Bjørgvin class
 The Glatton
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The Bjørgvin- class was a class of two coastal armored vehicles , the Bjørgvin and the Nidaros , which the Norwegian Navy had ordered from Armstrong-Whitworth in 1913 in Great Britain to reinforce their old coastal armored ships. The completion of the ships was delayed by the outbreak of war. The Norwegians objected to the seizure by the British in the autumn of 1914 and did not consent to the transfer of the ships to the Royal Navy until the end of 1914, when they were repaid all the costs that had been paid up to that point.
Construction and takeover
In 1911 Norway asked Armstrong-Whitworth for plans for a third pair of coastal armored vehicles. The shipyard had also delivered the first two pairs of the Harald Haarfagre class in 1897/98 and the Norge class in 1901. Armstrong's chief designer, Eustace Tennyson D'Eyncourt , produced four designs for the Norwegian Navy, but two of them were ruled out as too large because they did not fit into the existing docks in the Norwegian naval port of Horten . After the Norwegian parliament approved the procurement of two more coastal armored ships in 1912, two ships of the design 715 were ordered, the construction of which began on May 26, 1913 and June 11 under the construction numbers 861 and 862 at the Armstrong shipyard in Elswick .
According to the final planning, the new coastal armored ships should displace 4900 ts, their length should be 290 ft , the width 55 ft and the draft 16.5 ft (88.4 × 16.7 × 5.0 m). The side armor of the ships should be three to seven inches thick . Two single turrets with a 24 cm L / 50 gun were provided for the armament of the ships in the fore and aft. There were also four individual turrets for 15 cm L / 50 guns, two of which were placed behind and above the main guns; the other two stood at the same height on the sides of the ship. In addition, the new coastal armored ships were to receive six 10 cm L / 45 guns on the sides in a kind of casemate . Two side 18-inch underwater torpedo tubes completed the planned armament. The triple expansion engines to be manufactured by Hawthorn Leslie should develop at least 4,000 hp and enable the ships to travel at 15 knots. The original design should have been a bit narrower and should have reached 16.5 kn with a slightly higher engine power. On June 9, 1914, the Bjørgvin was the first ship of the class to be launched, followed by the Nidaros on August 8 .
The two ships were still in the equipment at the outbreak of the First World War . On orders from Winston Churchill , they were confiscated or almost forcibly sold. Norway received the purchase price already paid back. On January 9, 1915, the order was given to continue building the ships for the Royal Navy and the newbuildings were renamed Glatton (ex Bjørgvin ) and Gorgon (ex Nidaros ) in April . With this, the class was also renamed the Glatton class .
After John Fisher resigned as First Sea Lord and then Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty ( Minister of the Navy ) had to resign on May 18, 1915, interest in the two newbuildings died out. Marine and shipyards concentrated on the completion of the new construction of the monitors of the war-building program ( Abercrombie - , Lord Clive - and Marshal Ney class as well as the small monitors the M 15 - and M 29 class ) and Fisher's "large light cruisers "of the Courageous class , of which Courageous and Furious were also created by Armstrong Whitworth, however, on the High Walker Yard on the Tyne.
It was not until September 1917 that the two monitors were rebuilt, albeit with a number of plan changes. They were intended for the bombardment of Belgium occupied by the German army and then came into service in 1918. For this purpose, all guns were adjusted to the British guns in order to be able to use standard ammunition to a large extent. The two turrets with the main weapons should now be able to shoot with a superelevation of up to 40 degrees; thus a range of up to 39,000 yards was possible. Two 76 mm guns and up to four 2 pdr 40 mm L / 39 flak were now available for aircraft defense. The torpedo tubes were removed again. Large anti-torpedo bulges were installed on the sides, which increased the ship's width to 22.4 m.
Mission history
After long delays and interruptions in the renovation and further construction, the Gorgon was finally ready for use in June 1918, the Glatton only followed in September 1918.
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On September 11th, Glatton arrived in Dover to participate in the planned Allied offensive. On the evening of September 16, there was an explosion in the 6-inch magazine under the starboard turret, which started a fire on board that spread aft. The attempt to open the sea cocks only succeeded in the front area. Since the loaded ammunition ship Gransha was only 150 m away , they did not want to risk another explosion on the Glatton , which might also affect the Gransha . [4] Then considerable damage was to be expected not only in the port but also in the city of Dover.
The Dover Patrol Commander and Commander in Chief, Vice Admiral Roger Keyes , ordered the sinking of the burning and evacuated monitor. First, the destroyer Cossack fired two 18 in (450 mm) torpedoes at the burning ship. The first hit the target, but if the fuse was not removed, it did not explode because the distance was too short. The second hit, but exploded in the torpedo defense bead, which was now a large hole. The more modern Myngs ordered by Keyes then shot one of her 21 in - (533 mm) - torpedoes through the resulting hole in the hull of the Glatton . The explosion of the torpedo capsized the Glatton . The mast and superstructures were on the floor of the harbor basin and the fire on board went out.
After the accident, 60 dead were laid out and examined in the Dover market hall. Of the evacuated seamen from the Monitor, over 124 were seriously injured, of whom several died. In 1925/26, after the mast and other parts had been separated, the wreck was lifted with compressed air and moved to another location in the port. There it was freed of ammunition still on board and another 58 bodies were recovered from the destroyed ship, which were buried in the Gillingham cemetery. The remains of the Glatton were then built over during renovations in the harbor.
The sister ship Gorgon fired several times between July and October 15, 1918 at German coastal batteries in Belgium, otherwise performed guard duty in the English Channel . After that, the ship was used until 1919 to investigate the possible causes of the sister ship's explosion. Then the Navy tried to sell the ship, especially to Norway. There was no interest there because the ship with the bulges could no longer use the existing dock in Horten . There were several South American buyers ( Peru , Argentina ) and Romania , who wanted to buy the Gorgon and six M-class destroyers ; but a sale did not materialize. In 1921 the armament was expanded and the ship was subjected to various stress tests. In 1928 the monitor was finally sold for demolition, which then took place from August 28, 1928 at Wards in Pembroke Dock .
literature
- Peter Brook: Warships for Export - Armstrong warships 1867-1927 , World Ship Society, Gravesend 1999. ISBN 0-905617-89-4
- Frederick J. Dittmar, James J. Colledge: British Warships 1914-1919. Ian Allen, London 1972, ISBN 0-7110-0380-7 .
- Randal Gray (Ed.): Conway's All The Worlds Fighting Ships, 1906-1921. Conway Maritime Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 .
Web links
- GORGON monitors (1918) old-navypedia
- Monitor GORGON launched as NIDAROS on tynebuiltships
- Monitor GLATTON launched as BJOERGVIN w. v.
- Glatton - the Catastrophe and the Salvage doverhistorian 2015
Individual evidence
- ^ P. Brook: Warships for export , p. 210
- ↑ P. Brook: Warships for export , p. 210 f.
- ↑ P. Brook: Warships for export , p. 210 f.
- ↑ P. Brook: Warships for export , pp. 210 ff.
- ^ P. Brook: Warships for export , p. 212
- ^ The Glatton Memorial, Gillingham
- ^ Glatton - the Catastrophe and the Salvage