HMS Lion (1910)
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The HMS Lion was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy . She was launched in 1910 and was the type ship in her class . Their design was based on the plans of the Orion class. The aim was to lay up ships that were superior to the German Von der Tann.
During the First World War , she took part in the naval battle near Helgoland on August 28, 1914 , in which she sank the already damaged small cruiser SMS Cöln , and served the commander of the battle cruiser fleet, Admiral David Beatty, as the flagship both in the battle on the Dogger Bank on January 24 1915 and in the Battle of the Skagerrak on May 31, 1916. It was scrapped in 1924.
history
Dogger Bank
In the battle on the Dogger Bank, as the leading ship, she was first taken under fire and hit by 16 heavy shells. One man was killed and 20 wounded. A total of about 3,000 tons of water entered the ship and it was listed 10 degrees to port. Shortly afterwards, the port turbine failed, which reduced the speed to 15 knots. After 11 a.m., the ship was severely damaged and could no longer participate in the fighting. Later it even had to be towed to Rosyth by HMS Indomitable at 7 to 10 knots for temporary repairs . It then went to the Palmers shipyard in Devonport for final repairs , where it stayed for over two months. Their heavy artillery fired a total of 243 times in the battle, with which they only scored four hits: one on the SMS Blücher , one on the SMS Derfflinger and two on the SMS Seydlitz .
Skagerrak
During the Battle of the Skagerrak, she was hit from a distance of 15.1 km by a 30.5 cm salvo from SMS Lützow , which destroyed the central turret (turret "Q"). Of the 100 men in the turret, 98 were killed, but a major tragedy was prevented by the courageous intervention of the fatally wounded Major of the Royal Marines, Francis Harvey, who was in command of the turret. He ordered the doors of the ammunition chamber to be closed and flooded. This enabled him to prevent the cordite propellant from igniting and avert a massive explosion that would have destroyed the ship. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for this. In total, the ship was hit 14 times by heavy German shells and had 99 dead and 51 wounded. In total, she fired 326 grenades from her 343 mm guns in the battle and thus scored four hits on the Lützow and one hit on the Derfflinger as well as a total of seven torpedoes (four on German ships of the line, two on the Derfflinger and one on the SMS Wiesbaden ) with which she did not score.
The destroyed turret was exchanged for a reserve specimen during the several months of repairs. The Lion spent the rest of the war with little eventful patrol trips in the North Sea . During the naval battle near Heligoland in 1917 , it served as remote security for the cruiser association.
Retirement
In 1920 the Lion was transferred to reserve status and had to be scrapped in 1924 due to the provisions of the Washington Naval Agreement .
literature
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 .
- Anthony Preston, Randal Gray (eds.): Conway's All the World Fighting Ships 1906-1921. Conway Maritime Press Ltd, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hugh and David Lyon: Warships from 1900 to today. Technology and commitment . Buch und Zeit Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Cologne 1979, p. 46-47 .