Fast and small, with 18 inch torpedoes in their stern, these new World War One Royal Navy ‘Coastal Motor Boats’ (CMB) were not the benign craft their name suggests. She ferried British troops to Narvik in late April and escorted an evacuation convoy from Harstad on 4 June. HMS Vindictive was a British Arrogant-class cruiser built at Chatham Dockyard. [5], Their secondary armament comprised a dozen quick-firing (QF) 3-inch 20 cwt guns. [13], Vindictive was dispatched to the Baltic with a dozen aircraft, a mix of Griffins, Sopwith 2F.1 fighters, Sopwith 1½ Strutter and Short Type 184 bombers, on 2 July 1919 to participate in the British campaign in the Baltic in support of the White Russians and the newly independent Baltic states. [12] Experiments conducted earlier aboard the larger Furious, with a similarly intact superstructure and funnels, had demonstrated that the turbulence from these was enough to make successful landings almost impossible at high speed. By December she was serving the flotillas of the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow. Available NOW! Two men were arrested. HMS Cavendish, the most advanced of a new series of heavy cruisers was operational in October 1918, not as a cruiser, but an aircraft carrier, under the new name of HMS Vindictive (see above). The aft funnel was removed, the aft superstructure remodelled and enlarged and her hangar converted into more accommodation space. She served in the Norwegian Campaign with the Home Fleet, then in July 1940 she transferred to Freetown, West Africa, serving in the South Atlantic until December 1942. British naval cadet at Osborne and Dartmouth Colleges, 1912-1916; midshipman served aboard HMS Hercules in North Sea, 1916-1918, including Battle of Jutland, 5/1916; officer served aboard HMS Neptune and HMS Vindictive in North Sea, 1918; served with Royal Navy in Baltic, 1919 Sir Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt, the Director of Naval Construction, included both coal and oil-fired boilers to provide the ship with fuel no matter the supply conditions. Gardiner, Robert; Gray, Randal, eds (1984). During this time she received her first radars. Vindictive remained in the area until December acting as a "mother ship" for aircraft and the CMBs. With grateful thanks to the resources made available by www.naval-history.net. Deploying the torpedo from the CMB while planing at speed towards t… For the rest of the year she conducted flying trials and exercises, including those of the Port Victoria Grain Griffin reconnaissance aircraft, of which two were lost in accidents. The modifications had made the ship lighter than the rest of the Hawkins-class, at 9,394 long tons (9,545 t) light displacement. (Photo by A. R. Coster/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images) The principal concern was the major Bolshevik naval base at Kronstadt, which protected Petrograd. [4] On 17–18 August 1919, eight aircraft flying from the Vindictive carried out bombing and strafing attacks on gun and searchlight crews protecting the naval base. Her damage from grounding required extensive repairs at Portsmouth Dockyard at a cost of £200,000. It was introduced in Update 1.93 "Shark Attack". 444 embarked. She commissioned on 1 October and, after briefly working up, joined the Grand Fleet's Flying Squadron on 18 October only a few weeks before the A… In 1936-1937, Vindictive was converted to a training ship for cadets. Second Supplement dated Wednesday 19 February 1919, page 2519. 583–84; Raven & Roberts, p. 225, Friedman 2010, pp. The initial order had to be cancelled in April 1917 for lack of building facilities, so the Admiralty decided to convert Cavendish, already under construction, in June 1917. 2's position was occupied by a prototype compressed-air Carey aircraft catapult, the first British cruiser to mount a catapult. No. Vindictive returned home in 1944 and was damaged by a German torpedo off the coast of Normandy after the Allies invaded France. Vindictive used it for the first time on 3 October when she launched a Fairey IIID floatplane. HMS "Vindictive" was a warship built during the First World War for the Royal Navy (RN). As a result, two battleships and the submarine depot ship Pamiat Azova were sunk. To increase her stability after the addition of so much topweight, the upper portion of her anti-torpedo bulge was enlarged. She was launched on 9 December 1897 and completed in 1899. Her armament, including the above-water torpedo tubes, was replaced by a pair of 4.7-inch (120 mm) guns forward and a quadruple QF 2-pounder ("pom-pom") AA mount aft. This diversionary raid distracted the defences and enabled Royal Navy Coastal Motor Boats to attack naval vessels in Kronstadt harbour. No. As their airfield was not yet finished, the ship's flying-off deck was extended to 118 feet (36.0 m) to better allow the bombers to take off with their 112-pound (51 kg) bombs. She was converted to her final role at Malta in 1944, departing Malta on 15 October 1944. Her armament now consisted of six single 4-inch QF Mk V AA guns, all on the centreline, two quadruple "pom-pom" mounts, one on each side, and six depth charges. When it had begun in August 1914, the British government predicted that it would be won by Christmas, but it had dragged on for four more years, with dreadful suffering and loss of life. 55, 404, Friedman 2010, p. 67; Lenton, pp. She arrived in May and her catapult was removed in October, ending her career as an aviation ship. They shot down a helium-filled observation balloon and spotted for ships conducted shore bombardments. 227, 231–33, 236; Layman, p. 66, Layman, p. 66; Raven & Roberts, pp. [2], The ships had four Parsons geared steam turbines, each of which drove one propeller shaft. A year after her return in 1928, she was again placed in reserve. Originally designed as a Hawkins class heavy cruiser and laid down under the name Cavendish. Unbeknownst to the British the entire operation had taken place in a minefield. The conning tower and its communication tube were protected by the only Krupp cemented armour in the ships and had thicknesses of 3 inches and 2 inches (51 mm) respectively. She completed her sea trials on 21 September 1918 and reached a speed of 29.12 knots (53.93 km/h; 33.51 mph) from 63,600 shaft horsepower (47,400 kW). On 23 July 1929, she suffered an explosion in a gun at Chatham Dockyard in which one man was killed. Between 1923 and 1925 she was reconverted back to a cruiser. The hangar roof, with a small extension, formed the 106-foot (32 m) flying-off deck. Cyril Rudd. The Hawkins-class cruiser was designed to hunt enemy commerce raiders overseas. He was injured and declared physically unfit to serve on 21st of Sept 1945. In this form (as illustrated) she displaced 9,100 long tons (9,200 t) and was capable of a maximum speed of 24 kn (28 mph; 44 km/h). [27] Vindictive was transferred to the South Atlantic later in the year and remained there until late 1942, when she was ordered north. My father, Bill Rodgers, served on HMS Vindictive from 21st of Dec 1941 until 25th of Feb 1945. She commissioned on 1 October and proceeded to Scapa Flow to work up, joining the fleet in the Firth of Forth only a few days before the Armistice. ... (British Warships 1914-1919) High powered and with a single step hull design, they were light, fast planing boats easily transported and when underway, capable of crossing minefields and skipping over protective booms. HMS Vindictive - 18 months (1944-45) Petty Officer. HMS VINDICTIVE (2) – January 1919 to March 1920, UK out, Baltic including CMB raid on Kronstadt, grounding and salvage, UK Home Edited by Su Startin, Old Weather Transcriber, Exeter, England HMS Vindictive as aircraft carrier, 1918-23 (Photo Ships, click images to enlarge) She paid off into reserve on 24 December 1919. She was reduced to reserve after the war and sold for scrap in 1946. Vindictive Sailors 28th April 1918: The crew of HMS Vindictive on their return from a mission to block off a German submarine base in Zeebrugge. In the Autumn of 1925 she became the first Royal Navy cruiser with aircraft catapult gear:[7] her first catapult launch was on 31 October. She served on the China Station until August 1928, then joined the Atlantic Fleet. In June the ship was renamed HMS Vindictive and was commissioned in October 1918. The official 100th anniversary commemorations of World War One (WW1) mostly record a honourable, noble cause fought by happy, loyal, patriotic soldiers. The turbines were designed to produce a total of 60,000 shaft horsepower (45,000 kW) for a speed of 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph). Her first role after the conversion was completed in early 1940, however, was to transport troops during the Norwegian Campaign. The fifth and last was ordered in April 1916. [9], Although still overweight compared to her designed displacement, the modifications made the ship lighter than her sister ships, at 9,344 long tons (9,494 t) light displacement and a metacentric height of 3.59 feet (1.1 m). [5] (£8.21 million as of 2020),[6] The Admiralty had decided to abandon the idea of separate flying-off and flying-on decks in favour of flush deck carriers, and thus Vindictive was already obsolete in her brief carrier role. On 6 July, she ran aground on a shoal near Reval at 15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h) and after more than a week was towed clear by tugs and two other cruisers. [2] The original cruiser armament was reduced to four 7.5 in (190 mm) guns. Most importantly, nine of them attacked Kronstadt during the night of 17/18 August 1919 to provide a diversion for an attack by the CMBs on ships in Kronstadt harbour. The modifications had made the ship lighter than the rest of the Hawkins-class, at 9,394 long tons (9,545 t) light displacement. They also mounted two submerged tubes, one on each broadside, and four above-water tubes, two on each broadside, for 21-inch torpedoes. [20], For the next several years the ship was either in reserve or used as a troop transport, until she began reconversion into a cruiser at Chatham Dockyard on 1 March 1923. The Admiralty had considered converting her to that configuration, with an island, in July 1918 while still building, but had decided to wait on the results of tests conducted with Argus evaluating different designs for the island. 9,394 long tons (9,545 t) (light), 11,500 long tons (11,700 t) (deep load), 5,400 nmi (6,200 mi; 10,000 km) at 14 kn (16 mph; 26 km/h), 1,000 tons oil and coal fuel (normal), 800 tons coal and 1,500 tons oil (max), 2.5 to 1.5 in (64 to 38 mm) side (forward and aft). Her armament was reduced to two 4.7 in (120 mm) guns. Originally designed as a Hawkins-class heavy cruiser and laid down under the name Cavendish, she was converted into an aircraft carrier while still being built. It consisted of two layers of high-tensile steel of varying thicknesses that covered most of the ships' sides. Four ships were ordered, named after famous Elizabethan seafarers, in 1915 and the fifth and last was ordered in April 1916, named HMS Cavendish after the adventurer and circumnavigator Thomas Cavendish. They were arranged in two superfiring pairs, one each fore and aft of the superstructure, one on each broadside abreast the rear funnel, and the last was on the quarterdeck at the same level as the lower of the rear superfiring pair; they were designated 1 through 7 from front to rear. Some 2,200 long tons (2,200 t) of stores were also off-loaded, but the ship could not be towed free by the combined efforts of the light cruisers Danae and Cleopatra and three tugboats. As a result, the torpedo boats damaged the battleship Andrei Pervozvanny and sank Pamiat Azova. 1919 - Militarists and Mutineers Also published on the Workers' Liberty website. U-515 sank the accompanying destroyer tender Hecla and blew the stern off one of the escorting destroyers, Marne. Their airfield was still under construction, but they were able to fly a reconnaissance mission over the major Bolshevik naval base at Kronstadt on 26 July while Vindictive sailed to Copenhagen, Denmark, to load aircraft and spares left for her by the carrier Argus. [3], The main armament of the Hawkins-class cruisers consisted of seven 45-calibre 7.5 in (190 mm) Mk VI guns in pivot mounts. [1], The cruisers had an overall length of 605 feet (184.4 m), a beam of 65 feet (19.8 m), and a mean draught of 19 feet 3 inches (5.9 m) at deep load. Add to this record. By this time the threat from German cruisers and raiders had ended, so construction proceeded slowly. 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