HMS Amethyst (1903)
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|---|---|
| Topaze class | |
_IWM_Q_038114.jpg) HMS amethyst |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Protected cruiser |
| Shipyard |
Armstrong Whitworth , Elswick , construction no. 735 |
| Keel laying | January 7, 1903 |
| Launch | 5th November 1903 |
| delivery | March 17, 1905 |
| Namesake | Amethyst , semi-precious stone |
| Decommissioning | February 10, 1919 |
| Whereabouts | October 1st, 1920 Sale for demolition |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
3000 ts |
| length |
pp: 360 ft (109.8 m), |
| width |
40 ft (12.2 m) |
| Draft |
14 ft 6 in (4.42 m) |
| crew |
296 men |
| drive |
10 Yarrow boilers |
| speed |
22.5 kn |
| Armament |
12 × 102 mm L / 40 rapid fire guns |
| Coal supply |
300 ts, max. 700 ts |
|
Armor deck |
|
| Cannon shields |
1 in (25 mm) |
| Sister ships | |
The HMS Amethyst was a third class protected cruiser of the Royal Navy's Topaze class . Launched in 1904 as the second cruiser of the class, she was the world's first turbine-powered cruiser . Her three sister ships were delivered with the usual triple expansion engines. During the First World War it was used off the Dardanelles and Gallipoli , in the Mediterranean and in the South Atlantic. In 1920 the cruiser was sold for demolition.
Building history
The keel of the HMS Amethyst was laid in January 1903 at Armstrong in Elswick near Newcastle-upon-Tyne under construction no. 735. She was launched on November 5, 1903, and on March 17, 1905, the HMS Amethyst entered service with the Royal Navy. She was the first cruiser to receive a steam turbine drive , which until then had only been installed in a few destroyers . The turbine drive reduced the range of the Amethyst at 10 knots by 1500 nautical miles, but increased it at 20 knots by 1000 nautical miles compared to her sister ships, which were still equipped with the common triple expansion engines. Their coal consumption values showed a relatively low value for a warship in this area, but was considerably higher than that of comparable merchant ships. With a design speed of 21.75 kn, the ships of the Topaze were slower than the German small cruisers of the Bremen class at the same time , which, with SMS Lübeck, contained a comparable turbine ship that came into service on April 26, 1905.
Mission history
When the HMS Amethyst took up service in the Royal Navy on March 17, 1905, she was assigned to the battleship group of the Atlantic Fleet in support, where she served together with the sister ship HMS Diamond , while the other two ships of the class in a similar function of the Canal Fleet were assigned.
Pre-war missions
In 1907 the Amethyst moved from the base of the Atlantic Fleet, Gibraltar , to Portsmouth , where it remained in reserve with a small crew until 1909. On December 8, 1908, in the course of preparation for a foreign mission, an act of sabotage occurred when the aiming device of a cannon was thrown overboard. From 1909 to 1911 she then served on the South American station, where she was to take part in the 100th anniversary of Argentina's independence in May 1910 with the flagship HMS Hermes of the Cape Station under Vice Admiral Egerton and the armored cruiser HMS Argyll from the 5th cruiser squadron of the Atlantic Fleet. The squadron assembled in front of Uruguay was recalled because of the death of the British monarch Edward VII . The Amethyst also visited ports in West Africa during its stationing in the South Atlantic.
In 1912 the Amethyst became the command cruiser of the 8th Destroyer Flotilla and then at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 it was still the flagship of the so-called Harwich Force of two flotillas of the most modern destroyers of the Royal Navy.
War effort
With the destroyer association, the Amethyst under Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt made the first foray into the German Bight on August 5th . Before the advance of this association on August 28, 1914 into the German Bight, which led to the naval battle near Heligoland , the cruiser was replaced by the new HMS Arethusa . The Amethyst was seconded to the Nore on the other side of the River Thames and formed with five ships of Cressy class to as Force C part of the remote backup designated by the Harwich Force . On September 22, 1914, the Amethyst ran with Admiral Arthur Christian to the sinking site of the three armored cruisers HMS Cressy , Aboukir and Hogue , sunk by the German submarine U 9 , where she arrived too late to be able to provide assistance. Later, the Amethyst was briefly subordinated to the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet of the Royal Navy, consisting of cruisers of the Town class . Then she was briefly deployed with the 6th Battle Squadron with the Duncan- class ships at the north entrance of the Canal before she was moved to the Mediterranean.
Dardanelles
Transferred to the Dardanelles, the Amethyst supported HMS Albion on February 19, 1915 with the first bombardment of the Turkish forts and then from March 1 to 14, above all, secured the efforts to create a mine-free route through the Dardanelles . On March 1 and 4, 1915, there were firefights with Turkish forts within the Dardanelles. On the evening of March 4, she took the wounded from the first landing company on board, which she passed on to the transporters Soudan and Braemar Castle the following day . From March 6 to 11, it was mainly used at night to protect minesweepers from mobile batteries, the forts and searchlights. At 4:10 a.m. on March 14, she was hit by a mobile battery. 22 men were killed instantly, 38 were seriously wounded, four of whom died. The Amethyst withdrew to Tenedos to make the necessary repairs.
Landings on Gallipoli
On April 24, 1915, the Amethyst and her sister ship HMS Sapphire transported troops to the "Y beach" on the northwest coast of the Gallipoli peninsula , which were brought ashore by fishing boats on April 25. She supported the British troops with her artillery until the 27th, when the situation in the sector was desperate and over 250 mostly wounded returned on board. On the following days the Amethyst continued to give artillery support in Sections W, Y and Z and was shelled by the Turkish artillery itself. On the night of May 5, she and other ships evacuated the “Z beach”. These troops were immediately put back ashore in Sections X and Y as reinforcements.
The last use of the Amethyst against Turkey took place on May 18 , when it attacked with destroyers Edremit (Balıkesir) on the bay of the same name south of the Dardanelles on the coast of Asia Minor. A landing party sent in boats should try to take possession of the barges stationed there. However, these could not be moved because of a sandbank protecting them. The Amethyst destroyed two oil tanks with its guns. When a field battery began bombarding the cruiser, fire was returned and the battery destroyed. A hit on the Amethyst killed one sailor and seriously wounded four
Securing the Adriatic
From June 1915 the Amethyst was used by Brindisi for inspection trips at the exit of the Adriatic. From July 28th to August 17th she came into the dock and was overtaken. She only returned to Brindisi on September 15 and was in port on September 27 when the Italian liner Benedetto Brin exploded and sank in the outer harbor. Amethyst used their boats to rescue survivors. In the autumn of 1915, the Amethyst stayed in the port of Brindisi and was temporarily used as a tender for British submarines in this area.
On November 19th the Amethyst went to Malta and on to Gibraltar until November 27th . On December 1, she continued her journey home to Portsmouth , which she left on December 11 for Barrow-in-Furness . Here it came to the Devonshire Dock for overhaul, where it remained until March 14, 1916.
South America
In March 1916, the Amethyst moved to Plymouth and then via Bilbao to Gibraltar, where it arrived on March 23rd. In 1916, Commander Edward Unwin took command of the Amethyst , who had acquired a Victoria Cross during the Battle of Gallipoli . Amethyst was supposed to go to South America and left Gibraltar on May 8, 1916.
On November 23, 1916, Commander Patrick Boyle, 8th Earl of Glasgow , was the new captain of the cruiser, which was stationed off the coast of Brazil on Viçosa Reef .
From December 1916, the Amethyst, supported by the auxiliary cruisers Macedonia and Orama as well as the two coal steamers Minieh and Daleham , searched for the German trade troublemaker Möve . On 9 January 1917 the recessed Gull one day after the carbon transfer to Amethyst the Minieh , 3806 BRT. When she did not show up at the agreed meeting point, the group intensified their search to no avail. The amethyst was shipped to Salvador da Bahia in mid-January for supply. Another attempt to find the seagull , the Amethyst started on January 24th, in which she worked with the light cruiser Glasgow . This search trip and others in April and May 1917 were unsuccessful.
The gull had run east and was looking for prey on the shipping routes from the Cape and did not return to the Brazilian coast until mid-February, then switched to the North Atlantic and returned to her home before the beginning of spring, as a breakthrough through the British guard lines was only possible in the the dark season seemed promising.
After a long stay in Rio de Janeiro , the amethyst left the Brazilian capital on April 5, 1918 and ran south along the coast. She controlled the shipping traffic and arrived in Montevideo on March 10th . After further inspection trips, she left Salvador da Bahia on May 31, 1918 to return to Devonport. On the way home, she met the HMS Britannia off the coast of Sierra Leone and took over from her 295 boxes of gold bars worth about £ 1 million. She arrived in Devonport on June 25th with her valuable cargo. On July 1, 1918, the Amethyst ran from there to Barrow-in-Furness , where she spent the rest of the war doing repairs in the dry dock of the Vickers shipyard.
Post-war deployment
The Amethyst was put back into service on November 20, 1918 and took part in the funeral services for the former President of Portugal, Sidónio Pais , on December 21 in Lisbon on the way to Gibraltar .
Final fate
On February 10, 1919, the HMS Amethyst was decommissioned and sold on October 1, 1920 for demolition to the Towers company in Milford Haven .
Sister ships
- HMS Topaze - launched on July 23, 1903, sold for demolition on September 22, 1921.
- HMS Diamond - launched January 6, 1904, sold for demolition on May 9, 1921.
- HMS Sapphire - launched March 17, 1904, sold for demolition on May 9, 1921.
proof
- ↑ Hildebrand, Vol. IV, pp. 88f.
- ^ Declaration by the Admiralty in the House of Commons.
- ^ Government statement on British participation in the House of Commons.
- ↑ In press coverage, e.g. B. The New York Times of August 29th and 30th, it is therefore also shown as damaged, although the Arethusa was in fact badly damaged
- ↑ ( Euryalus as flagship of Rear Admiral Arthur Christian, commander of all units leaving the area of the Thames estuary, Bacchante flagship of Rear Admiral Henry Hervey Campbell , commander of the 7th CS, Cressy , Hogue and Aboukir )
- ↑ Log of HMS Amethyst . Old Weather . March 14, 1915. Retrieved March 15, 2011.
- ↑ Log of HMS Amethyst . Old Weather . May 18, 1915. Retrieved March 29, 2011.
- ↑ Log of HMS Amethyst . Old Weather . September 27, 1915. Retrieved March 29, 2011.
- ↑ Log of HMS Amethyst . Old Weather . March 23, 1916. Retrieved March 29, 2011.
- ↑ Log of HMS Amethyst . Old Weather . May 8, 1916. Retrieved March 29, 2011.
- ↑ Log of HMS Amethyst . Old Weather . November 23, 1916. Retrieved March 29, 2011.
- ↑ Macedonia , ex P & O, 1903, 10512 BRT, since 1914 auxiliary cruiser at the Battle of the Falkland Islands involved
- ↑ The Minieh's sinking site
- ^ Herbert, p. 55
- ↑ Log of HMS Amethyst . Old Weather . March 10, 1918. Retrieved March 29, 2011.
- ↑ Log of HMS Amethyst . Old Weather . June 9, 1918. Retrieved March 29, 2011.
- ↑ Log of HMS Amethyst . Old Weather . November 20, 1918. Retrieved March 15, 2011.
- ↑ Log of HMS Amethyst . Old Weather . December 21, 1918. Retrieved March 15, 2011.
- ↑ in Malta or Plymouth (?)
- ↑ HMS Amethyst . BattleshipsCruisers website. Retrieved March 15, 2011.
literature
- Peter Brooke: Warships for Export: Armstrong Warships 1867-1927. World Ship Society, Gravesend 1999, ISBN 0-905617-89-4 .
- JJ Colledge, Ben Warlow: Ships of the Royal Navy: the complete record of all fighting ships of the Royal Navy. Chatham, London 1969/2006, ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8 .
- Randal Gray (Ed.): Conway's All The Worlds Fighting Ships 1906-1921. Conway Maritime Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 .
- Paul G. Halpern: A naval history of World War I. Routledge, London 1995, ISBN 1-85728-498-4 .
- Carl Herbert: War voyages of German merchant ships. Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1934.
- Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford.
- Bernard Ireland: Cruisers. Hamlyn, London 1981, ISBN 0-600-34975-6 .
Web links
- HMS Amethyst on worldnavalships
- HMS Amethyst on worldwar1
- HMS Amethyst on battleships cruisers