HMS Dunraven
Dunraven by Charles Pears , oil painting in the Imperial War Museum
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The HMS Dunraven was a coal freighter built in 1910, originally called Boverton , but renamed Dunraven shortly after being launched . During the First World War , the ship was used as a Q-ship against the submarines of the German Reich .
history
During the war, the ship was armed for the Royal Navy in Davenport with a 10.2 cm gun, four 7.62 cm guns and two underwater torpedo tubes. The captain was Gordon Campbell , an officer in the Royal Navy.
On August 8, 1917 at 10:58 a.m., the Dunraven sighted a submarine 130 miles southwest of Ushant in the Bay of Biscay . It was the UC 71 submarine led by Oberleutnant zur See Reinhold Saltzwedel . UC 71 opened fire on Dunraven around 11:45 a.m. from a great distance . The Q-ship panic group pretended to abandon the ship. Only Campbell and the combat crew remained on board. After a while the submarine came up to the Dunraven at high speed and opened fire again from a mile. Now the Dunraven got into massive distress, because three gun grenades from the submarine set various weapons on the quarterdeck on fire. The first shell detonated a depth charge on the stern, the other two set the ammunition chamber of the rear twelve-pounder on fire. After half an hour the ammunition chamber exploded and the gun became visible. All but one survived the explosion. Campbell had the Royal Navy flag set, but the gun crews could only fire a few shots at the disappearing submarine tower, as the submarine had been warned by the discovery of the twelve-pounder. Another half hour later Saltzwedel shot a torpedo at the ship, which hit the Dunraven at the stern.
Campbell organized another panic group. An hour later, UC 71 appeared at an unfavorable angle of fire for the Dunraven aft. Saltzwedel had the Dunraven bombarded for 20 minutes and then dived again. Campbell fired his two torpedoes. One missed the boat completely, the second scraped the submarine deck but did not explode.
Campbell put together another panic group and left only the most necessary men behind and waited for the submarine's coup de grace. That didn't come, however, because UC 71 had fired all of its torpedoes and ran out. The Dunraven sank on August 10, 1917 at 3:17 a.m. after the survivors had been picked up by an armed American yacht and the British destroyer Christopher tried to tow the Dunraven .
The crew of the Dunraven received several military awards after the battle; Among other things, Lieutenant Charles G. Bonner and, on behalf of the crew of the stern gun, Petty Officer Ernest Pitcher were awarded the Victoria Cross and Captain Gordon Campbell (for the third time) and Reginald A. Nunn the Distinguished Service Order . The Victoria Crosses were awarded by the crew on the basis of an extremely seldom used provision in the awarding provisions of the award, according to which the Victoria Cross can also be awarded to the unit or crew in the case of particular bravery of a unit or ship's crew, which in turn can then be awarded separately Votes according to officers and team ranks on the specific person who will be honored. This award was the third to last time that this special regulation was used.
literature
- Gordon Campbell: We hunt German submarines . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1937 (English: My Mystery Ships . Original edition published by Hodder & Stoughton, London 1928).
Web links
- Information about the painting and HMS Dunraven on the website of the Imperial War Museum (English)
- Dunreaven ex Boverton on tynebuiltships.co.uk (English)
- HMS Dunraven on wrecksite.eu (English)
Footnotes
- ↑ Campbell gives the position as 48 ° N, 7 ° 37 'W.
Coordinates: 48 ° 0 ′ 0 ″ N , 7 ° 37 ′ 0 ″ E