HMS General Wolfe
 The Monitor General Wolfe 1918
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HMS General Wolfe was a monitor of the Lord Clive class of the Royal Navy , who came in 1915 for the bombardment of the German-occupied Flanders coast in service. The main armament of the monitors of this class was a twin turret with 305 mm guns from disarmed ships of the line of the Majestic class . The M 7 / Wolfe / Sir James Wolfe monitor was named General Wolfe when it was launched . On October 27, 1915, the monitor came into service with the Navy and then with the Dover Patrol .
The failure of the Allied spring offensive in 1918 finally led to the installation of the heaviest Navy cannons on existing monitors, so the General Wolfe became the first monitor with a 457 mm (18 inch) gun and was nicknamed "Elephant and Castle". During the autumn offensive of the Allies in 1918, they shot at their target Snaeskerke at the greatest distance of 37,000 yards to date. At the end of the war, the monitor was put on, then dismantled and offered for sale in 1920. From 1923 General Wolfe was demolished .
Creation of the new monitors and construction of the General Wolfe
The rapid fall of Belgium after the outbreak of World War I brought the war opponent very close to Great Britain. In order to prevent the enemy from stationing significant naval units close to the British Isles, the Germans had to be prevented from using and expanding the Belgian ports. For use in the shallow coastal waters, monitors with their shallow draft seemed to be a suitable means of reducing the expansion and use of the Belgian coast for the Imperial Navy . At this early stage in the war, aircraft were not a viable alternative. The rapid development of the Abercrombie class, with its modern heavy weapons, seemed to point a rapidly viable path. In addition, Turkey's entry into the war and the subsequent battle for the Dardanelles created a further need for such ships. A proponent of such units was the Secretary of the Navy Winston Churchill , who, however, expected new units with heavy modern British cannons. British industry could not fulfill this wish and the Navy did not want to do without heavy modern new buildings. .
Ultimately, the heavy weapons of the Majestic class were selected because these ships with low combat value had to be eliminated. Eight new monitors were ordered, each of which was to receive a twin tower from ships of this class. The turrets should be modified and fire at an elevation of 13.5 ° to 30 ° and thus achieve a range of a good 19 km (21,000 yds). Four of the old ships of the line should at least lose their main armament, which should be modified to be installed on the eight planned new monitors. On January 1, 1915, the towers were distributed, M9 (later General Wolfe ) should receive a 12-inch tower of the Victorious .
Five of the eight new monitors were to be built at Harland & Wolff in Belfast (4) and Govan (1). A monitor was to be built at the William Hamilton shipyards in Port Glasgow ( Prince Rupert ), Scotts in Greenock ( Sir John Moore ) and Fairfields . Since this shipyard was primarily supposed to complete the Renown as a battle cruiser and the Palmer's shipyard had to hand over the construction contract for its sister ship Repulse to the John Brown & Co. shipyard in Clydebank , Palmers am Tyne received the order for the M 9 monitor , which was installed at their shipyard in Hebburn should arise.
Palmers should also manufacture two 4-cylinder, triple expansion machines for the monitor .
The designation M 9 denoted the 9th construction contract for a new monitor. The name of the ship was initially intended to be Wolfe . Namesake was James Wolfe , the victor in the battle on the Plains of Abraham near Quebec , which led to Canada's victory for Great Britain . At times she was to be named Sir James Wolfe , and eventually she became General Wolfe . In practice, they and their sister ships were usually only named by the family names of their namesake. After it was launched on September 9, 1915, the new building was relocated to the Elswick Ordnance Company in Tyneside , which had meanwhile expanded the towers of the old ship of the line and now used a modified one in the new building. The hull of the new class largely corresponded to the Abercrombie class. Because of the lighter armament, the hull could be made a bit narrower and shorter, so that these monitors fit in most docks even with 15 ft-wide torpedo bulges.
Calls
On November 12, 1915, the monitor arrived in Dover , where it remained with the Dover Patrol until the end of the war . All sister ships also served there and were already in use. The first use of the Wolfe took place on January 25, 1916 and served as the flagship of the Commander of the Dover Patroi , Vice Admiral Reginald Bacon . On the afternoon of the 26th German artillery positions near Westende between Nieuwpoort and Ostend were fired on with six other monitors . The monitors all fired about eleven volleys. The shooting performance was observed from aircraft. When, on April 24, 1916, the Wolfe and the sister ship Prince Eugene secured the laying of a network barrier twelve miles off the Belgian coast between Nieuport and Zeebrugge . The Wolfe was shot at by the four 28 cm cannons of the German Tirpitz battery . The monitor returned fire and ran out of range of the German battery without being hit. A German air attack was unsuccessful, as was its own flak. The Wolfe , her sister ships and the other monitors, destroyers and other units monitored the German-occupied Flemish coast in order to minimize German activities, to prevent German minefields from being deployed and to prevent the search for and clearance of British minefields. Before the Allies opened another offensive on the Somme on September 15, 1916, the Dover Patrol was supposed to put the German forces in Belgium under pressure. From September 8th to 15th the Wolfe and all other monitors were used against the Flemish coast. Even after September, the 12-inch monitors, along with other monitors, destroyers and auxiliary ships, were used off the Belgian coast, despite the unfavorable weather for them. They were supposed to prevent the Germans from breaking out of their locations into the canal , continuing to lay mines or clearing British minefields. In view of their hull width and heavy armament, the Germans kept the monitors invulnerable through their units stationed in Flanders and believed that they could only be successfully fought with modern cruisers.
In the following year the monitors continued their unspectacular task of monitoring the German bases and units. In July 1917, the Wolfe and some of her sister ships were taken out of service in preparation for Operation Hush. It was planned on the British side to land the 1st British Division on the Belgian coast. The Wolfe and her sister ship General Craufurd were supposed to haul one of three 540-ft-long pontoons with tanks, cannons, means of transport and several hundred men to the coast. The landing should take place at the same time as an Allied success in the Third Battle of Flanders . The Allied attack took place on July 31, 1917. This offensive failed and after that the landing operation no longer seemed promising. The monitors, which had been training for this attack in the Thames estuary since July 1917 , received the order to move to Portsmouth on October 2nd. Wolfe arrived there on October 4th to be overtaken in dry dock.
18 inch monitor
In 1918 the Wolfe was chosen , which was to be the first monitor to receive an 18 inch L / 40 cannon . After that, the Lord Clive and HMS Prince Eugene should also be armed accordingly. The carriage on which the heaviest gun in the Navy was to be used was given the designation "15-inch B CD". "15-inch B" was the designation for the 18-inch cannon and CD (for "Coast Defense") was intended to highlight the possible use of the gun on land. The mount was developed and built by the Elswick Ordnance Company . Due to difficulties with the workers and strikes in the company since November 1917, the gun to be delivered in October 1917 was not completed until May 1918. On June 20, 1918, the gun arrived in Portsmouth to be installed on the Wolfe . The Wolfe had been in the naval yard since April 5, 1918 to be prepared for the installation of the heavy weapon on the quarterdeck. The weight of the new gun was 384 tons, plus 60 shells and 72 propellant charges. The gun was installed pointing to starboard and was originally intended for the forward turret of the Furious . Installation on the Wolfe started on July 9th. From August 7th, the Wolfe could begin with tests on the new weapon, which took place near the Isle of Wight and were successful. The casing, which looked like a box, did not harmonize with the stern of the ship and led to the nickname "Elephant and Castle" for the ship. On August 15, the monitor was the first of the 18-inch monitors to return to the Dover Patrol ; no missions took place in the rest of August or in the first weeks of September. These were not planned until the end of September in connection with another major Allied offensive in Flanders. The first deployment took place on the night of September 28, 1928, when seven operational monitors attacked targets near Ostend and Zeebrugge . They only use their lighter guns to deceive the Germans. The Germans should believe that the Allies would land again, as in the spring attacks on Ostend and Zeebrugge .
By dawn, the monitors had reached the positions off the coast from which they could optimally shoot their chosen targets. Wolfe took up their position along with the newly completed Gorgon . Wolfe was anchored parallel to the coastline and, from 7:32 a.m., shot at the railway bridge at Snaeskerke , four miles south of Ostend, 36,000 yards away . The monitor thus fired the heaviest projectile of the Royal Navy up to that point, even over the greatest distance up to that point. These top values have not yet been surpassed. During the day, the monitor fired 52 of its 60 shells, all of which struck close to the target. A direct hit was not achieved. The expected / trained cadence of a shot every 3 to 4 minutes could not be sustained in the long run, as not only the tidal current moved the anchored ship, but also the enormous recoil of each shot. In the following two weeks, the Wolfe and the other monitors continued to fire at targets on the Belgian coast, interrupted only by bad weather or a lack of air support to report the shooting results. The ship fired 29 more rounds from the 18-inch cannon. When the Germans evacuated the Flemish coast in mid-October 1918 and then capitulated, the Dover Patrol's monitors returned to Sheerness .
Final fate of General Wolfe
The General Wolfe was decommissioned on November 19th. On April 7, 1920 General Wolfe was put on the Admiralty's sales list. In December 1920 the 18-inch cannon was dismantled and stored; In 1933 the weapon was broken off. The ship was sold for demolition in 1921 and was abandoned in Hayle in 1923 .
The monitors built at Palmers
| HMS | shipyard | start of building | Launch | in service | fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M 9, sp.12 General Wolfe | Palmers, Hebburn BN ° 858 | 1.1915 | 09/09/1915 | October 27, 1915 | 1918 1st monitor with 45.7 cm (18 inch) gun, demolished in 1923 |
| M 13 Marshal Ney | Palmer, Jarrow BN ° 859 | 1.1915 | 06/17/1915 | 08/31/1915 | Disarmed in 1920, renamed several times, demolished in 1957 |
| M14 Marshal Soult | Palmers, Jarrow BN ° 860 | 2.1915 | 08/24/1915 | November 2nd, 1915 | 1926 stationary use, dismantled in 1940, demolition in Troon in 1946 |
The Lord Clive- class ships
| HMS | Namesake | shipyard | began | Launch | in service | fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lord Clive | Robert Clive | Harland & Wolff , Belfast | January 9, 1915 | 06/10/1915 | 07/10/1915 | 1918 to 1920 also 45.7 cm (18 inch) gun, artillery training ship, demolished in 1927 |
| Prince Rupert | Ruprecht of the Palatinate | Hamilton & Co , Port Glasgow | 01/12/1915 | May 20, 1915 | 07/1915 | 1923 demolished |
| Sir John Moore | John Moore | Scotts , Greenock | 01/23/1915 | 05/31/1915 | 07/1915 | 1921 demolition. |
| General Craufurd | Robert Craufurd | Harland & Wolff, Belfast | January 9, 1915 | July 8, 1915 | 08/26/1915 | 1921 demolition |
| Prince Eugene | Eugene of Savoy | Harland & Wolff, Govan | 1.02.1915 | 07/14/1915 | September 5, 1915 | intended for 45.7 cm (18 inch) gun, demolished in 1921 |
| Earl of Peterborough | Charles Mordaunt | Harland & Wolff, Belfast | January 16, 1915 | 08/28/1915 | 09/23/1915 | 1921 demolition |
| General Wolfe | James Wolfe | Palmers , Newcastle | 1.1915 | 09/09/1915 | October 27, 1915 | 1918 1st monitor with 45.7 cm (18 inch) gun, demolished in 1923 |
| Sir Thomas Picton | Thomas Picton | Harland & Wolff, Belfast | January 16, 1915 | 09/30/1915 | November 4, 1915 | 1921 demolition |
The third gun of this type, built as a reserve for the Furious , was similarly installed on the Lord Clive . The ship was not ready for use until October 13, 1918. On the 14th, the monitor began a bombardment that had to be stopped after three shots, as there was a risk of hitting its own advancing troops. If another grenade was already loaded, it was only possible to reduce the propellant charge and then fire the shot into a minefield.
The third existing 18-inch gun, the 'Y' turret temporarily installed on the Furious , was intended for the Prince Eugene . The monitor, which had already arrived, was due to be fitted with this tower from October 19th at the Portsmouth shipyard. The beginning surrender negotiations led to the abandonment of this conversion.
literature
- Ian L. Buxton: Big Gun Monitors: The History of the Design, Construction and Operation of the Royal Navy's Monitors , World Ship Society Tynemouth (1978)
- Frederick J. Dittmar, James J. Colledge: British Warships 1914-1919. Ian Allen, London 1972, ISBN 0-7110-0380-7 .
- Randal Gray (Ed.): Conway's All The Worlds Fighting Ships, 1906-1921. Conway Maritime Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 .
Web links
- LORD CLIVE monitors (1915)
- Monitor GENERAL WOLFE planned as M 9
- HMS General Wolfe (1915)
- HMS General Wolfe - Longest Shot?
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Buxton: Big Gun Monitors, p. 58
- ^ Gilbert: Winston S. Churchill , p. 305
- ↑ a b Buxton, p. 43
- ↑ Buxton, p. 42
- ↑ Buxton, p. 50
- ↑ Buxton, p. 51
- ↑ Buxton, p. 53
- ^ Operation Hush (including the Battle of the Dunes)
- ↑ a b c Buxton, p. 55
- ↑ 18 "/ 40 (45.7 cm) Mark I, UK
- ↑ a b Buxton, p. 185
- ↑ a b Buxton, p. 64
- ↑ Buxton, p. 57
- ↑ Buxton, pp. 58f.
- ↑ Buxton, pp. 185, 188
- ↑ Buxton, p. 67
- ↑ Buxton, pp. 67f., 227