Category: Ships

Somewhat Embarrassing

H.M.S. Canada during the Great War.
Image: IWM Q 84615.

A while back someone highlighted a passage related to the battleship Canada (later Almirante Latorre) in Norman Friedman’s book The British Battleship. Friedman wrote (p. 168):

The British CO [Commanding Officer] was unaware that the Chileans had required additional spare boilers, so on the ship’s run to Scapa Flow after commissioning he used all his boilers, generating 52,692 SHP (333.5 rpm); it was estimated that this would equate to 24.3 knots.

In the endnotes (p. 387) he claimed that:

The official DNC history of warship construction equated the 52,692 SHP performance to 21.5 knots. Presumably the actual speed was somewhat embarrassing, as it exceed [sic] that of the Queen Elizabeths.

DNC was Department of the Director of Naval Construction. It’s a very entertaining conspiracy theory, but it does not withstand scrutiny. The relevant document, Battleships ‘Agincourt,’ ‘Erin,’ ‘Canada’, held at The National Archives under ADM 1/8547/340, written in July 1918 and printed by D.N.C.’s department in September that year, states quite clearly under the heading ‘Speed’:

Owing to War conditions no speed trials were carried out, but during her run to the Base the machinery maintained a collective H.P. of 52,700 S.H.P. for two hours, corresponding to an estimated speed of over 24 knots [emphasis added].

Possibly there is another ‘official D.N.C. history of warship construction’ Friedman is referring to, but, thanks to his execrable referencing (which Seaforth/Naval Institute Press continue to tolerate for no good reason), we may never know. In the mean time, the one official history which many historians know of makes clear that Canada was capable of the equivalent of more than 24 knots!

Onboard Ship Communication During World War I

A rating portrayed wearing headsets and mouthpiece of a ‘Telaupad’ in the 1927 film The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands.

In the Daily Mail’s ‘Answers to Correspondents’ column on 12 December 2023 appeared the following question and answer relating to the Royal Navy in the First World War:

QUESTION What methods were used for onboard ship communication during World War I?

A network of voice pipes was used for shipboard communication during both world wars, consisting of two cones of wood or metal, one end shaped to fit the speaker’s mouth and connected to the other via a long air pipe to a receiver cone, which was flared to amplify the sound.

The pipe was insulated by a covering of waterproof textile material, which, being a bad conductor of sound, enabled long lengths of tube to be used without excessive interference.

Naval voice pipes had a removable cork-mounted whistle, which would be blown to alert the receiver to a pending message.

Voice pipes had obvious advantages in naval warfare. They didn’t depend on electrical power, were immune to EMP (electromagnetic pulse) and would keep working even when damaged. However, voice pipe communication between two watertight compartments presented a risk of flooding, so they were equipped with shut-off valves on either side.

You can see examples of voice pipes on HMS Belfast, which is on display on the River Thames in London, and on HMS Cavalier at Chatham Dockyard Museum.

By the end of World War II they were displaced by internal ship telephones and intercom systems, though some ships still retained the voice pipes in case of electrical blackouts.

Paul Adams, Bristol.

Voice pipes are but one example of intra-ship communication (and depending on how badly they are damaged they will not work). I sent a response to the column on 29 December. As of today it has not been published.

Dear Sir,

QUESTION What methods were used for onboard ship communication during World War I?

Paul Adams in his 12 December answer is correct that voice-pipes were used for shipboard communications. However, they were not the only method. In a British battleship or battle cruiser of the First World War one would also use bugles, telephones, messengers (in the form of boys and men), pneumatic tubes, electric telegraphs (for sending and receiving Morse code between compartments), and various mechanical indicators and dials for transmitting orders and information like range, bearings and speed.

Yours sincerely,

Simon Harley

Co Editor-in-Chief, The Dreadnought Project

‘The Erin is I fear going to be a trouble to me’

H.M.S. Erin in dock at Invergordon.
Photograph: Naval History and Heritage Command NH 41762.

In Aidan Dodson’s new book on The Windfall Battleships he refers (page 23) to the battleship Erin:

Fuel stowage was, however, only two-thirds that of her British contemporaries, and difficult to access. As CinC Grand Fleet remarked to DNC:

The Erin is I fear going to be a trouble to me. She only has 1000 tons of coal that is available for steaming. The rest is athwart Engine Rooms & can’t be trimmed forward for real steaming. The nominal 2000 tons is a fraud. I am telling her to use oil whenever possible to help the coal out.

The source given is a letter of 19 September 1914 from Admiral Sir John Jellicoe in d’Eyncourt’s papers at the National Maritime Museum. The word ‘athwart’ is more likely ‘abreast’. Dodson leaves it at that, which is a shame, as it would be interesting to know if the Ship’s Covers at Woolwich provide more information on Erin‘s bunkerage. However, elsewhere in d’Eyncourt’s papers (I’m not saying where, this isn’t a research charity) is a 28 September minute from W. H. Gard, one of the Assistant Directors of Naval Construction:

d’Eyncourt embodied this in his reply to Jellicoe on 29 September, which he also showed to Rear-Admiral Frederick Tudor, the Third Sea Lord:

Lesson to be learned? There are always two sides to a story.

Deferring Financial Pain

Audacious before the Great War. © IWM Q 75212.

In the Navy Estimates presented to the House of Commons in March 1910 five armoured vessels were announced for the coming financial year which began on 1 April and ended on 31 March 1911. Four of these armoured vessels would form the Royal Navy’s King George V class of battleship. One of these, eventually named Audacious, was laid down at Cammell, Laird & Co.’s yard at Birkenhead on 23 March 1911, a week before the next Admiralty financial year began. The reason for laying a ship down so late in the financial year was clear: as Reginald McKenna put it in presenting the 1909 estimates, ‘An obvious effect of this system is to postpone for some two years a large part of the financial burdens of the programme to which the ships belong.’ I decided to look at how this worked, using the Dockyard Expense Accounts:

Financial Year Sum
1910-1911 £48,157
1911-1912 £624,756
1912-1913 £771,566
1913-1914 £340,590
Total £1,785,069

The ship was completed on 15 October, 1913. Incidental expenses over the course of her construction amounted to £31,746, and along with the total of £1,785,069 were considered her first cost of £1,816,315. Material connected to her armament accounted for £436,911, or 24% of the cost.

It is not known where on earth R. A. Burt got his total of £1,918,813, quoted by Wikipedia, from.

H.M.S. Inflexible

h-m-s-inflexible
H.M.S. Inflexible.

Whilst scouring my research material for data on sail drill competition in the Mediterranean (which I eventually found, thankfully) I came across the following description of the interior of the battleship Inflexible in a volume supposedly written by the royal princes Albert Victor and George (later King George V). It is dated 30 May 1882, and therefore pre-dates Inflexible’s participation in the bombardment of Alexandria less than two months later. The Captain Fisher referred to is, of course, ‘Jacky’ Fisher, later Lord Fisher. Fisher was allegedly criticised for the emphasis on preparation for battle illustrated here, and encouraged to excel in the fleet sail drill. As the photo of Inflexible makes clear, she was a ship torn between the past and future: a turret ship with rigged for sail. The following short account may prove of interest.

At 10 A.M. some of the Bacchante’s officers went at Captain Fisher’s invitation to see the Inflexible. He himself kindly explained everything. In the fore cabin we saw the large diagrams of the ship, and how each half of the ship is ‘double against the other,’ and how each fitting besides is in duplicate.

There are 6,000 tallies in the ship and everything is labelled: everything below is coloured red or green, for the port or starboard side, so that a man can never lose his way amid all the intricacies of the internal fittings, and can tell at once if he is going forward or aft. The  compartments, too, are all numbered, and not marked with letters of the alphabet, so that you can tell at once how far distant you are from either end of the ship. Her stability is far better than that of the Duilio or Dandolo, or any of the similar French ships. Then we went round the ship; the electric light reflected below has the same effect as sunlight coming in through large ports in a ship’s side: we went into the turret and saw the guns raised, run out and in, and loaded by hydraulic gear. Captain Fisher explained how it was almost impossible for any accident to occur in any way whatever, on account of the system of double checks, so that it would almost require a regular plot to put all wrong.