HMS Black Prince (1904)
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|---|---|
| Duke of Edinburgh class | |
 HMS Black Prince |
|
| Overview | |
| Type | Armored cruiser |
| units | 2 + 4 |
| Shipyard |
Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding and Engineering Co. Ltd., Blackwall |
| Keel laying | June 3, 1903 |
| Launch | November 8, 1904 |
| delivery | March 17, 1906 |
| Namesake | Edward Plantagenet |
| Whereabouts | Sunk on June 1, 1916 in the Battle of the Skagerrak |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
12,500 ts , max. 13,965 ts |
| length |
overall: 154.1 m (505.5 ft) |
| width |
22.4 m (73.5 ft) |
| Draft |
8.2 m (27 ft) |
| crew |
789 men |
| drive |
|
| speed |
23 kn |
| Range |
8130 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
|
| Coal supply |
2050 ts |
| Belt armor |
76–152 mm (3–6 in) |
| deck |
19–38 mm (–1.5 in) |
| Armored bulkheads |
51–151 mm (2–6 in) |
| Towers |
110–190 mm (–7.5 in) |
| Command tower |
254 mm (10 in) |
The HMS Black Prince was a British armored cruiser and belonged to the six-unit Duke of Edinburgh class . The ship was named after Edward Plantagenet (1330-1376), who became known as the Black Prince . In the Battle of the Skagerrak the armored cruiser was shot down on June 1, 1916 by the German capital ships, which he had not identified as the enemy fleet in time. He sank with all 857 men on board.
History and armament
The Black Prince and her sister ships were a further development of the previous Devonshire and Monmouth classes . These types were viewed by the British Admiralty as no longer adequately armed and protected to be able to operate effectively with the battle fleet. This was also a concession to the discussion that emerged after 1900 about the all big gun one caliber battleship . As a result, the ships of the Duke of Edinburgh class received armor up to 50 percent thicker (for example on the turret fronts, where the armor grew to 191 mm) and main guns of 23.4 cm caliber (the armored cruisers of the Devonshire and the Monmouth -Class guns only had 15.2 cm or 19.1 cm caliber guns). In addition, the top speed was increased slightly and was now around 23 knots . However, these improvements also increased the maximum water displacement of the new armored cruiser to well over 14,000 ts. The ships of the Duke of Edinburgh class were also designed under the direction of Sir Philip Watts (1846–1926), who was Director of Naval Construction of the Royal Navy from 1901 to 1912 and under whose aegis the revolutionary battleship HMS Dreadnought was built in 1905 and built. The plans for these armored cruisers arose partly before the first studies of the new all big gun one caliber battleship dreadnought , making these armored cruisers the first ships designed by Philip Watts.
The ship was armed with six 23.4 cm L / 47 Mk.X rapid fire cannons in a hexagonal arrangement . The guns were housed in individual turrets, with four cannons being able to be fired simultaneously in one broadside , and could fire about 172 kg grenades over a maximum distance of about 14.1 km. The middle artillery consisted of ten 15.2 cm L / 50 Mk. XI rapid-fire cannons in individual casemates; five casemates were housed on either side of the hull. These guns were of relatively low combat value, however, as the casemate deck was very low and the range of these guns was considerably limited; in rough seas the guns were almost entirely unusable. On the last four ships of the class, the so-called Warrior sub-class ( HMS Warrior , HMS Cochrane , HMS Natal and HMS Achilles ), the casemates were therefore removed and the 15.2 cm cannons replaced by four 19.1 cm guns replaced in single towers, which had a better stroke angle and could also fire heavier projectiles. In addition, the Black Prince carried 22 light 4.7 cm Vickers Mk. II (3-pounder) guns to defend against torpedo boats, which were set up below the bridge structure and near the aft mast in two larger groups, as well as three rigid 45.7 cm torpedo tubes installed below the waterline.
Note on the rapid aging of the ship
Although the Black Prince and her sister ships had only been put into service around 1906 and represented a significant improvement on the previous types, they were still considered obsolete at the time of their commissioning, as almost all larger fleets were already being built or at least already at that time Dreadnought design had begun. This new type of battleship, as well as the emerging development of the battle cruiser, ultimately rendered the general concept of the armored cruiser obsolete. This became very clear in later disputes during the First World War, especially during the Skagerrak Battle . Without them being able to significantly intervene in the battle, three British armored cruisers were sunk, including the Black Prince .
In addition, the torpedo boat defense with its 4.7 cm cannons was classified as very weak, since at that time the steadily increasing size of the torpedo boats and destroyers had already called into question the more powerful 7.62 cm gun that was used on most British Capital ships was in use.
Pre-war period
As the second ship of this type, the armored cruiser was launched on June 3, 1903 at the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding and Engineering Co. Ltd. laid down in Blackwall ( East End of London ) and launched on November 8, 1904. It went into service on March 17, 1906. The cost of construction was 1,193,414 pounds sterling .
Initially, the Black Prince was assigned to the 2nd cruiser squadron from 1907 and from late 1907 to the 1st cruiser squadron of the Home Fleet , where it remained for almost 18 months. In 1909 the cruiser was detached to the British Atlantic Fleet, which was newly established in the same year, and served there for two years in the 5th cruiser squadron. In 1912 briefly deployed with the 3rd cruiser squadron, the Black Prince was assigned to the Mediterranean for the 1st cruiser squadron of the British Mediterranean Fleet (Admiral Sir Archibald Berkeley Milne ) in 1913, together with her sister ship HMS Duke of Edinburgh . The Black Prince commuted between Gibraltar , Malta and Suez and carried out numerous maneuver missions.
Operations in the First World War
When the First World War broke out, the cruiser was in Gibraltar. However, he was used as part of the 1st cruiser squadron under Admiral Ernest Troubridge on HMS Defense as early as August 1, 1914 to search for the German Mediterranean division consisting of the battle cruiser SMS Goeben and the small cruiser SMS Breslau , although Great Britain had declared war on the German Reich did not take place until August 5th. The reason was that the German ships threatened the troop transports of the French between the southern French ports and Algeria . On August 5, the Black Prince met the three armored cruisers from Troubridge ( Defense , Warrior , Duke of Edinburgh ) and the destroyers for whom the German ships had sought in vain in the Ionian Sea . In the meantime they had gone to Messina . During the day, the squadron then retreated east to the Greek coast, as coal steamers were expected there and the destroyers had only a small amount of fuel left. Directly in front of Messina was only the light cruiser Gloucester, which Troubridge had left there . When the German ships left Messina to the east, Troubridge initially marched north to land them in the Strait of Otranto . Later, too late and half-heartedly, he turned around and then broke off the persecution early. The two German ships escaped the far superior Allied forces because - contrary to British expectations - they did not operate in the direction of the west or the Adriatic , but set a course in the east and reached the Dardanelles on August 10, 1914 . Both ships later became the property of the Ottoman fleet.
Then the Black Prince and the Duke of Edinburgh moved via Suez to the Red Sea and patrolled off Massaua to intercept German merchant ships there. On August 17, 1914 , the Black Prince sighted the German freighter Südmark (5,870 GRT), which was on its way from Yokohama to Hamburg, and hijacked it in accordance with the applicable price regulations. The ship was later brought to Suez and used under the name Huntscraft from 1915 by the British merchant navy.
In November 1914, the Black Prince and the Duke of Edinburgh moved back to Gibraltar. Both were detached in December 1914, after the defeat of the Royal Navy at Coronel , off the coast of West Africa to the newly formed British West Africa Squadron. The task of this unit would have been to intercept Vice Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee's German cruiser squadron if it were to advance into the middle Atlantic. However, the German squadron was captured and wiped out in the sea battle near the Falkland Islands in December, which is why the Black Prince was ordered back to the Grand Fleet in Great Britain in the winter of 1914/15 .
Together with the armored cruisers Duke of Edinburgh , Defense and Warrior , the ship formed the 1st cruiser squadron stationed in Scapa Flow from January 1915 under Rear Admiral Sir Robert Keith Arbuthnot . Until May 1916, the ship did not take part in any major campaigns.
On the evening of May 30, 1916, the ship was anchored in Invergordon and was used the following day against a reported German naval advance in the North Sea, from which the Skagerrak Battle developed.
Battle of the Skagerrak and its fall
On the morning of May 31, 1916, the Black Prince ran out of Invergordon - under the command of Captain Thomas P. Bonham - together with the other ships of the 1st Cruiser Squadron and the 2nd Cruiser Squadron and formed about 18 nautical miles from the British main force vanguard entrusted with the reconnaissance. In hazy weather, however, the Black Prince lost contact with the other armored cruisers and got too far on a southerly course. While the sea battle began around 3:45 p.m. in a skirmish between British and German battlecruisers, the Black Prince steamed at high speed to the south in order to reconnect with the 1st cruiser squadron, which is now part of the British battle fleet had withdrawn. As a result, the armored cruiser passed the other ships in the squadron.
Although this luck was in misfortune - the 1st cruiser squadron encountered parts of the German battle fleet around 6:10 p.m. and suffered heavy losses, among other things the squadron flagship Defense sank at 6:20 p.m. with Rear Admiral Arbuthnot and the entire crew - he found Armored cruisers continued to have no direct connection to the British fleet and, after dark, orientated themselves on the muzzle flashes of the guns in the distance. Since the two opposing fleets had changed course several times during the fight at dusk, this probably contributed to the disorientation on board the cruiser.
After the Black Prince had wandered around in the darkness for almost three hours, disaster struck the ship and its crew: shortly after midnight, the cruiser's lookout spotted several silhouettes held on the bridge for British ships. Seconds later, around 00:05 a.m., these ships - it was the bulk of the German battle fleet - spoke to the Black Prince with German identification calls . Since none of the crew of the British ship survived, one can only guess what shock must have overtaken the bridge crew of the British cruiser when they realized their fateful error. After the British had not answered the identification signal and Captain Bonham had given the order to turn off in a last desperate maneuver at full speed, headlights of the German battleship SMS Thuringia shone on the armored cruiser. About half a minute later, at around 12:07 a.m., the German ships opened fire - at a distance of only around 1,000 meters.
The German battleships Thuringia , SMS Ostfriesland and SMS Friedrich der Große fired several salvos at core range at the British armored cruiser. In two minutes, the Black Prince received an estimated 50 to 60 hits, including at least 21 heavy hits, 30.5 cm. After that, the Germans stopped the fire again. The consequences were devastating: The British armored cruiser, blazing from bow to stern and with chimneys torn away, drifted past the following German ships without firing a single shot, with testimonies reporting red-hot shipwalls up to the level of the waterline , and lagged behind the marching ocean fleet. Finally, most of the witnesses report that the Black Prince exploded astern of the German fleet around 12:12 a.m. in a huge fireball. After that, the ship was no longer seen.
The commander, Captain Thomas P. Bonham, 851 crew members and five civilians working on board as stewards sank with the ship. There were no survivors.
Whereabouts of the wreck
The wreck of the Black Prince was discovered in 2001 by a diving expedition. The heavily destroyed remains of the cruiser are now about 60 meters below the ground of the North Sea and are protected by the Protection of Military Remains Act of 1986.
Web links
- http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/armoured-cruiser/hms-duke-of-edinburgh.html
- http://www.worldnavalships.com/hms_black_prince1.htm
- http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_HMS_Black_Prince.html
- http://www.northeastmedals.co.uk/britishguide/jutland/civilian_casualties_1916.htm
- http://www.northeastmedals.co.uk/britishguide/jutland/hms_black_prince_casualty_list_1916.htm
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/armoured-cruiser/hms-duke-of-edinburgh.html
- ↑ http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_92-47_mk10.htm
- ↑ http://www.northeastmedals.co.uk/britishguide/jutland/civilian_casualties_1916.htm
- ↑ http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?10795
literature
- John Roberts, HC Timewell, Roger Chesneau (ed.), Eugene M. Kolesnik (ed.): Warships of the world 1860 to 1905. Volume 1: Great Britain / Germany. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1983, ISBN 3-7637-5402-4 .