HMS Mersey
|
|
|---|---|
| Humber class | |
 HMS Mersey 1914 |
|
| Overview | |
| Type | River gunboat |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | August 24, 1912 |
| Launch | September 30, 1913 |
| delivery | August 3, 1914 |
| period of service |
1914-1919 |
| Decommissioning | 1918 |
| Whereabouts | 1921 demolition |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
1260 t , max. 1520 t |
| length |
81.3 m |
| width |
14.9 m |
| Draft |
1.7 m |
| crew |
140 men |
| drive |
2 Yarrow boilers |
| speed |
12 knots , actually 9.5 knots |
| Range |
1650 nm at 8 kn |
| Armament |
|
| Armor | |
| Belt armor |
75 - 40 mm |
| Armored bulkhead |
40 mm |
| Barbette |
90 mm |
| Tower front |
100 mm |
| Sister ships |
HMS Humber , HMS Severn |
The HMS Mersey was a Humber- class monitor of the Royal Navy . It was built by Vickers for Brazil and christened Madeira . In 1914 she and her sister ships Humber ex Javary and Severn ex Solimoes were bought by the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the First World War . In 1915, Mersey and Severn destroyed the SMS Königsberg in the Rufiji Delta . After the war ended, the monitors were broken off; only the hull of the Humber was still used for a crane ship.
Building history
The three Humber -class monitors were commissioned by the Brazilian Navy as Javary -class gunboats for tasks on the Amazon and its tributaries from the Vickers Limited shipyard , Barrow-in-Furness . The three ships were launched in 1913 and were being tested when Vickers was informed by the Brazilian government that it could not pay for the ships. Vickers was looking for another buyer for the boats. The British government intervened and bought the gunboats for ₤ 155,000 each to prevent them from being sold to a neutral country and perhaps from there to Germany.
War effort
The newly acquired ships were stationed in Dover for use in the English Channel and formed the Dover Monitor Squadron . Under the command of Rear Admiral Horace Hood , they were used against German positions in Belgium in autumn 1914.
Use on the coast of Flanders
From October 10 to 12, the three ships were sent to Ostend to secure the embarkation of the Naval Division and the British personnel deployed there. Then they were supposed to secure an evacuation of British troops, if necessary, but they found their way back into the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). The order to help the Belgian government to withdraw from Ostend to Dunkirk was not carried out because they arrived too late. On the night of October 17th they were ordered from their base in Dover to the Belgian coast to support the Belgian army in their battle on the Yser . In the phase of the so-called race to the sea , the Belgian army tried to maintain a line on the Yser. Because of the bad weather, the ships constructed as river gunboats could not leave immediately and did not reach the coast until the 18th. It was the Mersey's first outstanding mission in her relatively successful career in World War I, when she and her sisters fired at the German troops at Lombardsijde . They shelled German targets until the 20th, then took new ammunition from Dunkirk and continued to provide artillery support to the troops on land from October 22nd. Admiral Hood, now in command on the Belgian coast, had to send HMS Severn back to Great Britain on October 24 because of guns fired in order to change them. Hood also worried about winter storms and the poor seaworthiness of the river gunboats, but kept the Humber and Mersey on the coast until early November . In November they were withdrawn due to relatively dead cannons. Instead of 10,000 yards, they could only shoot 8,000 yards and hardly found any targets.
The Mersey's cannons were used up, and the twin turret was removed during an overhaul in Chatham and on the sister ship Severn , and two single 152 mm Mk VII cannons replaced at the bow and stern from the wreckage of the ship of the line HMS Montagu , which ran aground in 1906 at Lundy came from. The howitzers were moved to the boat deck. The Humber kept the twin turret, which was replaced, if necessary, by a reconditioned one of the other ships. It also received a single 152 mm gun at the rear.
Operation off East Africa
Since there was no precise information on the condition of the German cruiser SMS Königsberg blocked in Rufiji, the British Navy decided to have HMS Mersey and HMS Severn towed from the Mediterranean to East Africa, as they could penetrate the river delta due to their shallow draft. The three formerly Brazilian river cannon boats had arrived in Malta on March 14, 1915 from Devonport in the tow of six tugs and with the base ship RMS Trent en route to the Dardanelles. On April 28, Mersey and Severn left Malta with four tugs, the Trent and the coal steamer Kendal Castle , reached Aden on May 15 and on June 3 the now occupied island of Mafia off the Rufiji Estuary, where the observation planes are now stationed were. The monitors carried out repairs, provided facilities for the transfer from board and were secured against infantry fire.
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The monitors' first attack took place on July 6, 1915, during which their tugs for emergencies, three small whalers to secure against mines and the cruiser Weymouth with the commander of the Cape Squadron, Sir Herbert Goodenough King-Hall , on board and Pyramus over the Barre in front of the mouth of the Rufiji. The cruisers fired at the ground troops of the Germans in the delta and tried to deactivate recognized gun positions and observation posts. The monitors were anchored about 9 km away from Königsberg and tried to hit the German cruiser under the direction of two observation aircraft. This returned fire, hit the Mersey several times and put her bow gun out of action after about an hour. As one plane failed and because of the damage, the British withdrew. They fired 635 rounds and scored six hits. Mersey had six deaths.
On July 11th the attack was repeated, this time the Severn going a mile further upstream. The different positions made it difficult for the observers of the Koenigsberg to assess their hit pattern, while the monitors shot alternately to make it easier for the aircraft to assign them and Severn also achieved more effect at the shorter distance. After several heavy hits on the Königsberg , the commander, Frigate Captain Max Looff , ordered his ship to be blown up. In their last stand they had 33 dead, while the British had only a few injured. This time after 202 shots of the monitors, the SMS Königsberg was finally switched off. In the shallow water, the deck of the sunken cruiser remained above the waterline, and so the ship could be cannibalized after the British had withdrawn.
Final fate
On August 19, 1915, Mersey and Severn shot with the cruiser Hyacinth in the roadstead of Tanga the Reichspostdampfer Margrave of the DOAL , which sank in shallow water. Mersey was overtaken in Durban in March 1916, stayed in East Africa and from March to May 1918 the passenger ship Trent was towed into the Mediterranean. In October 1918, the three sister ships gathered in Mudros and ran to Constantinople after the surrender of the Ottoman Empire . Mersey is said to have gone into the Black Sea with the Severn in 1919 and yet, as planned in 1915, was still used on the Danube at Galați . In 1921 it was sold for demolition.
Combat awards
- Battle of the Yser 1914-1915
- SMS Koenigsberg 1915
Sister ships
HMS Humber
The HMS Humber , launched on June 17, 1913 as Javary , was the model ship of the series and was in service with its sister ships on the Flanders coast.
As shown above, she was the only ship to keep the front twin turret in 1915 and also received a stern gun similar to that of her sisters. She arrived with the other two monitors in Malta on March 29, 1915 and went on schedule with her tugs Blackcock and Danube II to Gallipoli , where she arrived on June 4. Their first task was to bombard an artillery position in an olive grove near Axmah . It was later used against artillery positions on the Asian side that intervened in the fighting on Gallipoli. Most recently, she supported the clearance of the ANZAC bridgehead. In January 1916 it was overhauled and replaced the guns that had been shot out. After using the Dardanelles, she went to Egypt and temporarily bombed Senussi positions in the border area. From August 1917 to February 1918 she was then a guard ship in the Aqaba , which was captured by the Arabs . In October 1918, the three sister ships gathered in Mudros and sailed with the fleet to Constantinople after the surrender of the Ottoman Empire.
In May 1919 the Humber was towed to Murmansk and was then used from Arkhangelsk on the Dvina to support White Guards and Allied troops. The withdrawal took place in September and she was towed back to the UK and decommissioned. In 1920 she was sold to the Dutch salvage company F. Rijsdijk and converted into a crane ship. It was still in use in 1938 and was probably only canceled after 1945.
HMS Severn
The eighth HMS Severn of the Royal Navy, launched on August 19, 1913 as Solimoes , shared an almost identical period of service with the HMS Mersey . On October 10, 1914, she was attacked by the German submarine U 8 , whose torpedo passed under the monitor. The Severn is said to have been relocated to the eastern Mediterranean as early as 1917 and was used together with the Mersey from November 1918 . In 1919 consideration was given to sending them to Arkhangelsk as well. On May 9, 1921, it was sold to Ward, Preston for demolition, which began in 1923.
literature
- 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 .
- Reinhard K. Lochner: Fight in the Rufiji Delta. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-453-02420-6 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ as a shipyard is often called High Walker on the Tyne , which at that time still belonged to Armstrong-Whitworth , this is m. E. wrong, see picture supposedly taken in Barrow
- ^ Trent , 5573 BRT, built by Napier & Sons in 1899, ex Royal Mail Line
- ^ TA Joliffe and Revenger or Sarah Joliffe and Southampton
- ↑ Lochner, p. 248f.
- ↑ Report by Admiral King-Hall on the destruction of the Königsberg
- ^ English description of the attack and the wreck and picture of the wreck of the Margrave
