The Lord Stewart (Wreck)

 shipwreck, interesting place

With three Royal Navy patrol ships clustered protectively around him, Captain James Hardy of the 1445 ton armed merchantman Lord Stewart could be forgiven for thinking his ship was safe.
So she was - until she reached the west end of Lyme Bay at 8pm on 16 September, 1918, on her way from Cherbourg to Barry in ballast.

Five minutes later, a torpedo from UB104 struck the 248ft ship on her port side forward and exploded well below the waterline. She started sinking at once, so quickly that the two naval gunners manning her 12-pounder stern gun had no time even to swivel it in the direction from which the torpedo had come. Captain Hardy ordered them to the boats with the rest of the crew.

One of the crew was killed - the sole Spaniard in the crew of 21 was drowned when the Lord Stewart rolled and went down. From the torpedo strike to her disappearance took only four minutes.

One Naval patrol vessel dropped four depth charges on the spot where it thought the U-boat should be, but there was no sign of success. However, no more was ever heard of Oberleutnant Bieber and UB104, though he and his crew are said to have been lost when attempting to return to Zeebrugge via the round-Britain route, and struck mines of the Northern Barrage near the Orkneys.