HMS Formidable (1898)
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 Pre-war photo of the HMS Formidable |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Ship of the line |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | March 21, 1898 |
| Launch | November 17, 1898 |
| delivery | September 1901 |
| period of service |
1904-1914 |
| Whereabouts | Sunk by U 24 off the Isle of Portland on January 1, 1915 , 547 dead |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
14,160 ts |
| length |
125.3 m (411 ft) waterline |
| width |
23 m (75 ft) |
| Draft |
8.2 m |
| crew |
780 (810 as flagship ) |
| drive |
20 Belleville water tube boilers |
| speed |
18 kn |
| Range |
5,550 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
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| Armor | |
| Belt armor |
230 mm (9 in) |
| Armored bulkhead |
230–300 mm (9–12 in) |
| Barbette |
300 mm (12 in) |
| Towers |
200–250 mm (8–10 in) |
| Casemates |
150 mm (6 in) |
| Command tower |
360 mm (14 in) |
| Armored deck |
25–76 mm (1–3 in) |
The HMS Formidable was a ship of the line and the lead ship of the Formidable class of the British Royal Navy . It was lost as the third battleship of the Royal Navy in World War I when it was sunk on January 1, 1915 in the English Channel by the German submarine U 24 under the command of Rudolf Schneider .
History of the ship
The HMS Formidable was on 17 November 1898 as the first and eponymous ship Formidable class in Portsmouth from the pile and was completed in September 1,901th The cost of construction was just under £ 1.1 million . The commissioning of the ship was delayed until October 10, 1904 due to various complaints, in particular about the engine, so that the ship was the last of its class to enter active service. The class consisted of eight ships and had three classes with the Formidable and her two sister ships direct, the three ships of London - or Bulwark class and only after Duncan class built two ships of the queen class.
The main armament of the battleship consisted of four 12-inch (305 mm) type Mk IX guns in two twin turrets and twelve 6-inch guns (152 mm) two of them in side casemates . The crew consisted of 780 men, as the flagship 810 men.
Operation history until 1914
The HMS Formidable entered service on October 10, 1904 in Portsmouth for the British Mediterranean Fleet . The sister ships HMS Implacable on September 10, 1901, HMS Irresistible on February 4, 1902, HMS Bulwark on March 10 - which became the flagship -, HMS London on June 7 and HMS Venerable on June 12, were previously in service with this association November 11th, 1902 - 2nd Admiral's flagship - as well as HMS Queen on April 7th 1904 and HMS Prince of Wales on May 18th 1904. In addition to the eight ships of the line of the Formidable class, the Mediterranean fleet had four newer ships of the Duncan class at the end of 1904 . The Formidable was overhauled in Malta from late 1904 to April 1905 and remained in the Mediterranean until April 1908 before it was relocated to the Channel Fleet ("Canal Fleet").
On August 17, 1908, she was then decommissioned in Chatham (Kent) to be overhauled at the local naval shipyard. On April 20, 1909, the Formidable was put back into service for service in the 1st Division of the Home Fleet stationed there , but moved to service in the Atlantic Fleet on May 29 . In July 1910 this consisted of the Formidable , the sister ships Prince of Wales , flagship of the fleet chief, Vice Admiral Louis von Battenberg , London (Rear Admiral Colin R. Keppel ), Queen , Implacable and Venerable .
In May 1912, the Formidable's active service in Chatham ended. Their crew was reduced to a tribe and only replenished during maneuvers. She now belonged to the 5th battleship squadron of the 2nd fleet.
Use in the First World War
With the 5th Battleship Squadron, the Formidable was involved in securing the transport of the British Expeditionary Corps to the mainland after the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 and later brought parts of the Portsmouth Marine Battalion to Ostend , where this unit was used in the defense of the city against the should help advancing Germans .
For her last mission, an artillery exercise off the Isle of Portland , the Formidable ran out on December 30, 1914. The association stayed at sea after the exercise, as the bad weather meant that there was no suspicion of danger from German submarines. Nevertheless, the U 24 operating in this area managed to shoot a torpedo at 02:20 a.m. the following day at the battleship at the end of the formation and to score a hit on the port side at the height of the first boiler room (in some cases from the starboard side ). The ship quickly got a list of about 20 °. 45 minutes later, U 24 launched another attack, which resulted in another hit. The ship was now listing increasingly to starboard. Due to the high waves, which were accompanied by strong winds, rain and darkness, an orderly evacuation of the ship was not possible. Only four boats could be launched, one of which capsized.
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The Formidable capsized and sank at around 4:45 a.m. Captain Noel Loxley, who had stayed on the bridge to the end, went down with his ship. 80 men were rescued by the cruisers HMS Topaze and HMS Diamond , and another 70 by a trawler from Brixham . A pinasse with originally 71 crew members was only sighted from land the following day. 48 men were found alive. Three more of them died. A total of 547 crew members lost their lives when the ship went down.
The Formidable was the Royal Navy's second battleship to be lost to warfare during World War I.
Previously, the HMS Audacious ran on October 27, 1914 off the Northern Irish coast near Lough Swilly on a mine laid by a German auxiliary cruiser C, the SMS Berlin , and sank. Their crew was completely rescued by the passenger ship RMS Olympic , which sailed across the minefield to rescue it and remained undamaged. In addition, the sister ship of the Formidable , the HMS Bulwark, was destroyed in an accident (ammunition chamber explosion) in November 1914 .
The wreck of the Formidable is 37 nautical miles off the coast of Devon at position 50 ° 13 '11 " N , 3 ° 4' 4" W at about 55 m Water depth. It is protected by the Protection of Military Remains Act of 1986 as a “Controlled Site”. This means that diving is strictly prohibited within a radius of 300 m from the named position.
literature
- RA Burt: British Battleships 1889–1904 , Annapolis: Naval Institute Press 1988.
- Roger Chesneau, Eugene M. Kolesnik, eds .: Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships, 1860-1905 , Mayflower Books, New York 1979, ISBN 0831703024 .
- Randolph Pears: British battleships 1892–1957 , Putnam 1957, ISBN 0-906223-14-8
Web links
- The story of the sinking of HMS Formidable (accessed February 24, 2011)
- HMS Formidable , Irresistible and Implacable (accessed February 24, 2011)
- HMS Formidable (accessed February 24, 2011)
Footnotes
- ↑ Data on HMS Formidable , Irresistible , Implacable (accessed February 24, 2011)
- ↑ Data on HMS Bulwark , London , Venerable (accessed February 24, 2011)
- ↑ Data on HMS Queen , Prince of Wales (accessed February 24, 2011)
- ^ Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921 , p. 8
- ↑ a b Burt, p. 170
- ↑ HMS Formidable's history on the battleships-cruisers.co.uk website.Retrieved February 24, 2011