Iolaire disaster
Britain's worst peacetime maritime disaster occurred at the approaches to Stornoway harbour immediately after the First World War.
About 205 men died when Admiralty yacht HMY Iolaire hit rocks in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1919. Only 79 made it ashore alive.
Servicemen who survived the bloody battlefields and torpedoed ships of World War 1 perished on the Beasts of Holm, just yards from safety.
Joyful celebrations to greet their home-coming on New Year's Day 1919 turned to an extended dark, deepened, period of mourning as corpse upon corpse washed ashore in the days and weeks to follow. Many were never recovered.
This was Britain's biggest peace-time maritime disaster and it tore the heart out of an island. Scarcely a single village on Lewis did not lose men in the sinking.
Because of the enormity of the disaster many war memorials on Lewis mark the end of the war as 1919 and not the official date of November 1918.
The majority of the dead came from Lewis. Seven belonged to Harris while 31 men were crew members from different parts of the UK.
The Iolaire ripped into rocks about thirty yards from the shore. The howling wind whipped up the rough seas and swimming ashore - even that short distance was fatally dangerous.
Numerous men who jumped overboard were sucked to their death by the furious surf.
Distress flares were fired but no help came. The rockets were mistaken as fireworks to celebrate the homecoming. Rescue from seaward was futile. Jagged rocks and heavy seas made it impossible for boats to get anywhere near the stricken ship.
One hero, John F Macleod from Ness, risked his life to get ashore with a rope. He was pulled back by a cauldron of thrashing seas in his initial attempts.
But he timed his next move and body-surfed on the back of a huge wave to get thrown onto the rocks ashore. His heroism saved the lives of half the survivors and he was later awarded medals for his bravery.
By dawn, all but one left on board the wreck had perished. One mast snapped throwing three men to their deaths in the middle of the dark night.
That left only Donald Morrison from Ness who had clambered to the top of a mast and dearly embraced it for hours until help eventually came.
Daylight witnessed scores of broken dead bodies bobbing about in the water or washed ashore. About a third of the dead were never found.
The youngest survivor was Donald Maciver from New Tolsta who was just 17 years old. His lifebelt from the Iolaire is kept at Museum nan Eilean as a record of the tragedy.
A naval court of inquiry was held in private but was non-conclusive and did not apportion blame for the tragedy.
A later public inquiry criticised the ship's officers for not slowing the ship down in time and failing to issue any orders after the collision. There was also insufficient life saving equipment onboard.
The exact number of passengers onboard the ship was never been confirmed as there was no legal requirement to keep a tally. It took a further seven decades until the sinking of the MV Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987 before passenger counts were taken on ferry boats.
The Iolaire tragedy plunged the island into deep gloom. It was only when the memorial was erected at Holm Point in 1960 that people started to talk about it.