HMS Engadine (1911)
 HMS Engadine at anchor in 1915 with a shorts seaplane on the stern
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HMS Engadine was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy in the First World War . The mail steamer , originally built for the English Channel traffic under the name Engadine , received a hangar for three seaplanes shortly after the start of the war , with which reconnaissance and bombing raids in the North Sea area were to be carried out. The ship took part in the unsuccessful air raid on Cuxhaven at the end of 1914, before further modifications were made in 1915, which increased the operational capacity to four aircraft. Later that year, the Engadine was transferred to the Grand Fleet , with which it took part in the 1916 Skagerrak Battle . One of their aircraft carried out the first reconnaissance mission of an aircraft heavier than air in a sea battle. In 1918 it was moved to the Mediterranean.
After the original owners bought it back, the Engadine was used again in its old civil trade area and with its pre-war purpose. In 1933 the ship was sold to a Filipino operator and renamed Corregidor . She went down with great loss of life after a mine hit in December 1941 during the early stages of the Pacific War and the Battle of the Philippines .
Description and construction
The Engadine had an overall length of 98.5 meters (353 feet ), a width of 12.5 m (41 feet) and a mean draft of 4.2 m (13 feet 8 inches). Their displacement was a maximum of 2590 tons, the ship was measured with 1676 gross register tons . The three shafts were driven directly by a steam turbine each without a gearbox . Six steam boilers supplied the steam; the engine system developed up to 13,800 hp (10,300 kW) and could accelerate the vehicle to a design speed of up to 21.5 knots . Up to 390 tons of coal were on board, which gave the Engadine a range of up to 1250 nautical miles at a speed of 15 knots.
The Engadine was laid at the shipyard William Denny and Brothers in the Scottish town of Dumbarton . The South East and Chatham Railway had ordered a fast mail ship for their liner service between Folkestone and Boulogne . The launch took place on September 23, 1911, the commissioning took place later in the same year.
commitment
On August 11, 1914, the British Admiralty confiscated the ship, had it made makeshift at the Chatham Dockyard for use by seaplanes and put it into service with the Royal Navy. Three canvas hangars were installed; a flight deck was missing - the planes were lowered into the water to take off and then lifted back on board after their return, using newly installed derrick cranes . In 1918 the Engadine had 197 officers and men as a crew, 53 of whom were responsible for flight operations.
After the renovations were completed on September 1, 1914, the Engadine was assigned to the Harwich Force , along with the seaplane tenders HMS Empress and HMS Riviera . On Christmas Day 1914, nine aircraft from these three ships took part in the air raid on Cuxhaven and attacked Zeppelin hangars there. Seven of the nine aircraft successfully launched the attack, but caused only minor damage. Only three of the planes launched returned to their mother ships; three more had to go to sea beforehand, and their crews were recovered from a British submarine and the Dutch trawler Marta van Hatten .
A well-known member of the crew was Robert Erskine Childers , who served as a flight instructor for coastal navigation for newly trained pilots. In addition, he flew missions as a navigator and observer and took part in the aforementioned air attack, for which there was a mention in despatches .
The Engadine was acquired by the Admiralty in February 1915 and converted at Cunard in Liverpool from February 10 to March 23, 1915. After this conversion, she owned a permanent hangar for four aircraft on the stern and two cranes attached to the rear hangar for moving the seaplanes into the water and back on board. Four rapid fire cannons of the type QF 12 pounder 12 cwt naval gun with 130 shells each and two QF 3-pounder anti-aircraft guns, each with 65 shells, were available for self-defense. In addition, the ship was equipped with a dovecote for carrier pigeons to give their flyers a means of communication if their radio equipment fails.
After the conversion, the ship came to the Harwich Force . On July 3rd, the Engadine and the Riviera made an attempt to launch reconnaissance aircraft along the Ems in order to lure out and attack a German airship. Of the three Sopwith Schneider seaplanes that the Engadine wanted to use, two crashed when taking off, the third was badly damaged.
In October 1915, the ship was transferred to Vice Admiral David Beatty's battlecruiser squadron in Rosyth . Later this month, took the ship tests with towed at high speed Airships (so-called. Kite balloons ) observers, to direct artillery fire.
Battle of the Skagerrak
On May 30, 1916, the Engadine belonged to the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron under Rear Admiral Trevylyan Napier . She had four seaplanes, two Short Type 184s and two Sopwith Baby , on board. The two-seat short aircraft were intended for reconnaissance and observation and were equipped with a low-power radio for this purpose, while the Sopwith aircraft were intended for attacking enemy zeppelins. The Engadine accompanied the cruisers when the battle cruisers left Rosyth on the evening of May 30th. For a certain time on May 31st she ran in front of the battlecruisers, and she could have been one of the first British ships to notice the approaching German ocean-going fleet . The position in the vanguard had an operational reason: a calm water surface was necessary to take off the seaplanes, because waves from the wake of ships ahead prevented take-offs. In addition, the Engadine had to stop completely in order to launch its aircraft and prepare them for take-off, a process that took around 20 minutes. From a vanguard position, the carrier could start his aircraft before the fleet caught up with him.
Beatty ordered the Engadine at 14:40 to scout in a north-northeast direction. She cruised through the battlecruisers, then turned north-east for calmer water. At 15:07 Lieutenant launched Frederick Rutland in his 184-type machine, his observers reported to the Engadine to 15:30 Three German battle cruisers and five destroyers had agreed. These were units of the Second Reconnaissance Group, which led Admiral Hippers battle cruiser. This was the first time in naval history that an enemy fleet had been detected by an airplane. A few more snapshots were sent by the airmen, then at 3:36 p.m. a fuel line broke, forcing Rutland to land in the water . The crew was able to repair the breakdown, then reported that they were ready to fly again, but instead the order came to return to the mother ship by taxi on the water surface . The plane arrived at the ship at 15:47 and was back on board at 16:04. At this point, two destroyers, the Onslow and the Moresby , had arrived as escorts and secured the Engadine while it lay motionless. The Engadine then tried - albeit unsuccessfully - to transmit the individual observations to Beatty's flagship and the flagship of the 5th Battle Squadron . She then followed Beatty's ships during the battlecruiser battle at the so-called "Run to the South" at the beginning of the battle (her two escorts were detached again). Even after the U-turn and the “Run to the North”, the Engadine was in the rear.
At around 6:40 p.m. the Engadine met the armored cruiser Warrior, which was shot and maneuverable in the afternoon . She began a tow attempt at 7:45 p.m., which initially failed because the cruiser's rudder jammed, but finally the tow train made 8 knots of speed at around 9:30 p.m. with the Engadine's engines running at full power . The next morning the water ingress of the Warrior could no longer be stopped, so that Captain Vincent Molteno ordered "All hands off board" and the Engadine came alongside at around 08:00. While rolling in the sea, one of the Warrior's guns broke through the hull of the Engadine below the waterline, but the leak was quickly sealed. Around 675 officers and men came on board the Engadine . Those rescued included 30 seriously injured people who were lifted over on their stretchers; one of the wounded fell into the water between the ships, but was saved by the aircraft pilot Rutland. For this act, Rutland received the Albert Medal First Class in gold and for a short time was the only living recipient of this award. The takeover was completed before 9 a.m., and the armored cruiser sank a short time later.
The Engadine remained with the Grand Fleet until early 1918, when it was relocated to the Mediterranean Sea and carried out anti-submarine patrols from Malta for the remainder of the war .
Post-war missions
The original owner, the South Eastern and Chatham Railway, bought the ship back in December 1919 and put it back into service in its original role as a canal ferry. In 1923 the Engadine was transferred to the Southern Railway in the course of mergers of British railways . Ten years later it was sold to the Filipino company Fernandez Hermanos, Inc. , which started up as Corregidor in 1933 .
Sinking
At 10 p.m. on December 16, 1941, the Corregidor left the port of Manila , overloaded with Filipino civilians who wanted to flee from the southern Philippines because of the outbreak of war . It is estimated that there were 1,200 to 1,500 people on board, including about 150 Filipino soldiers, 7 Americans, 5 Filipino MPs, and hundreds of students traveling home after schools and universities were closed. Also on board were military equipment and the entire artillery division of the Visayan-Mindanao Force of the Philippine Army . The shipowners failed to inform the Navy Inshore Patrol about the departure plan.
The ship's captain, Apolinar Calvo, had experience navigating the Manila Bay entrance, which had been mined since July , but that evening the Navy changed its course of action. Instead of parking a gunboat near the safe passage, illuminated buoys were used to guide ships through the mine-free channel. When the ship drove towards the mine-free passage near Corregidor at 01:00 , a change of course towards the electrically remote-controlled minefield was observed. Some officers at the Seaward Defense Command headquarters on Corregidor recommended temporarily disabling the mines so that the ship could safely navigate the field. There are several testimonies, after which the commander of the Seaward Defense , Colonel Paul Bunker ordered to leave the mines activated. According to another account, the mine may have been laid by the Japanese submarine I-124 .
As the Corregidor entered the minefield, there was a large explosion on the starboard side. The ship began to sink rapidly, with numerous people trapped below deck. Survivors reported that the sinking happened so quickly that in the short time there was no widespread panic. Searchlights from Corregidor Island illuminated the disaster area, benefiting the rescue effort. Sailors from the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three stationed in Sisiman Cove heard the explosion, sailed out with three PT speedboats to investigate the situation and were able to rescue a total of 282 (according to another source 296) survivors, seven of whom later died of their injuries.
The case was never investigated due to the Japanese invasion. Some Army officers later reported that the remote-controlled mines were secured immediately after the explosion. The total number of victims is unknown; it is estimated that between 900 and 1200 people lost their lives. Among the dead were the captain and most of the crew, two of the MPs and one of the American passengers. At the time of the event, the sinking of the Corregidor was the marine casualty with the largest number of deaths in the Philippines and also one of the largest in the world.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Layman 1990, pp. 96-98
- ↑ Hobbs, pp. 21 and 31; Layman 1989, p. 38
- ↑ Friedman, pp. 30 and 32, Hobbs, p. 21
- ↑ Layman 1989, pp. 38 and 40
- ↑ a b c Friedman, p. 32
- ^ Barnes & James, p. 98
- ^ The Rescue of Flight Commander Hewlett . In: Flight . No. 315, Jan 8, 1915, p. 24. Retrieved December 26, 2017.
- ^ Piper, p. 153
- ↑ Hobbs, p. 31
- ↑ Friedman, p. 34
- ↑ Layman 1990, pp. 94-95
- ↑ Layman 1990, pp. 98-99, 101
- ↑ Friedman, p. 43; Layman 1989, p. 40
- ↑ Hobbs, p. 32; Layman 1989, p. 40.
- ↑ Cressman; Gordon, pp. 73-76.
- ↑ Cressman; Gordon, p. 73.
- ↑ Cressman; Gordon, p. 74
- ↑ Cressman; Gordon, pp. 74-75.
- ^ Gordon, p. 75.
- ↑ Cressman; Gordon, p. 75
- ^ Cressman
- ↑ Cressman; Gordon, pp. 75-76.
- ↑ Hartendorp, p. 350.
literature
- References from Norman Friedman: British Carrier Aviation: The Evolution of the Ships and Their Aircraft. Naval Institute Press., Annapolis (Maryland) 1988, ISBN 0-87021-054-8 (American English: British Carrier Aviation: The Evolution of the Ships and Their Aircraft. ).
- Individual references from Jürgen Rohwer: Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two: German, Italian, and Japanese Submarine Successes, 1939 - 1945. Naval Institute Press., Annapolis (Maryland) 1999, ISBN 1-55750-029-0 (American English: Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two: German, Italian, and Japanese Submarine Successes, 1939-1945. ).
- ↑ page 258.
- References from David Hobbs: British Aircraft Carriers: Design, Development and Service Histories. Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2013, ISBN 978-1-84832-138-0 (English: British Aircraft Carriers: Design, Development and Service Histories. ).
Further literature
- Christopher H. Barnes, Derek N. James: Shorts Aircraft Since 1900 . Putnam, London 1989, ISBN 0-85177-819-4 .
- Robert Cressman: Chapter III: 1941 . In: The Official Chronology of the US Navy in World War II . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland 2000, ISBN 978-1-55750-149-3 , OCLC 41977179 .
- Norman Friedman: British Carrier Aviation: The Evolution of the Ships and Their Aircraft . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland 1988, ISBN 0-87021-054-8 .
- John Gordon: Fighting for MacArthur: The Navy and Marine Corps' Desperate Defense of the Philippine . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland 2011, ISBN 978-1-61251-062-0 .
- AVH Hartendorp: The Sinking of the SS Corregidor . In: Manila (Ed.): The American Chamber of Commerce Journal . No. September, 1953, pp. 350-352.
- David Hobbs: British Aircraft Carriers: Design, Development and Service Histories . Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley, UK 2013, ISBN 978-1-84832-138-0 .
- RD Layman: Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1859-1922 . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland 1989, ISBN 0-87021-210-9 .
- RD Layman: Engadine at Jutland . In: Gardiner, Robert (Ed.): Warship 1990 . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland 1990, ISBN 1-55750-903-4 .
- Leonard Piper: Dangerous Waters: The Life and Death of Erskine Childers (aka The Tragedy of Erskine Childers) . Hambledon, 2003, ISBN 1-85285-392-1 .
- Jürgen Rohwer: Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two: German, Italian, and Japanese Submarine Successes, 1939-1945 . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland 1999, ISBN 1-55750-029-0 .
