HMS Gloucester (1909)

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Town class
HMS Gloucester
HMS Gloucester
Overview
Type Light cruiser
units 5/21
Shipyard

Wm. Beardmore & Co. , Dalmuir , BauNr. 495

Keel laying April 15, 1909
Launch October 28, 1909
delivery October 1910
Namesake City of Gloucester
period of service

1910-1921

Decommissioning 1921
Whereabouts Sale for demolition April 1921
Technical specifications
displacement

Standard : 4800  ts
Maximum: 5300 ts

length

overall: 453 ft (138.1 m),
430 ft pp

width

47 ft (14.3 m)

Draft

15 ft 6 in (4.7 m)

crew

411-480 men

drive
speed

25 kn , 26.29 upon acceptance

Range

5070 nm at 16 kn

Armament
  • 2 × 6 "/ 50 BL Mk XI
    (15.2 cm L / 50 )
  • 10 × 4 "/ 50 BL Mk VIII
    (10.2 cm L / 50)
  • 4 × 3 Pdr 1.85 "/ 50 QF
    (4.7 cm L / 50)
  • 4 × .303 British machine guns
  • 2 × torpedo tubes 18 "(45.7 cm)
Fuel supply

600 normal –1353 ts coal and
260 ts heating oil

Armor
deck

2 in (50 mm)

Embankments

3/4 in (20 mm)

Command tower

6 in (100 mm)

Sister ships

HMS Glasgow
HMS Gloucester
HMS Liverpool
HMS Newcastle ,

The HMS Gloucester , the ninth ship of the Royal Navy with this name, was a light cruiser of the Town class , which in 1909 shipyard William Beardmore and Company in Dalmuir was paid to Kiel (Scotland) and in 1909 was launched. Sister ships were HMS Bristol (lead ship of the first subgroup), HMS Glasgow , HMS Liverpool and HMS Newcastle .

Technical specifications

A total of 21 Town-class cruisers for the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy in five subgroups had been completed by 1922 .

The Gloucester belonged to the first subgroup, the Bristol class. These ships displaced around 4,800 tons and ran up to 27 knots with their Parsons turbines . They were 131 m long and 15.2 m wide and had a draft of 4.9 m.

The armament of the first series consisted of two individual 15.2-cm guns (one each on the bow and aft ), ten 10.2-cm guns on the sides and four three-pounders, four Maxim automatic cannons and two 45.7 cm underwater torpedo tubes . The two 6-inch guns were added late to the design to give the cruisers a superiority over the German small cruisers. From the second series onwards, all 4-inch guns were replaced and the Town-class cruisers carried eight 6-inch guns.

The crew numbered 411 men.

Peace time

When commissioned in 1910, the Gloucester was assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet . In January 1913 she was assigned to the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean. In 1914 she was still there with the HMS Weymouth , the HMS Chatham and the HMS Dublin and was in Alexandria at the end of July on a demonstration tour of the British Mediterranean fleet through the station area. The Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Archibald Berkeley Milne had assembled two of his three battlecruisers , two of his four armored cruisers , the entire 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron, and thirteen destroyers. Because of the threatened outbreak of war, the fleet marched on to Malta .

War effort

Pursuit of the German Mediterranean division

The first use of the fleet and thus also of Gloucester was the pursuit of the German Mediterranean division under Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon , which consisted of the battle cruiser SMS Goeben and the small cruiser SMS Breslau . The two ships had come from the Adriatic to Messina in accordance with the Triple Alliance agreements and from there attacked two Algerian ports when war broke out between France and Germany. On the way back they had come across two of the British battlecruisers on the march to Gibraltar, which were supposed to prevent the Germans from breaking out of the Mediterranean. Since war had not yet been declared between Germany and Great Britain, the battle cruisers only took up the pursuit of the Germans, in which they were supported by the light cruiser Dublin . The Germans escaped the British and returned to Messina on the morning of August 5th. Since August 2, the British Mediterranean Fleet was with the majority of its ships under Rear Admiral Ernest Troubridge in the direction of the Adriatic Sea. The British did not recognize the Germans' intention to relocate to Turkey.

SMS Goeben

The Commander-in-Chief Milne expected that they would attempt another attack on the French to obstruct the transport of troops from North Africa to France, especially since he had received false information about the presence of German coal steamers in the Balearic Islands . He stayed with two battle cruisers on a backup trip in the west of Sicily in order to be able to cover both attack routes. Since the instructions from London urged him to strictly observe Italian neutrality, a passage through the Strait of Messina and the Italian territorial waters was out of the question for him.

SMS Wroclaw

His subordinate Troubridge thought a march into the Adriatic to the Austrian Navy was likely. On the night of August 5th, he and his four armored cruisers and eight destroyers had been looking for the Germans, as he had been informed of the arrival of the Germans in Messina only four hours late and feared a direct march through. During the day he had withdrawn to the east to the Greek coast, as he expected coal steamers there and his destroyers had only limited supplies. Directly in front of Messina was only the Gloucester, which Troubridge had left there .

On the evening of August 6, the Germans left around 5 p.m. The Gloucester under Captain William A. Howard Kelly immediately took up chase and radioed the two British admirals. The Germans tried to disrupt radio traffic, which they occasionally succeeded in and at times led to incomplete or incorrect information. The Germans ran northeast along the Italian coast, apparently towards the Adriatic. The British battle cruisers first ran to Malta to replenish coal; Troubridges association off the Greek coast to the north, in order to conduct a battle in the narrower sea area if necessary.

The Breslau tried several times to divert the Gloucester from the pursuit of the Goeben with her superior speed by changing course , which did not succeed. She could only prevent the Gloucester from being able to hold herself in a position in which the moon "illuminated" the flagship. At 11 p.m. Souchon changed course and the two German ships were now heading south-east. They continued to try to interfere with the Gloucester radio communications, but only partially succeeded. At 0.10 a.m. on August 7, Troubridge turned around with his 1st Cruiser Squadron and ran south with the four armored cruisers to intercept Breslau and Goeben during the night. Its destroyers still had insufficient coal stocks to be used effectively.

The sharpest weapon of the British seemed to be the cruiser Dublin under Captain John D. Kelly , the younger brother of the commanding officer of the Gloucester , who had gone to Malta on the 4th to replenish his coal stocks on August 6th after the pursuit of the Germans , around 1.30 p.m., with the destroyers HMS Beagle and HMS Bulldog to reinforce Troubridge's formation. They were supposed to stop the Goeben with a torpedo night attack. At top speed they ran to a calculated intersection, which was, however, wrong due to the mutilated radio messages of the Gloucester and the excessive speed it transmitted. Nevertheless, they sighted the Wroclaw and went into pursuit because they had not been able to get in front of them. At 2.42 a.m. they broke off the pursuit of the faster Breslau , since the Goeben was still further to the northwest according to the Gloucester reports . John Kelly and his ships continued the search until 3.30 a.m. All they saw was columns of steam, which presumably belonged to Gloucester . At 3:30 a.m. John Kelly had to break off the search because the coal supply of his ships was severely reduced and the operational readiness was endangered. He continues his drive to the Troubridge Association. His formation broke off the march to the south at 3.47 a.m. near the Greek coast and far to the north, as a night battle was hardly possible and he saw no chance against the Goebes during the day .

So the Gloucester remained under Howard Kelly the only pursuer of the Mediterranean division. The Wroclaw had come very close to her in the course of pursuing several times without opening fire. Since the morning the German ships ran together again. Souchon had ordered the Breslau to end and slowed it down so that the battlecruiser could gain a head start. He planned a raid on the chasing cruiser under cover of the Greek islands. Kelly had meanwhile been ordered by Milne to break off the pursuit at Cape Matapan in order to avoid running into this danger. The Gloucester caught up closer to Wroclaw around 1.30 p.m. and opened fire, which was immediately returned. Kelly hoped the Goeben would turn in support of the weaker Breslau . The Breslau received an insignificant hit on the waterline, but then followed Goeben, who had lost sight of it . The Gloucester broke off the pursuit shortly thereafter, as ordered, with little coal supply and no way of maintaining the speed of the Breslau . Goeben and Breslau reached their goal unmolested on the 10th and were a strong argument for Turkey's entry into the war on the side of the Central Powers .

Search for German trade disruptors

In November 1914, the Gloucester was sent to the Indian Ocean to take part in the search for the small cruiser SMS Emden , which was waging a trade war there , but which was sunk by the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney near the Cocos Islands on November 9th . The Gloucester was relocated back to the Mediterranean and should then be transferred to the Home Fleet. But she was only ordered to West Africa to take part in the search for the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm . From February 1915 she belonged to the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron and was able to land the German ship Macedonia of HAPAG in the Atlantic , which was supposed to supply the auxiliary cruiser.

Service in the Home Fleet

In April 1916, the Gloucester ran to Galway in western Ireland during the Easter Rising and shelled the fields around Athenry , where Liam Mellows had gathered around 700 rebels. On April 29, the insurgents withdrew from the city of Athenry. Then the cruiser took part in the association of the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron , which was assigned to the battle cruisers, on May 31 and June 1, 1916 in the Skagerrak Battle . He was then assigned to the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron .

Back in the Mediterranean

In December 1916, she was relocated to the Mediterranean and assigned to the 8th Light Cruiser Squadron in the Adriatic . The cruiser was already deployed on the night of December 22nd to 23rd when four Austrian destroyers attacked the guard ships at the barrier near Otranto . First support was provided by French destroyers, to whose reinforcement Italian destroyers and the Gloucesters left Brindisi . In the darkness the two Allied destroyer groups rammed each other. The four damaged ships had to be towed and the Austrians were able to escape.

In April 1917 she was briefly in India at the East Indies station , but then returned to the Adriatic until the end of the war in November 1918.

Whereabouts

The Gloucester survived World War I and moved from the Mediterranean to her home country in April 1919 to be decommissioned in Devonport . The ship, which was transferred to the reserve, was sorted out in March 1920 and sold for demolition in Briton Ferry in May 1921 .

literature

  • Jane's Fighting Ships of World War One (1919), Jane's Publishing Company
  • Randal Gray, Anthony Preston (Eds.): Conway's All the World Fighting Ships 1906-1921 , Conway Maritime Press Ltd, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5
  • Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford,

Web links

Commons : Town class cruiser (1910)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files