HMS Chatham (1911)

HMS ''Chatham'' was a light cruiser built for the Royal Navy in the 1910s. She was the name ship of her sub-class of the Town class. The ship survived the First World War and was sold for scrap in 1926.

Design and description

The ''Chatham'' sub-class were slightly larger and improved versions of the preceding ''Weymouth'' sub-class.Gardiner & Gray, p. 53 They were long overall, with a beam of and a draught of . Displacement was normalFriedman, p. 384 and at full load. Twelve Yarrow boilers fed ''Chatham''s Parsons steam turbines, driving four propeller shafts, that were rated at for a design speed of . The ship reached during her sea trials from . The boilers used both fuel oil and coal, with of coal and tons of oil carried, which gave a range of at .

The main armament of the ''Chatham''s was eight BL 6-inch (152 mm) Mk XI guns. Two of these guns were mounted on the centreline fore and aft of the superstructure and two more were mounted on the forecastle deck abreast the bridge. The remaining four guns amidships were raised to the extended forecastle deck, which meant that they could be worked in all weathers. All these guns were fitted with gun shields. Four Vickers 3-pounder (47 mm) saluting guns were also fitted. The armament was completed by two submerged 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes.

Construction and career

The ship was laid down on 3 January 1911 by Chatham Royal Dockyard and launched on 6 November. Upon completion in December 1912, ''Chatham'' was assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron and was transferred to the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean in July 1913.Gardiner & Gray, pp. 53–54

''Chatham'' remained part of the Mediterranean Fleet at the outbreak of the First World War, and was initially employed in the search for the German battlecruiser and cruiser , searching the Straits of Messina on 3 August. After the two German ships avoided the British forces and reached Turkey, ''Chatham'' was detached for operations in the Red Sea on 13 August 1914.

On 20 September that year, the German light cruiser sank the old British cruiser in Zanzibar harbour. In response, ''Chatham'' was ordered to East Africa to join up with sister ships and and take part in the hunt for ''Königsberg'', with ''Chatham''s Captain, Sidney Robert Drury-Lowe commanding the operation. ''Chatham'' arrived at Zanzibar on 28 September, but her participation in the search was delayed when, during the night of 1 October, cruising off Mombasa, she ran aground on the Leven Reef, just to the northward of the entrance to Kilindini Harbour. While ''Chatham'' was only lightly damaged, she was under repair at Mombasa from 3 October to 15 October.

On 19 October ''Chatham''s boats found the German steamer ''Präsident'' upriver from the coastal town of Lindi, German East Africa (now Tanzania). While the Germans claimed that ''Präsident'' was a hospital ship, the British found no medical equipment on board and had not been notified of the German ship's status and found documents aboard ''Präsident'' indicating that she had acted as a supply ship for ''Königsberg''. The German ship was claimed as a Prize of war, but as ''Präsident''s engines were broken down, ''Chatham'' permanently disabled ''Präsident''s machinery before continuing the search for ''Königsberg''.

On 30 October ''Chatham'' found ''Königsberg'' and the supply ship ''Somali'' up the Rufiji River, but owing to the shallowness of the river delta, could not closely approach the two German ships. On 7 November ''Chatham'' hit ''Somali'' with a shell, causing a fire that destroyed the supply ship, while on 10 November the British scuttled the collier ''Newbridge'' in the main channel of the Delta, blocking ''Königsberg'' from escaping to sea. ''Chatham'' left East African waters on 2 January 1915 for the Mediterranean.

From May 1915 ''Chatham'' supported the Allied landings at Gallipoli. On 12–13 July 1915 she provided gunfire support to an attack along the Achi Baba Nullah dry water course on Cape Helles, and on 6–7 August took part in the Landing at Suvla Bay, acting as the flagship of Rear-Admiral John de Robeck, in command of Naval Forces during the operation. On 20 December ''Chatham'' acted as the flagship for Admiral Weymss during the evacuation from Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove.

In 1916 she returned to home waters and joined the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet. On 26 May 1916, ''Chatham'' struck a mine off the Norfolk coast and had to be towed to Chatham for repairs. The ship was placed in reserve in 1918. After the war, ''Chatham'' was lent to the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy from 1920 to 1924, She proceeded via the Royal Naval Dockyard in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda (home base of the 8th Cruiser Squadron on the North America and West Indies Station), before cruising to the West Indies and becoming the first Royal Naval vessel from Bermuda to pass through the Panama Canal in December, 1920 (the geographic limits of the station controlled from Bermuda had grown over the preceding century from the western North Atlantic to absorb the area of the Jamaica Station, and following the first World War would absorb the former areas of the South East Coast of America Station and, utilising the canal, the Pacific Station, demonstrating the amity and the convergence of national interests between the United Kingdom and the United States). During late June 1921, she carried out a search for the missing steamer SS Canastota.

She was sold for scrapping on 13 July 1926 to Thos. W. Ward, of Pembroke Dock.

In 1922, the crew of ''Chatham'' donated a cup to the New Zealand Football Association. This became the Chatham Cup, New Zealand's local equivalent of the FA Cup, and its premier knockout football trophy.

Notes

Bibliography

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

External links

Ships of the Chatham group

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chatham
Town-class cruisers (1910) of the Royal Navy
Ships built in Chatham
1911 ships
World War I cruisers of the United Kingdom