Cressy class
 The Cressy
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The Cressy class was a class of British armored cruisers built between 1898 and 1903 that was still in service during the First World War . On September 22, 1914, three of the six cruisers of this class ( Cressy , Hogue and Aboukir ) were torpedoed by the German U 9 submarine under Lieutenant Otto Weddigen in the southern North Sea in the sea area of the so-called Hoofden at about 52 ° 18 ′ N , 3 ° 41 ' O lost. A total of 837 men survived the sinking of the three armored cruisers, but 62 officers and 1,405 men lost their lives. The militarily insignificant loss of the three old armored cruisers claimed more British casualties than Nelson's victory at Trafalgar in 1805.
Building history
The six Cressy- class cruisers built between 1898–1903 represented a return by the Royal Navy to the type of armored cruiser that the 1889 naval program had not included. This program only had a large number of protected cruisers (nine Edgar- class 1st class cruisers , 29 Apollo- class and Astraea-class 2nd class cruisers, and four Pearl- class 3rd class cruisers ) to secure for the British World empire demanded important sea routes. Without belt armor, protected cruisers were cheaper, lighter and faster than armored cruisers. With the two ships of the Powerful class (14,200 ts) and the eight ships of the Diadem class (11,000 ts), however, they had reached a size that required increased protection compared to the continued construction of armored cruisers in other navies. It should be noted that the Royal Navy with its classifications of cruisers, similar to the Imperial Navy with its designations large cruiser and small cruiser , did not describe the specific construction method.
The new armor based on the Krupp system allowed protection at least against typical 152 mm cruiser armament at medium distances with a reasonable weight. The cruisers of the Cressy -class received a 152 mm thick belt armor, which started about 36 m after the bow, protected the middle part of the ships and narrowed back to 51 mm from 27 m in front of the stern. The built-in armored deck was in places thinner than on the protected cruisers of the Diadem class because of the protection provided by the belt armor . In total, additional armor of around 1,200 tons was installed. Like the previous cruisers of the Powerful and Diadem classes, the ships had four chimneys standing one behind the other and conspicuous air scoops on the sides.
The main armament consisted of two 233 mm Mark X guns in single turrets at the bow and stern. In order to be able to use these weapons in a really useful manner, careful artillery training was necessary, as only a single gun was then available in many fire areas. The low bridge height of the ships and the range finders available when they were put into service did not enable good fire control. There were also twelve 152 mm Mark VII cannons available, but they were set up in casemates. The bottom eight guns were severely hindered by swell, as they were very close to the waterline and offered only a poor field of vision for the shooters. As anti-torpedo boat weapons, the cruisers had twelve twelve-pounder rapid-fire guns , most of which were set up in small casemates. There were also three 47 mm Hotchkiss rapid fire cannons and two 450 mm underwater torpedo tubes from the Whitehead system.
The construction contracts for the six cruisers went to three private shipyards, each of which had two ships of the previous Diadem class being completed. The keel was laid in the years 1898 and 1899. As the first cruiser of the new class ran HMS Sutlej on 18 November 1899 at John Brown in Clydebank from the stack of the lead ship of the class, HMS Cressy on December 4 at Fairfield in Govan followed that on May 28, 1901 as the first ship of the class entered service with the Royal Navy. In 1902 four sister ships came into service. Only the completion of Euryalus at Vickers in Barrow was delayed by a fire during the service on June 11, 1901 to January 5, 1904. The lead ship Cressy was named after the Battle of Cressy in 1346, marking the beginning of the Hundred Years War represented , and she was the third ship of that name in the Royal Navy. The naming of the second Hogue should be reminiscent of the naval battles of Barfleur and La Hougue in 1692. HMS Aboukir was the fourth ship in the Navy to bear the name of the battle at Abukir in 1798, through which the British gained naval dominance over the Mediterranean. HMS Sutlej was named after the Indian (Indian-Pakistani) river Satluj and was the second so-named ship in the Navy. HMS Bacchante was the fifth ship with this name in the Royal Navy and named after the participants in an orgy in honor of the wine god Dionysus . HMS Euryalus was named after Euryalos , a hero of the Greek sagas, and a name used several times in the Royal Navy.
Mission history
Missions before the world war
The first Cressy to be completed suffered damage to the control during the test drives and only ran out to the China station in October 1901 .
The Aboukir , which came into service in 1902 , the flagship of the cruisers there and later the Bacchante , were relocated to the Mediterranean . The Aboukir took over the command of the cruisers there. The Sutlej and the Hogue , which entered service at the end of 1902, were assigned to the Channel Fleet . The Sutlej suffered a total collapse of the machine shortly after it was put into service.
In 1903, the two ships of the Canal Fleet visited Galway on July 30th together with the armored cruisers Good Hope , Drake and four destroyers on the occasion of a visit by King Edward VII to Ireland.
The Euryalus , which came into service in 1904, was relocated to Australia Station as the flagship after tests with the Canal Fleet in 1904 . The Sutlej moved after their repair of the channel fleet to China Station.
In 1906, the Euryalus, withdrawn from Australia, became the flagship of the North America & West Indies station and the 4th cruiser squadron stationed there, which also includes the sister ships Hogue and the Sutlej, also withdrawn from China, for cabin boy training, as well as the Highflyer , Indefatigable and the Isis der Eclipse class . The station also controlled the old 3rd class cruiser HMS Calypso , which served as a training ship for Newfoundland reservists, and the sloop HMS Shearwater , which was used on the American west coast. The Brilliant of the Apollo class served as a fisheries protection ship off Newfoundland . In 1907, the Cressy was transferred to the North America-West India Station, where she was also used for cabin boy training.
Than it is to riots in March 1908 in Haiti came on the march was Bermuda to Jamaica located Cressy to Port au Prince sent to protect British interests and citizens. She was supported by the old Indefatigable from Jamaica . In October 1908 the Aboukir of the Mediterranean fleet was in Venice while the Bacchante was moving home from Gibraltar . After the great earthquake in Messina on December 28, 1908, the Sutlej provided support from December 29, followed by the Minerva from December 30, Exmouth from 31, and from January 1, 1909 also the Duncan and Euryalus the rescue work. Finally, the armored cruiser Lancaster arrived in the disaster area to provide assistance. The Sutlej , the first British ship to arrive, worked very closely with units of the Russian fleet, which were the first to provide on-site support with the ships of the line Slawa and Zessarewitsch and the armored cruiser Admiral Makarow .
After this mission, the Sutlej moved to the 3rd (reserve) fleet in Devonport in 1909, where it remained until the start of the war.
By 1912, all ships of the Cressy class returned home from overseas stations and were assigned to the 3rd (reserve) fleet.
War mission in the North Sea
The Cressy-class cruisers were obsolete at the beginning of the First World War (see also HMS Dreadnought ). They were therefore only entrusted with light patrol tasks, among other things because they could not maintain the minimum march speed necessary for fleet operations over a long period of time. Only the Sutlej was assigned to the 9th Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet . The other five were grouped in the 7th Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet. This squadron was also referred to as "live bait" on various occasions. During the sea battle near Helgoland on August 28, 1914, all five ships together with the former flagship of the Harwich Force , HMS Amethyst , formed the part of the remote security for the Harwich Force, designated as Force C , which attacked the German outpost line with its destroyers and two light cruisers . The HMS Arethusa , severely damaged in battle , was finally brought in by the armored cruiser Hogue .
In the early morning of September 22, 1914, three of the six cruisers of this class, Cressy , Hogue and Aboukir , were lost to a torpedo hit by the German submarine U 9 under Lieutenant Otto Weddigen . The three armored cruisers were in the southern North Sea in the sea area of the so-called Hoofden at about 52 ° 18 ' N , 3 ° 41' E with 10 knots and a distance of 2 nautical miles between the ships on a control voyage. There was no further backup; the destroyers accompanying them had already been released on September 17th because of very bad weather. The fourth cruiser, the flagship Euryalus , ran into the Nore on the 20th to take over coal and was replaced by the freshly equipped Cressy . Admiral Arthur Christian could not change his flagship because of the weather at sea. The fifth ship of the squadron, the Bacchante , was in the shipyard. The bad weather was the reason why the old cruisers still did security duty, since they could stay at sea. However, they were not able to drive the zigzag course that was actually required and to reach the required 12 knots speed for the security service.
At 6:20 am, U 9 torpedoed the Aboukir from about 500 m in a fairly calm sea , and its engine room was full. The commander of the Aboukir suspected a mine hit and asked the other two cruisers for assistance, as the machine had failed and no boats could be brought into the water without the steam-powered winches. The Aboukir capsized after 25 minutes . At around 7:00 a.m., the submarine that had appeared in the meantime fired two torpedoes at the Hogue , which sank at 7:15 a.m. During the attack on the Cressy , only one of two torpedoes hit at 7:15 a.m., Weddigen shot his last torpedo in the surface attack and hit the remaining armored cruiser at 7:30 a.m., whereupon the Cressy capsized and sank at 7:55 a.m. The Dutch steamer Flora rescued 286 men who he gave ashore in IJmuiden , from where they could return to Great Britain on September 26th. Other survivors were rescued by the steamer Titan , two fish steamers from Lowestoft and by destroyers arriving after two hours. A total of 837 men survived the sinking of the three armored cruisers (528 men of the Aboukir crew , 376 of the Hogue and 563 of the Cressy ); 62 officers and 1,405 men died.
From a military point of view, the loss of the three old armored cruisers was rather minor. After this debacle, the British Admiralty issued instructions that in the future only small vehicles such as destroyers would be allowed to provide assistance and that ships of cruiser size and above would have to continue their voyage unabated.
Service in other war zones
As the only ship of the Cressy class, the Sutlej was not in the southern North Sea at the beginning of the war, but assigned to the 9th cruiser squadron of the Grand Fleet , commanded by John de Robeck , which was supposed to secure its own ships in the Atlantic and raise enemy ones. In February she was assigned to the 11th Cruiser Squadron in Devonport, which operated mainly off the Irish coast and at the western entrance of the Canal , but was already in disbandment again. In February 1916 the Sutlej moved in front of the neutral Santa Cruz de Tenerife and in September 1916 was subordinated to the 9th Cruiser Squadron, which was again formed for auxiliary cruiser defense, off West Africa. In 1917 the Sutlej moved home and became a barge in Rosyth , where it was renamed Crescent in January 1918 as the depot ship for the base there . In 1921 the armored cruiser was sold for demolition. In tow to Belfast it was torn down en route and was missing for 14 days; from August 1924 it was canceled in Preston.
The two remaining armored cruisers of the 7th Cruiser Squadron, Euryalus and Bacchante , were placed under the Western Channel Patrol , commanded by Rear Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss , whose flagship was the Euryalus . In October, both cruisers went to Gibraltar to accompany a convoy and moved through the Mediterranean to the Suez Canal in February 1915 . In April both cruisers were sent to the Dardanelles .
The Bacchante stayed in front of the Dardanelles during the entire Gallipoli campaign . She supported the landings at Anzac Cove near Gaba Tepe and was also involved in the Saloniki mission in January 1916. In 1917 she was assigned to the 9th Cruiser Squadron in West Africa and sold for demolition in 1920.
The Euryalus attacked from March 5th to 15th with the liners Triumph and Swiftsure and supported by a seaplane carrier and minesweeper Smyrna , as there was fear of the establishment of a submarine base. The unit was commanded by Vice Admiral Richard Peirse on the Euryalus , the commander of the Royal Navy for Egypt and the East Indies. The planned destruction of the protective forts and the removal of any minefields did not succeed. On the 11th, the seaplane carrier, the former German merchant ship Anne Rickmers , was torpedoed by the Turkish torpedo boat Demir Hissar . The British governor refused to surrender. On the 15th the British association withdrew to the fleet that was gathering in front of the Dardanelles. When Rear Admiral Wemyss, who had led the construction of Mudros as the British base, was appointed commander of the landings on Gallipoli , he again chose the Euryalus as the flagship. On the evening of April 24, 1915, she took three companies of the Lancashire Fusiliers on board in order to deploy them as the foremost landing force. At 4:00 a.m. on April 25, 1915, the soldiers climbed into civilian lifeboats and the boats of the Euryalus , which were towed by the cruiser's steam cutters until 5:50 a.m. in front of the landing section 'W' at Tekke Burnu . The sailors of the Euryalus rowed the soldiers ashore in the gunfire of the Turkish defenders. The battalion lost eleven officers and 350 men, and of the 80 men employed by the Euryalus , 57 were wounded and six killed. The Lancashire Fusiliers received six Victoria Crosses for the landing maneuver. To give Wemyss an overview of the problems with the landing maneuvers, the Euryalus was very close to the coast. After the unfavorable course of the land operations, the retreat of the Allies began in December, which Wemyss again commanded and monitored by the Euryalus . The armored cruiser ran back to the Suez Canal with the troops.
On January 16, 1916, the Euryalus became the flagship of the new Commander-in-Chief of the East Indian Station , to which Wemyss was appointed because of his services in the Gallipoli campaign. Wemyss used the Euryalus for his diplomatic and military campaign in the Middle East in 1916 and 1917. He supported the Arab uprising against the Turks, where he liked to show the big ship with the four funnels. In January 1917, the Euryalus shelled the port of El Wejh behind the Turkish lines on the Red Sea in coordination with Sherif Hussein and T. E. Lawrence before their land attack. The armored cruiser also transported Arab troops from the south far north and supported the advance with artillery support. One such amphibious operation took Aqaba . Hussein's son, Faisal , who later became King of Iraq, later declared Admiral Wemyss, and not Lawrence, to be the "father and mother of the revolt". Even when Wemyss gave up command in September 1917 to become First Sea Lord , the Euryalus remained the flagship of the East India Station until 1919, when it returned home for decommissioning. On September 24, 1920, the armored cruiser was sold for demolition.
Cressy class ships
| Surname | shipyard | Keel laying | Launch | Commissioning | Whereabouts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HMS Cressy | Fairfield, N ° 409 | 10/12/1898 | December 4, 1899 | 05/28/1901 | Sunk September 22, 1914 |
| HMS Aboukir | Fairfield, N ° 410 | 11/9/1898 | May 16, 1900 | 3.04.1902 | Sunk September 22, 1914 |
| HMS Sutlej | John Brown, n ° 337 | 08/15/1898 | 11/18/1899 | May 6, 1902 | Sale in 1921 |
| HMS Hogue | Vickers | 07/14/1898 | 08/13/1900 | 11/19/1902 | Sunk September 22, 1914 |
| HMS Bacchante | John Brown, n ° 338 | 02/15/1899 | 02/21/1901 | 11/25/1902 | retired on July 1, 1920 |
| HMS Euryalus | Vickers | 07/18/1899 | 05/20/1901 | 5.01.1904 | Sale 1920 |
Use of the reserve towers
In March 1915 fourteen were from the war budget monitors of type HMS M15 ordered. You should get 9.2 inch guns from older cruisers. The first four ships of the class ( M 15, M 16, M 17, M 18 ) which, when William Gray and Company in Hartlepool were built, received Reserve towers Type Mark X, which for cruiser Drake - and Cressy were present class .
Web links
literature
- Randal Gray (Ed.): Conway's All The Worlds Fighting Ships 1906-1921. Conway Maritime Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 .
- Robert K. Massie : Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany and the winning of the Great War at sea. Johnathan Cape, 2004, ISBN 0-224-04092-8 .
Footnotes
- ↑ Information on the 6-inch Mk.VII gun
- ↑ Information in parliament on the fire
- ↑ Question in parliament on the damage to the 'Sutlej'
- ↑ 7th Cruiser Squadron (United Kingdom) in the English language Wikipedia
- ↑ ( 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 )
- ^ Information on Arthur Christian's career
- ^ Massie: Castles of Steel. P. 133f.
- ^ Massie: Castles of Steel. P. 134.
- ^ Massie: Castles of Steel. P. 135.
- ↑ No evidence for the use in this association could be found. He relocated with the flagship Europa (until July 1915), Amphitrite (until June 1915), Argonaut (until 1915) of the Diadem class, HMS Vindictive , HMS Highflyer , HMS Challenger to Gibraltar and was primarily supposed to secure the area off the Portuguese coast .
- ↑ The 11th cruiser squadron had the old cruisers Juno (until July 1915) as flagship, Doris (until 1914), Isis (until 1916), Minerva (until 1914) and Venus (until 1915).
- ↑ A reliable report on Invergordon names May 9, 1921 as the date of sale
- ↑ HMS Proserpine , a cruiser of the Pelorus class, is said to have been subordinate to the 7th cruiser squadron on the Canal in 1914.
- ^ Richard Peirse (Royal Navy officer) in the English language Wikipedia
- ↑ According to one source, the ship moved to Hong Kong in November 1917 and was decommissioned there. A planned conversion to a mine layer did not take place.