Before joining the Dover Patrol, Swift sailed from Scapa Flow in October 1914 to search for the missing cruiser HMS Hawke. She found a raft carrying one officer and 21 men after a U-boat had torpedoed the cruiser. The small survivor group underlined the danger facing cruisers operating without escorts or a means to detect submerged submarines. Hawke's loss belongs with those of Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressy as evidence that forced the Royal Navy to take the vulnerability seriously and influenced later cruiser thinking.
Notable Point · 1:11:46-1:12:46
HMS Swift finds survivors from the torpedoed HMS Hawke
Swift's early wartime search recovered an officer and 21 men from HMS Hawke, illustrating how exposed unescorted cruisers were before effective submarine detection.