HMS Arethusa (1913)
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|---|---|
| ' Arethusa' class | |
.jpg) HMS Arethusa |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Light cruiser |
| units | 8th |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | October 28, 1912 |
| Launch | October 25, 1913 |
| delivery | August 26, 1914 |
| period of service |
1914-1916 |
| Removed from ship register | August 1916 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement | |
| length |
overall: 132.98 m (436 ft) |
| width |
11.9 m (39 ft) |
| Draft |
4.12 m (13.5 ft) |
| crew |
318 men |
| drive |
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| speed |
28.5 kn |
| Armament |
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| Fuel supply |
482 ts fuel oil (max. 810 ts) |
| Armor | |
| Command tower |
152 mm (6 in) |
| Belt armor |
25–60 mm (1–2.25 in) |
| deck |
25 mm (1 in) |
HMS Arethusa was the lead ship of the Arethusa- class light cruisers of the British Royal Navy . She took part in the sea battle near Heligoland at the end of August 1914, where she was severely damaged. On December 25, 1914, the Arethusa took part in securing the attack by British seaplanes on Cuxhaven and in January 1915 in the battle on the Dogger Bank. HMS Arethusa suffered a mine hit on February 11, 1916 off Felixstowe and ran into a tow attempt at Cutler Shoal , where it could not be brought down and was abandoned in August.
The Arethusa class
The ships of the Arethusa class of 3500 ts were the Royal Navy's first attempt to create a uniform light cruiser again, after having previously been used with the late scout cruisers of the Boadicea , Blonde and Active classes as well as the cruisers displacing over 5000 ts of the different series of the Town class had procured two different types at the same time. After discussion in a committee, eight armored light cruisers were ordered from five shipyards in September 1912 . In October, the keel-laying of the first two ships at the state shipyards in Chatham and Devonport and in December 1912 the third ship at the Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company . In addition, Beardmore built three cruisers in Dalmuir and Vickers built two cruisers of this type in Barrow .
The new type had a propulsion system that was fired exclusively with oil and a relatively light turbine system that was more similar to the previous versions for destroyers. Unlike the previous scouts , the armor was arranged to be equivalent to that of the town cruisers. The 25 mm thick armored deck not only protected the propulsion system, but also the controls. There was also a side armor that reached from the bow to the stern. Its thickness increased from 37 mm to 75 mm in the area of the drive system and decreased back to 50 mm towards the rear.
In retrospect, the armament of the cruiser was not well chosen, as a mixed main armament was installed. This had already led to unsatisfactory results in the 1890s and with the town cruisers. Two individual 152 mm Mk.XII guns were installed as bow and stern guns , of which only the front received a protective shield. The other armament consisted of six 102 mm Mk.V guns . The supply of the guns with ammunition and the assessment of the shooting results in action turned out to be problematic.
In addition, the ships initially received a QF-3 pdr Vickers gun as an anti-aircraft weapon (which did not prove itself) and four 530 mm torpedo tubes . During the war, the anti-aircraft armament on all ships was replaced and the torpedo armament was reinforced. As early as 1915, five ships temporarily carried an aircraft and in 1918 the seven remaining ships had an aircraft platform on the forecastle above the bow gun, as well as a tripod mast and a fire control system. Some had a mine-laying facility or the opportunity to carry tethered balloons .
At the start of the war, five of the eight Arethusa- class ships had been launched and all could be put into service by March 1915. They turned out to be well suited for service in the North Sea, but turned out to be very tight. The following C-class cruisers , displacing more than 4000 ts, eight of which were ordered in 1913 and under construction at the start of the war, did not have this defect. Of this class, 28 cruisers were built in seven subgroups.
Mission history
The Arethusa was launched on October 25, 1913 at the Kent Navy Yard as the second ship of the class and was the first to enter service in August 1914. It replaced the cruiser HMS Amethyst as the flagship of the Harwich Force and the scout HMS Amphion, which sank on August 6, 1914, as the flotilla leader of the 3rd destroyer flotilla there. The commander of the Harwich Force, Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt , had been calling for a replacement for his previous flagship Amethyst for some time , as it could not keep up with the speed of the destroyers. Arethusa , who arrived in Harwich on August 26, was immediately used in the company against the German outpost lines, which led to the sea battle at Heligoland on August 28, 1914.
Sea battle near Heligoland
On August 27, Tyrwhitt ran out on the Arethusa with 16 modern L-class destroyers of the 3rd Flotilla, followed by Captain Wilfred Blunt on the HMS Fearless with 16 older destroyers. At around 8:00 a.m., the Arethusa and her destroyers discovered the German torpedo boat SMS G 194 in the expected position of German ships. With a visibility of less than three nautical miles, the Fearless and the destroyers of the 1st Flotilla were about two nautical miles behind and the six cruisers of the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron were about 13 kilometers further under Goodenough . G 194 ran back to Helgoland and informed Rear Admiral Leberecht Maaß over the radio, who informed the commander of the reconnaissance forces and battle cruiser, Franz Hipper . Hipper did not know the extent of the British attack and ordered the small cruisers SMS Stettin and SMS Frauenlob to defend the outpost line. Six other cruisers were supposed to support the defenders as quickly as possible: SMS Mainz from the Ems ; SMS Strasbourg , SMS Cöln , SMS Ariadne , SMS Stralsund and SMS Kolberg from Jade as well as SMS Danzig and SMS Munich from Brunsbüttelkoog on the Elbe estuary.
Tyrwhitt ordered four destroyers under HMS Laurel to pursue the G 194 . The noise of the battle led more German torpedo boats onto the battlefield, some of which were hit immediately by British fire. Everyone tried to reach Heligoland and to run under the protection of the batteries there, but they did not intervene because they could not distinguish the boats. At 8:58 a.m., the Stettin and the Frauenlob arrived and the British destroyers withdrew to their cruisers Arethusa and Fearless . The Frauenlob took up the battle with the Arethusa , while the Stettin withdrew, as the German torpedo boats had withdrawn.
In theory, the Arethusa was superior, but her crew was inexperienced and her new 102 m Mk.V guns were prone to interference. Two were jammed and a third was hit. The woman praise , armed with ten 105-mm guns, scored several hits on the Arethusa before it scored a hit with her 152-mm guns on the German cruiser, which destroyed its bridge. 37 men and the commander were injured, five men died. The female praise , hit ten times in total, withdrew to Helgoland and then to Wilhelmshaven with the torpedo boat SMS V 3 , which had the severely damaged boat SMS T 33 in tow .
From 9:12 a.m. Tyrwhitt ran west and met six other German torpedo boats. SMS V 187 was sunk before the returned Stettin could intervene. Tyrwhitt only saw the Stettin briefly, which then met the Fearless and her destroyers. The severely damaged Arethusa met the Fearless at 11:17 a.m. and both cruisers were stopped for 20 minutes to carry out necessary repairs.
Strasbourg , the first of the alerted cruisers to arrive from the jade, discovered the Arethusa and attacked her with artillery and torpedoes. The accompanying destroyers drove Strasbourg away with torpedo attacks, as did the Cöln that arrived afterwards with Rear Admiral Maaß on board. Tyrwhitt asked Beatty for reinforcements, who caught up with Goodenough and his remaining four cruisers . At 12:30 p.m., Tyrwhitt's unit was attacked by the incoming small cruiser Mainz . Goodenough's cruisers only arrived after 20 minutes of fighting and put the Mainz to flight. At 1:20 p.m. the Mainz was abandoned by its commander, which had previously badly damaged three British destroyers. The British destroyer Lurcher went alongside the Mainz and rescued a large part of the crew before they sank to 53 ° 58 ' N , 6 ° 42' E. The Strasbourg and the Cöln attempted a joint attack, which was ended by the arrival of Beatty and the battlecruisers.
The severely damaged Arethusa was finally brought in by the armored cruiser HMS Hogue . She had 11 dead and 17 injured.
When the German battle cruisers first shelled the British coast near Gorleston and Yarmouth on November 3, 1914 , the Arethusa , which was ready for action again, sought the German cruisers that were running out without success.
The attack on Cuxhaven
On December 25, 1914, she was one of the security forces for the British attack on Christmas Day on Cuxhaven . This was the Royal Navy's first combined sea and air attack to find the airship hangars of the German Zeppelins and, if possible, bomb them. The Harwich Force under Commodore Tyrwhitt protected the three seaplane tenders HMS Engadine , HMS Riviera and HMS Empress , former canal ferries that each transported three seaplanes to the vicinity of Helgoland , where the water start of the machines was to take place.
Only seven of the Short machines that were on board managed to take off; two were immediately taken back on board. All crews survived the flight, which lasted more than 3 hours. Three machines returned to the tenders, including the machine on which Robert Erskine Childers flew as an observer. Three machines landed near Norderney at an agreed alternate position, where the crews were picked up by the submarine HMS E 11 , which sank the aircraft. Flt. Lt. Francis ET Hewlett had to make an emergency landing on the return flight off Heligoland and was initially considered missing. A Dutch fish steamer rescued him and brought him ashore on January 2nd in IJmuiden , from where he returned to Britain.
Fog, a very low cloud cover and massive anti-aircraft fire prevented the attack from being successful. The airship port of Nordholz was not found and no significant damage was caused to the attacked targets.
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Skirmish on the Dogger Bank
On January 24, 1915, the Arethusa was in the Harwich Force with her sister ships Aurora and Undaunted and 35 destroyers involved in the battle on Dogger Bank. At the end of the battle the torpedoed Arethusa the Blucher with two torpedoes and rescued 260 survivors of the German battleship.
In June 1915 she became the flagship of the new 5th Light Cruiser Squadron and also remained Tyrwhitt's flagship of the Harwich Force . In this role she was one of the security forces for the seaplane attack on Borkum in July. Like many of her sister ships, she took part in the search for the German mineship SMS Meteor , which was sunk by its crew when it was caught by five British ships on August 9th. In September 1915, the Arethusa brought up four German trawlers.
The end of Arethusa
On February 11, 1916, the Arethusa suffered a mine hit off Felixstowe . The mine was probably laid the day before by the German mining submarine SMS UC 7 . The explosion killed six sailors and brought the machine to a standstill. Much water penetrated the Arethusa through the resulting leaks . The attempt to tow her failed and she ran into Cutler Shoal . In August - after the wreck had meanwhile broken into two parts - the rescue attempts were abandoned and only usable objects were retrieved.
The sister ships
- HMS Undaunted : launched on April 28, 1914 at Fairfield , in service with the Harwich Force since August 1914, out of service in 1921, demolished in 1923
- HMS Aurora : launched on September 30, 1913 at Devonport Dockyard, in service with the Harwich Force since August 1914, with the Royal Canadian Navy from November 1, 1920 , out of service in 1922, demolished in 1927
- HMS Galatea : launched on May 14, 1914 at Beardmore, in service with the Harwich Force since December 1914, 1919 in the Black Sea; Sold for demolition in 1921.
- HMS Penelope : launched on August 25, 1914 by Vickers, in service with the Harwich Force since December 1914, out of service in 1920, sold for demolition in 1924.
- HMS Inconstant : launched on July 6, 1914 at Beardmore, in service since January 1915, to the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron in Rosyth, 1919 in the Baltic Sea, sold for demolition in 1922.
- HMS Phaeton : launched on October 21, 1914 at Vickers, in service since February 1915, March to July 1915 in the Mediterranean, to the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron in Rosyth, decommissioned in 1920, sold for demolition in 1923.
- HMS Royalist : launched on January 14, 1915 at Beardmore, in service since March 1915, to the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron, in 1919 in the Baltic Sea, out of service in 1920, sold for demolition in 1922.
References
literature
- CH Barnes, DN James: Shorts Aircraft since 1900. Putnam, London 1989, ISBN 0-85177-819-4 .
- John Campbell: Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting. Lyons Press, 1998, ISBN 1-55821-759-2 .
- Randal Gray (Ed.): Conway's All The Worlds Fighting Ships 1906-1921. Conway Maritime Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 .
- Carl Herbert: War voyages of German merchant ships. Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1934.
- Herbert Kuke: Helgoland course. Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, 1974, ISBN 3-7979-1839-9 .
- Robert Massie: Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany and the winning of the Great War at sea. Johnathan Cape, 2004, ISBN 0-224-04092-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Massie, p. 102f
- ↑ Massie, p. 99
- ↑ Massie, p. 103 f.
- ↑ Massie, p. 105
- ↑ Massie, p. 107
- ↑ Massie, p. 107f
- ^ JM Bruce: The Short Seplanes Part Two. Flight Magazine, December 21, 1956, pp. 965ff.
- ↑ Timothy J. Kutta: Cuxhaven Raid - Britain's Bold Strike From the Sea. Aviation History, January 1997
- ↑ Childers, author of the first spy novel Riddle of the Sands , had toured the target area before the war and advised all crew before the deployment
- ↑ Barnes / James, p. 98
- ^ The Rescue of Flight Commander Hewlett. Flight Magazine, January 8, 1915
- ^ Campbell, p. 6