Victoria in Later Centuries
After a search that lasted ten years, the wreck was discovered on 22 August 2004 in 150 metres of water by a Lebanese diver called Christian Francis. She stands vertically with her bow and some 30 metres of her length buried in the mud and her stern pointing directly upwards towards the surface. This position is not unique among shipwrecks as first thought, as the Russian monitor Rusalka also rests like this. The unusual attitude of this wreck is thought to have been due to the heavy single turret forward containing the main armament coupled with the still-turning propellers driving the wreck downwards.
The 1949 Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets features a satire of the accident, in which Alec Guinness plays Admiral Lord Horatio D'Ascoyne, who orders a manoeuvre that causes his flagship to be rammed and sunk by another ship in his fleet. Guinness noted that his portrayal of the admiral was based on an officer he knew during his training during the Second World War.
Read more about this topic: HMS Victoria (1887)
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