RN Battleships: Duncan Class 1901

[jbryce1437]

The Duncan class was a class of six pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy. The six ships — HMS Duncan, HMS Albemarle, HMS Cornwallis, HMS Exmouth, HMS Montagu, and HMS Russell—were ordered in response to Russian naval building, specifically the fast second-class battleships of the Peresvet class, which they were specifically to counter. The foremost design consideration was a high top speed to match the rumoured (and incorrect) top speed of 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph) of the Russian ships while maintaining the same battery of 12-inch (300 mm) guns and keeping displacement from growing. This forced significant compromises in armour protection, though the ships adopted a revised system of protection for the bow, which was copied in other designs like the London class.


Albermarle

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Cornwallis

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Duncan

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Exmouth

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Montagu
HMS Montagu was a Duncan-class Pre-dreadnought battleship of the British Royal Navy commissioned on 28 July 1903 at Devonport Dockyard for service in the Mediterranean Fleet. In February 1905, she transferred to the Channel Fleet.

At 0200 hours on 30 May 1906 during radio communication trials carried out in thick fog, Montagu was steaming at high speed in the Bristol Channel when she ran into Shutter Rock on the southwest corner of Lundy Island. The force of impact was so great that her foremast was raked forward. The ship settled hard aground, with may holes in her hull, the worst of which was a 91-foot (28 m) long gash in her starboard side.

The ship's captain, believing Montagu was stuck at Hartland Point on the mainland of England, sent a party on a rowing boat to the north, instructing them to contact the Hartland Lighthouse. They instead got to the North light on Lundy Island, where officers asked the lighthouse keeper to inform the British Admiralty that they were aground south of Hartland Point. An argument ensued with the keeper until his unanswerable "I know what bloody light I'm keeping" convinced them they were wrong.

It quickly became apparent that the damage to Montagu was even worse than initially feared. Divers went over the side at daybreak and found that a rock had pushed the hull 10 feet (3 m) inward. Help arrived on the afternoon of 30 May 1906, but the ship settled in such a way that water rose and fell through the holes in her hull; within 24 hours her boiler rooms, steering compartment, starboard engine room, and forward capstan engine room, as well as other compartments, flooded, and she began to list to starboard. All moveable objects were secured and the port engine room flooded to stop the list from increasing. Sometimes only her upper deck was above water.

From June through August 1906, Montagu was lightened through the removal of her 12-inch (305-mm) (by the Liverpool Salvage Association) and 6-inch (152-mm) guns, heavy machinery, parts of her boilers, heavy fittings, and some of her bow armor. Neither pumping nor attempts to blow water out of her machinery spaces using compressed air had any effect, and nothing that salvage experts tried succeeded in refloating the ship.

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 October 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.

A guard was put aboard to prevent looting; later, the guard was taken off and replaced by men in boats and ashore. By 1907, however, Montagu was in such bad shape that any hope of salvaging her was abandoned. The Western Marine Salvage Company of Penzance completed salvage of the wreck for scrap metal over the next 15 years.

The loss of Montagu during the 1900-1912 naval arms race with Germany was a significant blow to the Royal Navy. The court martial convened for the affair blamed the thick fog and faulty navigation for the wreck,and her unfortunate captain, Thomas B. S. Adair, and navigating officer were dismissed from the service.

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Russell

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[Brian James]

Duncan Class Pre-Dreadnought Battleship HMS Exmouth pictured in 1903.
Built to counter a group of fast Russian Battleships, Exmouth and her sister ships were capable of steaming at 19 knots, making them the fastest battleships in the world at that time. The Duncan-Class were armed with a main battery of four 12-inch guns and they were broadly similar to the London-Class Battleships, though of a slightly reduced displacement and thinner armour layout. As such, they reflected a development of the lighter Second-Class ships of the Canopus Class Battleship. Exmouth was laid down by Laird Brothers at Birkenhead on Merseysde in August 1899, launched in August 1901, and completed in May 1903.
Exmouth served as a flagship for various fleets including the Mediterranean Fleet, the Channel Fleet and the Atlantic Fleet from her commissioning in 1903 until the start of the First World War in 1914. Originally she was to join the 6th Battle Squadron and serve in the Channel Fleet, but this squadron was temporarily disbanded and she joined the 3rd Battle Squadron at Scapa Flow. Exmouth participated in the Northern Patrol and was then moved to the newly reformed 6th Squadron in late 1914, where she bombarded the German-occupied port at Zeebrugge in late November.
In mid-1915,she was transferred to the Dardanelles Campaign, where she supported operations ashore. She was thereafter moved to Greece and later to the East Indies Station starting in March 1917. She performed convoy escort duties in the Indian Ocean between Colombo and Bombay before returning to the United Kingdom, calling at The Cape and Sierra Leone. She arrived at Devonport in August 1917, and paid off to provide crews for Anti Submarine vessels. Exmouth remained in reserve at Devonport until April 1919, and was used as an Accommodation Ship beginning in January 1918. She was placed on the sale list in April 1919 and sold for scrapping to Forth Shipbreaking Company on January 15th 1920.

[Brian James]

Duncan Class Pre-Dreadnought Battleship HMS Exmouth pictured in 1911.

[Brian James]

The ill fated Duncan Class Pre-Dreadnought Battleship HMS Cornwallis pictured in 1904.Built at Thames Ironworks & Shipbuilding Yards at Leamouth,London in 1901 to counter a group of fast Russian Battleships, she and her sister ships were capable of steaming at 19 knots, making them the fastest Battleships in the world at that time. They were armed with a main battery of four 12-inch guns and they were broadly similar to the London Class Battleships, though of a slightly reduced displacement and thinner armour layout. As such, they reflected a development of the lighter Second Class ships of the Canopus Class Battleship.
After commissioning in 1904, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet until 1905, when she was transferred to the Channel Fleet. She stayed there for two years before being moved to the Atlantic Fleet, where she remained until 1909, at which point she returned to the Mediterranean Fleet. In 1912, she was reassigned to the Home Fleet, first to the 4th Battle Squadron and then to the 6th Battle Squadron, where she was stationed at the outbreak of the First World War. The 6th Squadron covered the crossing of the British Expeditionary Force to France in August 1914, and thereafter its ships were transferred to the 3rd Battle Squadron to reinforce the Grand Fleet on the Northern Patrol.
In January 1915, Cornwallis was sent to the Mediterranean to take part in the Dardanelles campaign against the Ottoman Empire. She fired the first shots of the campaign on February 19th during a bombardment of Ottoman coastal defences. Over the following two months, she participated in numerous attacks on the forts that failed to destroy them, leading to the decision that a major ground attack would be necessary to neutralise the defences.She supported the badly mis-managed landing at Cape Helles on April 25th and shelled Ottoman troops over the following month as the Allied soldiers sought to push further inland. She thereafter served with the Suez Canal Patrol and briefly on the East Indies Station until March 1916, when she returned to the Mediterranean. While on patrol off Malta on January 9th 1917, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German U-boat U-32, fifteen men were killed in the torpedo explosions, but she stayed afloat long enough to get the rest of the crew off. She sank about 30 minutes after the second torpedo hit.

[timlewin]

Here is a photo of one of the Duncans at Malta (I think it must be Malta?) but can anyone identify which of the six Duncans it might be? all of them served at Malta around the time they were introduced in 1903 which is unhelpful, the paintwork looks like the victorian colours rather than the plain grey introduced in 1904 so the picture might date from 1903? It might be an official photo so there could be other prints of it in circulation? is the ship arriving, or departing?

Thanks everyone!

Tim

[Towns]

If you Blow the picture up the name is on the stern walk cannot make it out but it looks like 6 letters so DUNCAN is a possibility. I don't think it's Malta as it looks like she passing through a Swing Bridge of sorts so i would say Toranto.

Regards Townes

[timlewin]

thanks very much; i heard back from my friend at the NMM who confirmed its Taranto but is in fact HMS Queen, in 1915, which would fit with the number of letters in the name, apparently this picture appears in Burfords book on Battleships. Pre-WWI is not my era so i am very weak on identifying ships of the era.
Tim

[Brian James]

Duncan Class Pre-Dreadnought Battleship HMS Montagu pictured aground off Shutter Point, Lundy on May 30th 1906.......On May 30th 1906, she was on her way back to an anchorage off Lundy having conducted wireless telegraphy experiments when she struck Shutter Point in increasingly dense fog. She was stuck fast and a salvage operation was conducted over two months to remove her guns and other equipment. Repeated attempts to refloat her failed, and she proved to be a total loss. She was ultimately broken up in situ.

[Brian James]

Launch day for Duncan Class Pre-Dreadnought Battleship HMS Cornwallis pictured at Thames Ironworks & Shipbuilding Company Shipyards at Leamouth, London on July 17th 1901...On January 9th 1917, Cornwallis was hit on her starboard side by a torpedo from German U-boat U-32, commanded by Kurt Hartwig, in the eastern Mediterranean, 60 nautical miles east of Malta. Some of her stokeholds flooded, causing her to list about ten degrees to starboard, but counter-flooding corrected the list. She was also rendered immobilised, which made her an easy target for a second attack from U-32, which was able to evade the depth charge attack from Cornwallis's escorting Destroyers. By this time, the British had begun preparations to take her under tow, but Hartwig launched another torpedo at long range. About 75 minutes after the first torpedo hit, another struck Cornwallis, also on the starboard side, and the ship rolled quickly to starboard. Fifteen men were killed in the torpedo explosions, but she stayed afloat long enough to get the rest of the crew off. She sank about 30 minutes after the second torpedo hit.

[Brian James]

Visitors day pictured aboard Duncan Class Pre-Dreadnought Battleship HMS Russel in 1905...At the start of WWI, Russell was assigned to the Grand Fleet and worked with the fleet's Cruisers on the Northern Patrol, and in November, she bombarded German-occupied Zeebrugge. In November 1915 she was sent to the Mediterranean to support the Dardanelles Campaign, though she did not see extensive use there. On April 27th 1916 she was sailing off Malta when she struck two mines laid by a German U-boat. Most of her crew survived the sinking, though 125 men were killed.