HMS Cambrian (1893)
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|---|---|
 HMS Cambrian |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Protected cruiser |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | 1891 |
| Launch | January 30, 1893 |
| Commissioning | October 1894 |
| Whereabouts | Sold for demolition in February 1923 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
4,360 ts |
| length |
overall: 103.5 m (339.5 ft ) |
| width |
15.1 m (49.5 ft) |
| Draft |
5.8 m (19 ft) |
| crew |
318 men |
| drive |
|
| speed |
18 kn , 19.5 kn with fan |
| Range |
7000 nm at 10 kn (1000 t coal) |
| Armament |
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Armor deck |
|
| Engine room |
125 mm |
| Gun shields |
115 mm |
| Command tower |
76-150 mm |
HMS Cambrian was a 2nd class armored cruiser built by the Pembroke Dockyard for the Royal Navy . As the second ship of the Astraea class , the Cambrian was launched on January 30, 1893 after the HMS Bonaventure . Used on the British Australia Station since late 1905 , she became their last flagship in 1913 before the Australian Navy took over responsibility for this part of the Empire.
Building history
The eight Astraea- class cruisers were 2nd class armored cruisers of the Royal Navy, which were procured as an improved version of the Apollo- class due to the decisions of the Naval Defense Act of 1889 in the 1890s . They displaced about 1000 ts more than the previous class, had better sea characteristics and had a somewhat stronger and better placed armament. This was achieved through the additional, continuous deck, which gave the ships a higher freeboard and the weapons a higher location. The improvements were nevertheless criticized because the armament with only two additional 120 mm guns was not significantly reinforced and there was no improvement in the areas of speed and range. The cruisers were all built at state naval shipyards, with three built in Devonport , two in Pembroke and one each in Sheerness , Chatham and Portsmouth , and not, as in the previous Apollo class, mostly in private shipyards. The ships were intended for use in tropical waters and therefore all had a copper-clad hull.
The cruisers were armed with two 6-inch 152 mm L / 40 rapid-fire cannons as bow and stern guns and a battery of eight 4.7-inch 120 mm L / 40 rapid-fire guns arranged on the side . Most of the lighter armament was placed on the upper deck between the heavier cannons.
Mission history
The HMS Cambrian came into service as the second ship of the class in 1894. Prince Louis von Battenberg became the first in command of the Cambrian , which was part of the Mediterranean fleet from October 1894 to May 1897 . In November 1901 the Cambrian was stationed at Ascension as the flagship of the Senior Officer, South Atlantic . In 1904 she was in Haulbowline, the naval base near Cork in Ireland.
Australia Station
According to the Naval Agreement Act of 1903, which regulated the stationing of Royal Navy units in the Empire and the participation of the colonies in the costs, the squadron of Australia Station should consist of one 1st class cruiser, two 2nd class cruisers and four 3rd class cruisers. Class pass. The Cambrian entered service on October 3, 1905 under Captain EF Gaunt for the Australia Station of the Royal Navy, of which she was to become the last flagship in 1913. She ran from Plymouth through the Suez Canal and arrived in Sydney on December 22, 1905 as a second cruiser 2nd class in Australia. It was considered a replacement for two Cadmus class sloops that had been relocated to China. HMS Clio and HMS Cadmus both came to Australia after completion in 1904 and had already left the station in April / May 1905.
The flagship of the station since December 1905 was the first class protected cruiser HMS Powerful, which had arrived shortly before . As the first 2nd class cruiser, the HMS Challenger was used at the station since July 1904 , which, like the 3rd class cruiser HMS Psyche used there since 1903, was supposed to train locals in fleet service. From 1905, further Pelorus-class cruisers replaced the five old Pearl-class cruisers used at the station since 1890 , of which HMS Katoomba and HMS Wallaroo were the last to leave Australia in January 1906. Eventually five of the nine Pelorus- class cruisers came to Australia with Psyche , Pegasus , Prometheus , Pioneer and Pyramus . In addition, there were a number of smaller ships for surveying tasks and the control of the British Isles in the South Seas. Australia Station's last access to the agreed strength was then the Challenger's sister ship , the Encounter , arriving at the station in February as the third cruiser, 2nd class.
The Cambrian took up routine service and was stationed in New Zealand several times for a few weeks . In July 1906 she visited the Pitcairn Islands , where she met her sister ship Flora from China Station . During the five-day visit, specialists from both cruisers blew up a boat passage into Bounty Bay . The Commander of the Cambrian also added to the administrative regulations for the islands. In 1909 both cruisers visited Pitcairn again. In the summer of 1907, the Cambrian landed a punitive expedition in the New Hebrides after natives killed a European.
During her time at the station, the Cambrian was “commissioned” three times, which in practice meant the almost complete replacement of the crew. This usually took place in Colombo . The first exchange took place in October 1907, when the large cruisers Edgar and Europa , which left Portsmouth in September, brought replacement crews for the Cambrian and the flagship Powerful to Colombo.
On December 9, 1908, the Cambrian routinely left Sydney for New Zealand and visited various ports there. On February 6, 1909, she began a major Pacific voyage in Auckland. The first goal was to Cook group belonging Rarotonga . Then the French Tahiti , the Christmas Island - where the Australian steamer Aeon had crashed - and the Fanning Island with the station of the transpacific cable were visited. In March, the cruiser met again with the HMS Flora of the China station in Honolulu . Both cruisers were supposed to visit ports on the American Pacific coast together. The first visit was to Acapulco , Mexico , which they left shortly before a devastating tidal wave. They then called at Puerto San José (Guatemala), La Union Amapala on the Gulf of Fonseca in Honduras , Corinto (Nicaragua) , Panama , Callao in Peru . In Chile, Iquique , Valparaíso , Coquimbo and Punta Arenas were visited. The return march of the two cruisers across the Pacific took place via Easter Island , Pitcairn, Tahiti and Suva , the capital of Fiji , where they stayed from July 28 to August 2. Through the Torres Strait , where the Cambrian briefly called Thursday Island on August 13 , both cruisers finally made a visit to Batavia before they ran to Colombo to take over new crews from the HMS Terrible, which had arrived from Great Britain , and on September 7 to put into service for their stations. During their voyage together, the cruisers were only separated for more than 24 hours twice. Flora now left Colombo to return to China Station and Cambrian left for Sydney on September 11th under Captain Edward WE Wemyss .
The next two years were filled with routine service. In April 1910, the Cambrian got into a heavy storm that tore off parts of the mast and all antennas. After their repair, the Cambrian ran with the Governor General Lord Chelmsford and his wife on a visit to the Norfolk Island .
On September 19, 1911, the last "new service 2 of the Cambrian " took place at Australia Station, when the Terrible arrived again with a replacement for the station in Colombo, where the Cambrian took over the replacement and largely swapped staff.
In January 1912, the armored cruiser HMS Drake took over the duties of the flagship of the HMS Powerful in Colombo . In early February 1912 the Cambrian left Sydney to reinforce the China Station during the ongoing revolution . On her departure, she first called at Batavia in the Dutch East Indies , where the cruiser Prometheus , which had been on the way to China since October , had stopped. This was in such a bad condition that the commander of the Cambrian decided to tow the cruiser the 3000 miles to Hong Kong. The commander of the China station had the cruiser repaired to the extent that it would make the journey home to Great Britain on its own. An investigation conducted in Hong Kong led to the replacement of the Prometheus commander and chief engineer .
The Cambrian went on to Shanghai , where she put crews of her sailors and marines ashore to ensure the safety of European branches. When the situation there calmed down, the cruiser moved to Weihawei , near which pirates had attacked merchant ships. When they took an Englishman hostage and demanded a large ransom, Cambrian marines intervened and captured three pirate leaders. These were handed over to the Chinese authorities, who had them executed.
Finally, visited Cambrian still Nagasaki in Japan , before returning to Hong Kong to practice with the other ships of the station. From there she ran back to Sydney via Thursday Island in 19 days, where she arrived again on July 3rd.
The return of the Cambrian was part of the British Admiralty's agreement to hand over responsibility for the station area to the new Australian Navy . Of the larger cruisers at the station, the Challenger , which had previously trained many Australians, left Australia in the autumn of 1912, while her sister ship Encounter was to continue the training of Australian marines with a training crew. In January 1913 the flagship Drake also left the station and Admiral Sir George King-Hall switched to the Cambrian, which thus became the 15th and last flagship of the Royal Navy's Australia Station. On October 4, 1913, the new Australian fleet received them in Sydney, which first entered Sydney with the battle cruiser HMAS Australia , the light cruisers HMAS Sydney and Melbourne , the acquired cruiser Encounter and the destroyers HMAS Parramatta , Yarra and Warrego and the tasks of Australia Station largely took over. Only the first two ships mentioned had just arrived from Great Britain.
When the command changed, the Royal Navy was only responsible for New Zealand, where the HMS Psyche took over the duties as a station cruiser .
On October 13, 1913, the Cambrian left Sydney and Admiral Sir George King-Hall disembarked in Melbourne and the cruiser then returned to Great Britain . When he arrived home in early 1914, he was decommissioned and was to be sold.
Final fate
The outbreak of World War I postponed sales and the Cambrian became a stoker training ship . In March 1915 she was renamed HMS Harlech and housed a ship. In September 1921, another renaming took place in Vivid as part of the living ships in Devonport. In February 1923 it was sold to the Young company in Sunderland for demolition .
literature
- James J. Colledge, Ben Warlow: Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy. Chatham, London, Supplemented Edition 2006, ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8 .
- John Roberts, HC Timewell, Roger Chesneau (Eds.), Eugene M. Kolesnik (Eds.): Warships of the World 1860 to 1905 - Volume 1: Great Britain / Germany. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1983, ISBN 3-7637-5402-4 .
- Robert Gardiner, Randal Gray, Przemysław Budzbon: Conway's All the world's fighting ships, 1906–1921 . Conway, 1985, ISBN 0851772455 .
Web links
- Astraea- class on battleships-cruisers.co
- Astraea class on historyofwar.org
- Astraea class on worldwar1.co
- Stamp issue commemorating the visit in 1906 of the Cambrian
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906–1921 , p. 77.
- ^ The Australian Squadron, HMS Cambrian coming out Examiner, September 27, 1905
- ^ Pitcairn Islands: Country Study Guide: Strategic Information and Developments, p. 64.
- ^ Relief Crews Western Argus, September 10, 1907
- ↑ CRUISE OF THE PACIFIC the return of HMS Cambrian
- ^ News and Notes The West Australian, January 29, 1912
- ^ The Mercury, July 15, 1912
- ^ The Australian Navy The West Australian, June 5, 1912
- ^ Australian Fleet Arrival in Sydney The Brisbane Courier, October 6, 1913
- ^ A b Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906-1921 , p. 15.
- ↑ a b Colledge, p. 58.