For the crew of HMS Hawke, the mission was clear: patrol the North Sea waters off Aberdeen, deter German attacks and smooth the passage of troops from Canada.

The Edgar-Class protected cruiser, laid down in Chatham in 1891, her machinery built by Fairfields on the Clyde and with a distinctive array of weapons on board, was already in her twilight years by the time the First World War was tearing through Europe.

She’d served in the warmth of Grecian waters with the Mediterranean Fleet, travelled to South Africa to deliver fresh crews for British vessels there and survived an unfortunate collision in the Solent with White Star ocean liner RMS Olympic.

War took her north as part of the 10th Cruiser Squadron to perform blockade duties between the Shetland Islands and Norway, and eventually in autumn 1914 to a point off Aberdeen.

It was there at 10.30am on the morning of October 15, that a single torpedo from German submarine U-9, which already had three British vessel ‘kills’ to its name – streaked across the water and delivered its fatal blow.

It took just eight minutes for HMS Hawke to come to rest on the seabed and for 524 officers and men to lose their lives.

But it would take a further 110 years for her to be found.

For the Scottish team of shipwreck detectives who recently tracked her down, discovering her watery resting place was the chance to write her final chapter and lay her to rest once and for all.

Finding her was like searching for a needle in a massive haystack, underpinned by a dedication to unravelling the secrets of the seabed.

First, there were months of meticulous research, cross-checking ships’ logbooks with underwater maps, reading reports of the incident and scanning every mention of it in the hope of pinpointing where she lay.

Then came the wait for a perfect combination of the right weather conditions and the gathering of expert divers capable of plunging to the depth where she was thought to lie.

The team from Buchan Divers on board their vessel, ClasinaThe team from Buchan Divers on board their vessel, Clasina (Image: Buchan Divers)

According to the teams involved, it has been about more than simply finding another one of the hundreds of civilian fishing trawlers and merchant navy vessels, Royal Navy ships, German warships and U-boats that litter the seabed.

Instead, according to Orkney-based Kevin Heath, whose research project Lost in Waters Deep helped pinpoint where HMS Hawke lies, and Jim Burke of Buchan Divers, the Peterhead-based expert dive team that explored the wreck, it’s about paying respects to those who gave their lives.

“They say people die twice: when they die and then when people stop talking about them” says Kevin.

“But when we can find the wreck, when you see the ship’s bell…

“We are telling their stories and by doing that, it’s almost bringing them back to life.

“Otherwise, they’re like names on a war memorial. People walk by and don’t look at them.”

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HMS Hawke is one of the most significant vessels they’ve found: it was among the first Royal Navy vessels lost at the start of the conflict at a time when Britain's fleet was struggling to cope with the threat posed by German U-boats.

But it is just one of dozens dotted around Scotland’s coast whose whereabouts have been narrowed down and confirmed thanks to shipwreck sleuths.

In Orkney, Kevin, who works with Orkney Hyperbaric Trust and spearheads the Lost In Waters Deep project, hunts through century-old ships’ logs and cross-checks information in the hope of finding tiny clues leading to wrecks.

The dive team on board MV Clasina during the search for HMS HawkeThe dive team on board MV Clasina during the search for HMS Hawke (Image: Buchan Divers)

He shares his findings with, among others, the Buchan Divers team. They, in turn, carry out their own research into potential wreck sites, often gathering valuable information from fishing crews.

Their teamwork has led to the discovery and confirmation of dozens of wrecks: after five years of investigation in 2022, they found the wreck of missing Royal Navy minesweeping gunboat, HMS Jason.

The vessel sank in February 1917 after striking a mine, but although the wreck’s location had appeared on nautical charts for decades, a 2011 seabed survey had found no trace.

Working together, the shipwreck teams found her nearly half a mile from where it was thought to have sank.

Last year, they also confirmed the resting place of HMS Negro and HMS Hoste. The two destroyers had collided in waters off Fair Isle in 1916 causing an explosion.

In the case of HMS Hawke, Kevin scoured the ship’s journal kept by the German commander of U-9, the U-boat that fired the fatal torpedo, for clues.

Ships’ logs kept by Royal Navy vessels in the area at the time helped him narrow down the search.

Cross-checked against other data, sonar scans of the seabed and local fishermen’s knowledge of the waters offered further details pointing to where HMS Hawke might be.

Wreckage from WW1 wreck HMS HawkeWreckage from WW1 wreck HMS Hawke (Image: Buchan Divers)

Finally, with a clear idea of where to search, Jim, a retired IT consultant, and divers including marine biologist Will Schwarz took their vessel, MV Clasina, to approximately 85 miles east of Fraserburgh.

“We’ve known about Hawke’s general position for many years,” says Jim. “But because of Kevin’s research we got to a more specific area, around 70 nautical miles out from the coast.

“We needed to be reasonably sure that we had good research and the right equipment before we started.

“And there’s only 20 or 30 people in the UK that can dive to these depths safely.

“Finding Hawke was really exciting,” he adds, “because you really don’t know what is there until you dive.  

“Everything up to then is just guesswork and supposition.”

The team’s divers were briefed on HMS Hawke’s unique design features to help them identify her.

But the detail of what they found took them by surprise – even down to the crew’s cups and plates.

“We were amazed how intact she was,” says Jim.

WW1 ship, HMS Hawke, was sunk by German torpedoWW1 ship, HMS Hawke, was sunk by German torpedo (Image: Buchan Divers)

“She is lying on her side and still has her wooden deck structure.

“The hull was intact, guns in place. The divers could peer into the cabins, the bridge and some of the rooms.

“They could see things like clocks, barometers and gauges, shiny bits of brass on the guns.

“It was all beautifully preserved because when you’re that far out, there’s not many nutrients in the water and not much life.”

Details of HMS Hawke’s discovery will be added to the Lost in Waters Deep website set up by Kevin and fellow researcher Wendy Sadler.

It lists dozens of shipwrecked vessels, their whereabouts and their crews, even down to newspaper clippings about their loss, handwritten excerpts from logs and photographs and biographies of the men who served on them.

It will also be recorded on Buchan Diver’s site alongside the long list of other vessels the team has been involved in finding.

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While the Royal Navy is expected to declare the site a war grave giving it protection from being disturbed and from further dives.

Remarkably, during their search for HMS Hawke the team also found German U-boat, U-77, complete with hydroplanes, external torpedo tubes, mine laying chutes and a small gun, still in its mounts and pointing to the surface.

The dive team involved in the search for HMS HawkeThe dive team involved in the search for HMS Hawke (Image: Buchan Divers/Lost In Waters Deep)

Her position has been shared with the German War Graves Commission.

Having found one their most significant Navy vessels so far, the search goes on for more. Attention is now focused on 'Project Meteor', the search for eight vessels destroyed by mines in the Moray Firth.

“So far we’ve found round 80 from both world wars and between the wars,” says Jim.

“But there are between 200 and 500 shipwrecks off the coast of north east Scotland alone. Many have never been dived before.

“They’re just out there, waiting to be found.

“It’s the pleasure of doing it,” he adds. “Some people spend thousands of pounds playing golf, we spend thousands on diving equipment.

“There’s the elation of finding a new shipwreck and being able to identify positively what is there.

“Quite often we are contacted by relatives of people that survived or were lost.

“It means a lot to them to know we’re doing this.”

Kevin adds: “I like solving the mystery of it.

“When we found Hawke it was really exciting, then it’s ‘what do we do now?’

“I look for another mystery to solve.

“It’s about getting to the bottom of where these ships are and bringing their story to an end.”