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Audacious is further down by the stern and her quarter deck is now awash. The bulk of the remaining crew are now being evacuated to small boats whilst three destroyers stand by. (IWM)

At 2055, Audacious capsized and turned turtle, floating upside down for a short period. At about 2100, a series of massive explosions in the vicinity of the forward shell rooms and magazines, which served A and B turrets, blew out her bow from about the bridge forward. Large sections of the ship were sent spiralling through the air. Within minutes, the battleship sank stern first.

Olympic had steamed back to Lough Swilly earlier that evening when Audacious was abandoned for the night, to disembark the rescued crew. For security reasons, Olympic was ordered to remain out of sight of the Grand Fleet vessels, so that none of her paying passengers, with perhaps pro-German sympathies, would be able to observe the fleet’s activities. There were quite a number of German-born Americans aboard Olympic who had witnessed Audacious sinking – and it was felt that they could not be relied upon to keep quiet.