HMS Montagu (1901)

This is a good article. Click here for more information.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other ships with the same name, see HMS Montagu.

Montagu's sister ship HMS Albemarle
History
United Kingdom
NameHMS Montagu
NamesakeRalph Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Boughton, 1st Earl of Montagu
BuilderDevonport Dockyard
Laid down23 November 1899
Launched5 March 1901
Commissioned28 July 1903
FateWrecked on
Lundy Island
, 30 May 1906
General characteristics
Class and type
pre-dreadnought battleship
Displacement
Length432 ft (132 m) (loa)
Beam75 ft 6 in (23.01 m)
Draught25 ft 9 in (7.85 m)
Installed power
  • 18,000 ihp (13,000 kW)
  • 24 ×
    water-tube boilers
Propulsion
Speed19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Range6,070 nmi (11,240 km; 6,990 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement720
Armament
Armour
  • Belt: 7 in (178 mm)
  • Bulkheads: 11–7 in (279–178 mm)
  • Decks: 2–1 in (51–25 mm)
  • Turrets: 10–8 in (254–203 mm)
  • Barbettes
    : 11–4 in (279–102 mm)
  • Casemates
    : 6 in (152 mm)
  • Conning tower: 12 in (305 mm)

HMS Montagu was a

broken up
in situ.

Design

Main article: Duncan-class battleship
Right elevation and deck plan as depicted in Brassey's Naval Annual 1915

The six ships of the

launched in 1898. The Russian ships were fast second-class battleships, so William Henry White, the British Director of Naval Construction, designed the Duncan class to match the purported top speed of the Russian vessels. To achieve the higher speed while keeping displacement from growing, White was forced to reduce the ships' armour protection significantly, effectively making the ships enlarged and improved versions of the Canopus-class battleships of 1896, rather than derivatives of the more powerful Majestic, Formidable, and London series of first-class battleships. The Duncans proved to be disappointments in service, owing to their reduced defensive characteristics, though they were still markedly superior to the Peresvets they had been built to counter.[1]

Montagu was 432 feet (132 m)

amidships. The Duncan-class ships had a top speed of 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph) from 18,000 indicated horsepower (13,000 kW).[2] This made Montagu and her sisters the fastest battleships in the world for several years. At a cruising speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph), the ship could steam for 6,070 nautical miles (11,240 km; 6,990 mi).[3]

Montagu had a

18-inch (457 mm) torpedo tubes submerged in the hull.[2]

Montagu had an

armoured belt that was 7 in (178 mm) thick; the transverse bulkhead on the aft end of the belt was 7 to 11 in (178 to 279 mm) thick. The sides of her main battery turrets were 8 to 10 in (203 to 254 mm) thick, atop 11 in (279 mm) barbettes, and the casemate battery was protected with 6 in of Krupp steel. Her conning tower had 12-inch-thick sides. She was fitted with two armoured decks, 1 and 2 in (25 and 51 mm) thick, respectively.[2]

Service history

The

sea trials in February 1903 and was commissioned into the fleet on 28 July at Devonport Dockyard for service in the Mediterranean Fleet. In February 1905, she transferred to the Channel Fleet.[2][4]

Grounding and loss

In late May 1906, Montagu tested new

pilot cutter cruising in the vicinity of Lundy Island, slowed to a stop, and came alongside the cutter to request a distance and bearing for Hartland Point on the mainland. Though the cutter supplied these accurately, the voice from the battleship's bridge replied that they must be wrong and that the pilot cutter must have lost her bearings. As Montagu restarted her engines and began to move ahead, the cutter shouted back that on her present course Montagu would be on Shutter Rock within ten minutes, and a short time later the sound of the battleship running aground carried through the fog.[6]

Montagu aground, c. 1907

At 02:00 on 30 May, Montagu ran aground on Shutter Rock, suffering a 91-foot (28 m) gash on her starboard side. Unable to free herself from the rocks, she slowly filled with water; twenty-four hours later, her starboard engine room and all of her boiler rooms were flooded, among others. Her crew counter-flooded the port engine room to prevent her from listing further to starboard. Divers inspected the hull to determine the extent of the damage, which proved to be more serious than initially expected. The bottom of the ship also received extensive damage, including several other holes and the port propeller shaft having been torn from the hull.[4] The starboard bilge keel was also ripped from the hull, as was the rudder. The wreck rested on a fairly even bottom, so there was hope that the ship could be refloated.[7]

Since the Royal Navy had no dedicated salvage unit, it turned to Frederick Young, a former Royal Navy captain who now worked as the chief salvage officer of the Liverpool Salvage Association. Young was at that time the foremost expert on marine salvage in Britain, so he was hired to advise

high tide to keep her from suffering more damage before the hull could be patched, led the salvors to give up the operation.[7]

Wilson next sought to remove armour plate from the sides of the ship and to erect a series of caissons, at which point a powerful air pump would be used to blow the water out of the hull. The caissons repeatedly broke free even in mild seas, and the air pump failed to have the desired effect. Her sister ship Duncan herself ran aground whilst trying to help the salvage effort, though she was successfully freed. At the end of the summer of 1906, salvage efforts were suspended for the year, with plans to resume them in 1907. However, an inspection of the ship conducted from 1 to 10 October 1906 found that the action of the sea was driving her further ashore and bending and warping her hull so that her seams were beginning to open, her deck planking was coming apart, and her boat davits had collapsed. Having failed to refloat Montagu, the navy decided to abandon the project. Further material was removed from the wreck, including her main battery guns, which were later re-used in other vessels.[7][8][9]

The Western Marine Salvage Company of

court martial convened for the affair blamed the thick fog and faulty navigation for the wreck.[10] The trial was held aboard HMS Victory. The ship's captain, Thomas Adair, and the navigation officer, Lieutenant James Dathan, were severely reprimanded, with both men being dismissed from HMS Montagu; Dathan lost two years of seniority in rank as well.[11] The wreck site, which now amounts to little more than some armour plate on the sea floor, is a popular diving location.[12] Divers have also located parts of her gun turrets and shells that were not recovered during the salvage operation. In September 2019 the British Government granted the wreck site—including the steps which had been chiseled out of the cliff during the salvage effort—protected status.[13]

Notes

Wikimedia Commons has media related to HMS Montagu (ship, 1901).
  1. ^ Burt, pp. 227–229.
  2. ^ a b c d Lyon & Roberts, p. 37.
  3. ^ Burt, pp. 229, 232.
  4. ^ a b Burt, p. 243.
  5. ^ a b Booth, pp. 12–13.
  6. ^ Stuckey, p. 126.
  7. ^ a b c Shepstone, p. 211.
  8. ^ Burt, pp. 242–245.
  9. ^ Booth, p. 13.
  10. ^ Burt, p. 245.
  11. ^ Army and Navy Register, p. 13.
  12. ^ Booth, p. 14.
  13. ^ BBC News.

References

  • Army and Navy Register: The US Military Gazette. Washington, D.C.: C. H. Ridenour & J. E. Jenks. 8 September 1906.
    OCLC 8450775. {{cite magazine}}: Missing or empty |title= (help
    )
  • Booth, Tony (2007). Admiralty Salvage in Peace and War. Pen & Sword.
    ISBN 978-1-84415-565-1
    .
  • Burt, R. A. (2013) [1988]. British Battleships 1889–1904. Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing.
    ISBN 978-1-84832-173-1
    .
  • "HMS Montagu: Battleship wreck given protected status". BBC News. 20 September 2019. Retrieved 21 September 2019.
  • Lyon, David & Roberts, John (1979). "Great Britain and Empire Forces". In Chesneau, Roger & Kolesnik, Eugene M. (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 1–113.
    ISBN 978-0-85177-133-5
    .
  • Shepstone, Harold J. (21 September 1907). "Breaking up the Ill-Fated Battleship Montagu". Scientific American. XCVII (12). New York: Munn & Co.: 211.
    ISSN 0036-8733
    .
  • Stuckey, Peter J. (2010). The Sailing Pilots of the Bristol Channel. Redcliffe Press Ltd.
    ISBN 978-1-906593-64-3
    .

Further reading
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HMS_Montagu_(1901)&oldid=1202322931"