HMS Birkenhead Sinks off South Africa
Poet involved
What happened
The troopship HMS Birkenhead struck rocks near Danger Point in the Cape Colony in February 1852. Soldiers reportedly maintained formation while women and children entered the available boats. More than 400 people died in the cold, shark-filled waters off the South African coast.
Literary impact
Sir Francis Hastings Doyle's The Loss of the Birkenhead made the soldiers' discipline a Victorian moral exemplar. Kipling later invoked the Birkenhead drill in Soldier an' Sailor Too, ensuring that the ship remained embedded in imperial and military poetry.
Source: Wikipedia
