HMS Highflyer (1898)

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flag
Highflyer class
HMS Highflyer
HMS Highflyer
Overview
Type Protected cruiser
units 3
Shipyard

Fairfield , Govan

Keel laying June 1897
Launch June 4, 1898
delivery December 7, 1899
period of service

1899-1921

Whereabouts Sold for demolition
June 10, 1921
Technical specifications
displacement

Standard : 5,600  ts

length

pp: 106.75 m (350 ft)
above sea level 113.46 m (372 ft)

width

 16.47 m (54 ft)

Draft

   6.7 m (22 ft)

crew

450 men

drive
speed

20 kn

Armament
  • 11 × 6 "-152 mm-L / 45 Mk.VII
  • 9 × 12 pdr QF 76.2 mm guns
  • 6 × 3-pdr QF 47mm guns
  • 2 × 45.7 cm torpedo tubes
Coal supply

500 ts (1120 ts max.)

Armor
deck

76 mm (3 in)

Machine cover

127 mm (5 in)

Command tower

152 mm (6 in)

The protected cruiser HMS Highflyer is usually referred to as the lead ship of the three cruisers of the Highflyer class of the Royal Navy . It was first used as the flagship of the East Indies station off Somaliland . The High Flyer fought in the First World War on August 26, 1914 German auxiliary cruiser and Schnelldampfer SMS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse in front of Río de Oro .

Building history of the Highflyer class

HMS Eclipse
HMS Gladiator of the Arrogant class

The HMS Highflyer belonged to a new class of three protected 2nd class cruisers, the keel-laying of which took place for the Royal Navy between January and June 1897. Basically, they were replicas of the Eclipse class , but they were to receive a uniform main armament of eleven 6-inch guns in contrast to the mixed armament of the Eclipse class. The machinery with its water tube boilers largely corresponded to the four ships of the Arrogant class . This made them a little faster than the nine ships of the Eclipse class, especially since the lower weight of the boiler offset the higher weight of the armament. The three ships, which cost an average of £ 300,000, no longer had a trained battering bow like the Arrogant class. Together with the two ships of the Challenger class , which in some sources are also assigned to the Hermes / Highflyer class, they were the last British light cruisers up to the keel-laying of the Town class in 1909.

The keel of the Highflyer was laid in June 1897 as the last ship of the class at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan under hull number 402, where the sister ship HMS Hermes was already under construction under number 401. The shipyard had previously built the cruisers HMS Venus and HMS Diana of the previous Eclipse class alongside other ships for the Royal Navy. The third sister ship, the HMS Hyacinth , was built by the London & Glasgow Engineering and Iron Shipbuilding Company, which is also located in Govan . On December 7, 1899, the Highflyer was put into service as the second ship of the class. The actual type ship of the class is therefore the Hermes, which entered service on October 5, 1899 .

Mission history

The Highflyer was initially used to test the Belleville boilers , which are still very little in use , especially after the sister ship HMS Hermes had considerable problems with these boilers on its march to the North American station. To do this, she marched to the Mediterranean, among other places. Her march to East Indies Station, where she was supposed to replace the cruiser HMS Eclipse as the flagship, was postponed at least three times in the spring of 1900. With it, the destroyers Hornet , Conflict , Coquette and Cygnet should be transferred to there and tested under tropical conditions, which, however, never happened.

On June 28, 1900 the Highflyer finally left Devonport alone, reached Malta on July 5 and ran from there to Mauritius from July 9 to August 1 .

Pre-war missions

On April 12, 1901, as the flagship of the East Indies Station with the HMS Pomone , HMS Marathon and HMS Porpoise in Colombo, she received the royal yacht HMS Ophir with the heir to the throne and wife on board on her journey through the colonies to Australia for the opening of parliament there. On April 16, she accompanied the Ophir with the HMS Melpomene and their escort cruisers HMS St George and HMS Juno for a few hours towards Singapore .

From November 1902 to March 1903, the Highflyer under Captain Arthur Christian was the flagship of Rear Admiral Sir Charles Drury (1846-1914), the commander of the East Indies Station, who supported the 2nd and 3rd Somaliland campaigns with a squadron of six ships . The ships landed troops and supplies, transported them to various ports and were intended to prevent the insurgents from being supplied with weapons and ammunition by sea. Three officers of the Highflyer supported the campaign on land with a radio station .

The Highflyer was replaced in 1903 by her sister ship HMS Hyacinth . In 1906 the Highflyer was part of the 4th Cruiser Squadron, which served on the North America & West Indies station and which the armored cruisers HMS Euryalus , HMS Hogue and HMS Sutlej of the Cressy class , the cruiser 2nd class HMS Indefatigable and as a fisheries protection ship off Newfoundland HMS Brilliant belonged to the Apollo class and the HMS Isis to the Eclipse class . The station was also subject to the old 3rd class cruiser HMS Calypso , which served as a training ship for the Newfoundland reservists, and the sloop HMS Shearwater , which was used on the American west coast. In 1907 the Highflyer relocated to India again, where it was withdrawn again in August 1908 after damage to the starboard engine and preliminary repairs in Bombay and was replaced by the older HMS Fox , which remained there until the outbreak of war in 1914.

In 1913, the increased need for naval officers led to the recruitment of 18-year-old graduates from public schools as 'Special Entry cadets', for whose training the high flyer was assigned.

War effort

In August 1914, the Highflyer was assigned to the 9th Cruiser Squadron under Admiral John de Robeck , whose area of ​​operation was to be the northwest corner of Spain near Cap Finisterre . On August 4, 1914, she ran out of Plymouth together with the squadron flagship HMS Vindictive . One of the first controlled ships was the Tubantia des Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd, coming from South America , which was stopped by the Highflyer shortly after leaving Vigo and directed to Plymouth, as it was carrying a grain load for Germany, 150 German reservists and £ 500,000 in gold a part for the German Bank of London.

Wreck of the Kaiser Wilhelm the Great off the African coast

The Highflyer then ran back to the station and was handed over to Rear Admiral Stoddart ’s 5th Cruiser Squadron at Cape Verde to take part in the search for German auxiliary cruisers. When the news that Kaiser Wilhelm the Great was lying in front of Rio de Oro on the Sahara coast, she ran there and discovered the auxiliary cruiser taking over coal from three auxiliary ships. The highflyer asked the auxiliary cruiser to surrender. The commander of the Kaiser Wilhelm the Great appealed to the protection of neutral waters. The British did not recognize them because the auxiliary cruiser stayed in them too long - it had been there since August 17th - and took care of itself in them. From 3:10 pm to 4:45 pm there was a battle; After the ammunition had been used up and water ingress in the foredeck, the remaining crew of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Große left their ship and opened the bottom valves. On board the Highflyer there were one dead and six wounded during the battle, on the auxiliary cruiser two wounded. The Highflyer ran to Gibraltar for repairs due to a hit in the main steam pipe . The auxiliary ships of the German auxiliary cruiser escaped during the battle to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria . On October 4th 1914 she was in front of Santa Cruz de La Palma.

On October 15, the Highflyer briefly became the flagship of Cape Verde station when Admiral Stoddard was ordered to Pernambuco . At the end of the month, the Highflyer ran to Great Britain to secure the transporters transporting troops from Cape Town to Europe. She returned to the station on the African Atlantic coast to take part in the search for the cruiser SMS Karlsruhe . After the sea ​​battle at Coronel , she came back under the command of Admiral de Robeck, who formed a squadron off the West African coast against a possible breakthrough by the German cruiser squadron and Admiral Graf Spee . This squadron included the HMS Warrior , HMS Black Prince , HMS Donegal and Highflyer , which gathered on November 12 outside Sierra Leone .

After the sea ​​battle in the Falkland Islands , the squadron disbanded and the Highflyer was parked to search for the auxiliary cruiser SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm , which she almost surprised in January 1915. The cruiser remained at the 'West Africa station' in Cape Verde until 1917, before moving to the North America and West Indies Squadron . In the meantime the unrestricted submarine war had begun and the Royal Navy decided to introduce a convoy system on the North Atlantic. From July 10, 1917, the Highflyer was used to secure the first HS 1 convoy from Canada to Great Britain. On December 6, 1917, she was in Halifax at the Halifax explosion and supported the rescue work.

In 1918 the Highflyer relocated again to its first foreign station at the East Indies Station in Bombay , where it remained in service as the flagship and last cruiser of the Royal Navy from the Victorian period until 1921. The Admiralty justified the use of the totally outdated cruiser with its special suitability as a flagship. There it was sold for demolition on June 10, 1921.

Sister ships

  • HMS Hermes - launched on April 7, 1898 as the first ship of the class, converted into a carrier ship for seaplanes in 1913 , sunk by SM U 27 on October 31, 1914
  • HMS Hyacinth - launched on October 27, 1898, at the beginning of the First World War on the South African station, deployed against SMS Koenigsberg , as the last ship of the class sold for demolition on October 11, 1923

literature

Web links

Commons : Highflyer-class cruiser  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Discussion of the tests of the water tube boilers in the lower house in May 1900
  2. Information to Parliament of December 13, 1900
  3. Damage to the high flyers
  4. ^ British capture $ 2,500,000 prize (The Washington Post, August 8, 1914, p. 1)
  5. Herbert, p. 25.
  6. The cruiser war in foreign waters, p. 22 f.
  7. "Highflyer" in front of La Palma ". Retrieved on February 25, 2018 .
  8. ^ Statements in the debates on the naval budget in 1919 and 1920 in the House of Commons