HMS Russell was a Duncan-class pre-dreadnought battleship commissioned in 1903 by the British Royal Navy and designed to steam at 19 knots to counter Russia’s fast battleships. The ship saw active duty in World War I and was eventually moved to the Mediterranean as part of the Dardanelles campaign against the Ottoman Empire. After the conclusion of the campaign, Russell was steaming off the coast of Malta on April 27th, 1916 when the ship struck two naval mines that had been laid by the German submarine U-73. The ship sank slowly allowing most of the crew to escape, but 27 officers and 98 enlisted seamen were lost.
