HMS Southampton (1912)

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flag
Town class
HMS Southampton
HMS Southampton
Overview
Type Light cruiser
units 6/21
Shipyard

John Brown & Company , Clydebank

Keel laying April 1911
Launch May 16, 1912
delivery February 1913
Namesake The British port city of Southampton
period of service

1913-1924

Decommissioning 1924
Whereabouts July 1926 Sale for demolition
Technical specifications
displacement

Standard : 5490  ts (5578 t)
Maximum: 6000 ts (6096 t)

length

overall: 458 ft (139.7 m),

width

49 ft (14.95 m)

Draft

16 ft (4.9 m)

crew

429-475 men

drive
speed

25.5 kn (47.2 km / h)
(25.7 kn (47.6 km / h) upon acceptance)

Range

4500 nm (8334 km) at 16 kn (29.6 km / h)

Armament
  • 8 × 6 "/ 50 BL Mk XI
    (15.2 cm L / 50 )
  • 4 × 3 Pdr 1.85 "/ 50 QF
    (4.7 cm L / 50)
  • 4 machine guns
  • later 1 × 3 " flak (7.62 cm)
  • 2 × torpedo tubes 21 "(53.3 cm)
Fuel supply

1080 ts (1097 t) coal maximum
(760 ts (772 t) normal) and
260 ts (264 t) heating oil

Armor
deck

2 to 3 in (50-76 mm)

Embankments

3/4 in (20 mm)

Command tower

4 in (102 mm)

The HMS Southampton was a light cruiser of the Royal Navy , who in the First World War was used. She was the fourth ship in the Royal Navy to bear that name. It was built in 1911/12 by John Brown & Company in Clydebank .
The Southampton belonged to the third lot of the light cruisers of the Town class , her sister ships were the HMS Chatham and the HMS Dublin . The first three Town-class ships for the Royal Australian Navy , the HMAS Sydney , the HMAS Melbourne and the Australian-built HMAS Brisbane were almost identical in construction .

Technical specifications

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

The HMS Southampton belonged to the third subgroup, the Chatham class. These ships displaced about 5,500 tons, were 139.7 m long, 14.9 m wide and had a draft of 4.9 m. The armament consisted of eight 15.2-cm guns and four three-pounders and two 53.3-cm underwater torpedo tubes. The crew numbered 411-475 men.

The Southampton differed from its sister ships by a different machinery. Nineteen Town-class cruisers had Parsons turbines and four propellers. Only Southampton , like HMS Bristol , also built by John Brown , had Brown Curtis turbines and two screws.

history

Peace time

When commissioned in 1913, the Southampton was assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet . In July 1913 she was assigned to the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron of the Home Fleet as a flagship , to which she belonged until 1915 and with which she took part in the first battles of the World War.

War effort

The Southampton took part in the naval battle near Heligoland on August 28, 1914 . The commander of the British submarines , Commodore Roger Keyes , had planned the operation that was intended to lure the Germans into a trap. The attackers would be the submarines and the Harwich Force under Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt . The Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet , Admiral Sir John Jellicoe , sent the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron under Sir David Beatty and the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron under William Goodenough with six modern Town-class cruisers : Southampton , HMS Birmingham , HMS in support of Tyrwhitt and Keyes Falmouth , HMS Liverpool , HMS Lowestoft and HMS Nottingham . The Admiralty , however, failed to relay this message to Tyrwhitt and Keyes. When the battle was underway, Keyes discovered the British reinforcements on the destroyer HMS Lurcher , but they believed they were Germans. It was only because of fortunate circumstances that there was no exchange of fire between the various British squadrons. However, a torpedo from the British submarine E6 narrowly missed the Southampton ; Fortunately, their attempt to ram the attacker also failed. It took a long time for the confusion on the British side to be cleared. In the end, the Germans lost three small cruisers, a torpedo boat and over 1,200 men, while the British lost only 35 men and only the light cruiser Arethusa was badly damaged.

On the morning of December 16, 1914, the German battle cruisers shelled Scarborough , Hartlepool , West Hartlepool and Whitby . The bombardment of the seaside cities claimed 137 lives and 592 injured, mainly among the civilian population. The British public condemned the actions of the German Navy, but also the failure of the Royal Navy. The Southampton was again in action with the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron under Goodenough with Birmingham , Falmouth and Nottingham . The Home Fleet wanted to put the Germans on their way back first.

The Southampton sighted the Germans around 11.25 a.m. when the weather deteriorated and reported that they were taking up combat with a German cruiser ( SMS Stralsund ) and destroyers. The Birmingham ran to her support. Goodenough then sighted the cruisers SMS Strasbourg and SMS Graudenz without reporting this. His other two light cruisers recognized this and therefore ran to support. The commander of the battle cruisers, Beatty, called them back, not knowing that more German ships had been sighted from Southampton . Due to an error in the optical transmission of the signals, all four cruisers withdrew on Beatty's battle cruiser. The Germans got out of sight. The 2nd Battle Squadron , which later briefly sighted the Germans, did not open fire either, so they escaped.

Further missions followed on January 24, 1915 with the battle on the Dogger Bank together with Birmingham , Lowestoft and Nottingham , where it was mainly used for artillery observation.

In February 1915 she became the flagship of the second light cruiser squadron ( 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron ) of the Grand Fleet and was involved in the Battle of Skagerrak on May 31 and June 1, 1916 with the sister ship Dublin , the Birmingham and the Nottingham . The Southampton first sighted the German deep sea fleet , which led Beatty to attempt to pull them onto the approaching Grand Fleet. The 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron came under heavy fire from the German liners, but they did not score on the Southampton . During the night there was a fierce battle with the IV reconnaissance group of Commodore Ludwig von Reuter with the small cruisers SMS Elbing , SMS Rostock , SMS Stuttgart , SMS Frauenlob and SMS Hamburg . The Southampton sank the torpedo boat S 35 together with the Dublin . She suffered 18 hits and had 37 dead and 40 wounded, especially the gunners of her midship artillery and the operation of the searchlights had these losses. She managed to sink the Frauenlob with a torpedo hit . The damaged Southampton could not leave the battlefield immediately due to hits in the area of ​​the waterline and only reached Rosyth 12 hours after the other ships in the battlecruiser fleet. By June 20, she was repaired in the shipyard.

In late 1917, she was assigned to the 8th Light Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet.

In July 1918 the Southampton brought the First Lord of the Admiralty (Minister of the Navy), Sir Eric Geddes , to Murmansk , who wanted to get an idea of ​​the intervention of the Allies in arctic Russia.

Post-war use

In 1919 the Southampton flagship of the 7th Light Cruiser Squadron on the South American station. In 1921 she moved to the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron in India and became the flagship of the East Indies Station . In 1924 she returned home and was assigned to the Nore Reserve. In 1926 it was finally deleted and sold for demolition.

literature

  • Jane's Fighting Ships of World War One (1919), Jane's Publishing Company
  • Anthony Preston, Randal Gray (ed.): 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