Rizeh, on the Turkish Black Sea coast she had stopped as one of the small boats was sinking and being repaired. fired a torpedo that missed, and then a torpedo at a depth of 30 feet, that hit near Portugals engine room, breaking her in two. 90 of those aboard were lost. | 90 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – On 28 August, in the Battle of Heligoland Bight, the German cruiser was sunk. British forces rescued 348 but 89 were lost when the ship capsized and sank. | 89 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | – On 28 October the Russian cruiser was lost in the Battle of Penang. The ship was torpedoed and broke in two with the explosion, killing 89 crew and wounding 143 others. | 89 | Navy | ||||
| 1914 | HMHS Rohilla – On 30 October the hospital ship struck Whitby Rock, a reef in the North Sea at Saltwick south of Whitby. At the time there was a fierce gale and due to wartime blackout conditions no landmarks were visible. Although she was only from shore, the high sea and storm force winds made rescue difficult. Many of the 229 people aboard were saved; 85 were killed. | 85 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | – on 17 October the British destroyer was escorting a convoy of 12 merchant ships from Norway when she was sunk about 70nmi east of Lerwick by the German cruisers and . 83 of her men were killed. | 83 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – On 16 September, before she had gone into action, the coastal defence ship was at Dover when fire broke out in her midships magazine. Her crew were unable to contain the fire, and any explosion could detonate the munitions ship moored only away. torpedoed Glatton in an attempt to flood the magazine, but the torpedoes were too small to breach her anti-torpedo bulge. Then torpedoed Glatton, successfully flooding and capsizing her. 60 men were killed in the fire and 124 injured, of whom 19 later died of burns. | 79 | Navy | ||||
| 1915 | – On 25 May the pre-dreadnought battleship was torpedoed and sunk off Gaba Tepe by in the Gallipoli Campaign. The destroyer took off most of her crew before she capsized ten minutes later. She floated upside down for about 30 minutes then slowly sank in about of water. Three officers and 75 ratings were lost. | 78 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | – The destroyer was sunk by a mine on 8 February off Dungeness. Five of her 79 crew were rescued. | 74 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | | – On 6 December the destroyer was steaming independently from Brest, France to Queenstown, Ireland when she was torpedoed and damaged by and scuttled with the loss of 66 officers and men. She was the first US destroyer sunk by enemy action.[22] She sank in eight minutes without making a distress call, but the German submarine commander took two badly injured US crew aboard and radioed the US base at Queenstown with the coordinates for the survivors. | 66 | Navy | |||
| 1917 | Bditelnyi – The torpedo boat struck a mine, laid by the German, and sunk on 27 November south of Mäntyluoto, Pori, Finland. 57 of the crew and 2 Finnish pilots were lost.[23] | 59 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – The armed merchant cruiser was torpedoed and sunk on 23 May off Beachy Head in the English Channel by a torpedo from . At the time she was carrying US troops, 56 of whom were lost. | 56 | |||||
| 1915 | – On the night of 18 July the Italian cruiser was hit by a torpedo launched from the Austrian-Hungarian submarine off Dubrovnik. She sank in three minutes; 53 crew were killed. | 53 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | | – On 24 March the French passenger ferry was sailing from Folkestone to Dieppe when she was torpedoed by .[24] She was severely damaged with her entire bow forward of her bridge blown off.[25] Some of her lifeboats were launched, but at least two capsized and many passengers were drowned. Of 53 crew and 325 passengers at least 50 were killed, but a figure of between 80 and 100 is also suggested. Sussex remained afloat and was eventually towed stern-first into Boulogne harbour.[26] | 50-100 | Civilian | |||
| 1918 | – On 2 August, while minelaying in the western end of the Heligoland Bight, the British destroyer was sunk by a naval mine. In attempting to exit the minefield, after the destroyer struck a mine and sank, theAriel struck a German mine, lost her bow and sank within an hour. 49 of her crew were lost. | 49 | Navy | ||||
| 1915 | – On 27 May, while stationed off W Beach at Cape Helles, Majestic became the third battleship to be torpedoed off Gallipoli in two weeks. fired one torpedo through the defensive screen of destroyers and anti-torpedo nets, hitting Majestic and causing a huge explosion. She began to list to port and in nine minutes capsized in of water killing 49 men. Her masts hit the mud of the sea bottom and her upturned hull remained visible for many months until it finally submerged when her foremast collapsed in a storm. | 49 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | – On 2 August, while conducting minelaying in the western end of the Heligoland Bight, the British destroyer was sunk after striking a German mine. The explosion caused her forward magazine to detonate, blowing off the entire forepart of the ship forward of the forward funnel, and killing one officer and 47 ratings. Shortly afterward suffered the same fate while leaving the minefield. | 48 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | – On the night of 9–10 December, while Wien and were at anchor in Trieste, two Italian torpedo boats penetrated the harbor defenses undetected and fired several torpedoes at them. Budapest was not hit but Wien was struck by two torpedoes and sank in less than five minutes with the loss of 46 of her crew. | 46 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | – On 18 June the destroyer collided with the troop ship in the English Channel. She sank with the loss of her commander and 42 officers and men; 33 officers and men were rescued by the troop ship.[27] Her wreck lies in 34m (112feet) in the waters near Fécamp.[28] | 43 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | – On the evening of 17 April the hospital ship, while carrying wounded from Le Havre to Southampton, was torpedoed by .[29] 22 British and 18 Germans were killed.[30] | 42 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | – On 7 February, 38nmi west by south of Fastnet Rock, Ireland the transatlantic liner was hit by two torpedoes fired by . She caught fire, and five people were killed in the explosion and 36 drowned either as she sank or when one lifeboat was swamped by her wake as she was still making way as she sank. She sank in nine minutes, killing 41 people. | 41 | Civilian | ||||
| 1917 | HMHS Donegal – On 17 April the British hospital ship was torpedoed by 19nmi south of the Dean lightship while en route from Le Havre for Southampton. 40 of those aboard were lost.[31] | 40 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | HS Tirol – On 16 April the Austrio-Hungarian hospital ship struck a mine off Durazzo killing 40. The ship was repaired and returned to service on 7 October 1916.[32] | 40 | Navy | ||||
| 1915 | – On 1 May while patrolling with, the destroyer was sunk by 30nmi south-west of the Galloper Light Vessel off the Thames Estuary. She broke in two and sank with the loss of 39 men; 4 officers and 22 crew were rescued.[33] [34] | 39 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | – On 26 July the cruiser was torpedoed and sunk off Beachy Head by . 38 people were lost. | 38 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | – On 21 February the Italian hospital ship was sunk by a mine laid by, killing 33–200 people. | 33-200 | Navy | ||||
| 1917 | – British Q-ship sunk by German submarine U-46 on 20 May off the West coast of Ireland. | 31 | Navy | ||||
| 1916 | – the hospital ship was struck by a mine on 21 November off the coast of Greece. 30 people were killed in an attempt to abandon the ship in a lifeboat without the captain's knowledge. It was sucked into the still moving propellers of the ship and destroyed. Even though she was the largest ship lost during the war, she did not get the fame like that of her sister the . | 30 | Navy | ||||
| 1918 | | – The troopship was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean 600nmi off Brest, Finistère, France by with the loss of 26 of the 715 people on board. Survivors were rescued by and (both). | 26 | Military |