The Live Bait Squadron

On the 22th of September 1914 three British cruisers, the HMS Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy patrol the waters between England and the Netherlands. The Great War started seven weeks earlier. On board 2,300 crewmen who were taken completely by surprise by a new, rather unknown and destructive weapon: the German U-boat. They were sitting duck. It took only six torpedoes to kill 1459 men and boys in the blink of an eye. This live bait squadron was one of the biggest shipping disasters in world history!

Hundred years

For the next hundred years this catastrophic event received hardly any attention. Which is strange, because the number of victims is similar to that of the sinking of the Titanic, two years earlier. Today, three mass graves lie on the bottom of the North Sea only 22 miles off the Dutch coast near Scheveningen.

Questions

How did it happen? What has happened since? What is the condition of this naval graveyard nowadays? And how does it look like underwater? Questions that will be answered in this intriguing documentary.

The Live Bait Squadron