HMS ''M15'' was a

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, Wes ...

. She was sunk off

Gaza Gaza may refer to: Places Palestine * Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea ** Gaza City, a city in the Gaza Strip ** Gaza Governorate, a governorate in the Gaza Strip Mandatory Palestine * Gaza Sub ...

by on 11 November 1917.

Design

Intended as a shore bombardment vessel, ''M15''s primary armament was a single 9.2-inch Mk X gun which had been held as a spare for the and s. In addition to her 9.2-inch gun, she also possessed one 12-pounder and one six-pound anti-aircraft gun. She was equipped with triple expansion steam engines rated to that allowed a top speed of . The monitor's crew consisted of sixty-nine officers and ratings.

Construction

''M15'' was ordered in March 1915, as part of the

War Emergency Programme War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of State (polity), states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or betwe ...

of ship construction. She was

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one ...

at the William Gray shipyard at

Hartlepool Hartlepool ( ) is a seaside resort, seaside and port town in County Durham, England. It is governed by a unitary authority borough Borough of Hartlepool, named after the town. The borough is part of the devolved Tees Valley area with an estimat ...

in March 1915 and launched on 28 April 1915. The vessel was completed in June 1915.

First World War

''M15'' was towed to

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

in July 1915, where she received her main armament. She then proceeded to

Mudros Moudros () is a town and a former municipality on the island of Lemnos, North Aegean, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Lemnos, of which it is a municipal unit. It covers the entire eastern peninsula o ...

, and later was involved in the defence of the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

. After bombarding

as part of the

Third Battle of Gaza The Third Battle of Gaza was fought on the night of 1–2 November 1917 between British and Ottoman forces during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I and came after the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) victory at the Ba ...

, on 11 November 1917, ''M15'' and the

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

were torpedoed by the submarine . 26 men lost their lives in the sinking of ''M15'', from shore, in of water.

Hamas recovery of ammunition

In 2020,

Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...

divers recovered ammunition, including large-calibre naval shells, from the wreck of ''M15'' with the intent of using explosives from the shells to make warheads and gunpowder propellant to make rocket fuel. After more than a century at the bottom of the sea, while Israeli sources claim the material was found to be unusable Hamas published a video of their members using it to make rockets .

Citations

References

* * Dittmar, F. J. & Colledge, J. J., "British Warships 1914-1919", (Ian Allan, London, 1972), {{DEFAULTSORT:M15 M15-class monitors 1915 ships World War I monitors of the United Kingdom Royal Navy ship names Ships sunk by German submarines in World War I Maritime incidents in 1917 World War I shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea