.gif)
HMS Glatton (1914)
Encyclopedia
HMS Glatton and her sister ship were originally built as coastal defence ship
s for the Royal Norwegian Navy
, as Bjørgvin and Nidaros respectively. She was purchased from Norway at the beginning of World War I, but was not completed until 1918 although she had been launched over three years earlier. On 16 September 1918, before she had even gone into action, she suffered a large fire in one of her 6-inch magazines, and had to be torpedoed to prevent an explosion of her main magazines that would have devastated Dover
. Her wreck was partially salvaged in 1926, and moved into a position in the northeastern end of the harbour where it would not obstruct traffic. It was subsequently buried by landfill underneath the current car ferry terminal.
("armoured ship"), while Bjørgvin was the old name for the Norwegian city of Bergen. However, when World War I
broke out, the Royal Navy requisitioned most warships under construction in Britain for foreign powers and refunded the two-thirds of Bjørgvins £370,000 purchase price already paid by the Norwegians.
at Elswick
on 26 May 1913 and launched on 8 August 1914. She was renamed as Glatton, after an earlier breastwork monitor
of 1871. Her completion was greatly delayed by the modifications made by the British, which included modifying the boilers to use both oil and coal and conversion of 12 double-bottom tanks to carry the oil. This work began on 9 January 1915, but was suspended the following May, when it was estimated that only another 10-12 months of work remained, to allow for faster progress to be made on the large light cruisers and that were building in Armstrong's Naval Yard downriver. In September 1917, work was resumed to a new design that added a large anti-torpedo bulge along about 75% of the hull's length, suppression of the torpedo tubes and 100 millimetres (3.9 in) guns planned by the Norwegians, and a large tripod mast was to be fitted behind the single funnel to carry the directors for both the 6 inches (152 mm) and 9.2 inches (234 mm) guns. Both of the these guns had to be relined to use standard British ammunition and the mount for the 9.2-inch gun was modified to give a maximum elevation of 40° which gave the gun a maximum range of 39000 yards (35,661.6 m). Addition of the bulges cost 2 knots (1.1 m/s) in speed, but prevented the extra weight resulting from all of these changes from deepening her draft. She was finally completed on 8 September 1918.
Glatton displaced 5746 long tons (5,838.2 t) at deep load as built, with a length of 310 ft (94.5 m), a beam of 73 in 7 in (22.43 m) at maximum, although her main hull only had a beam of 55 feet (16.8 m) and a draught of 16 in 4 in (4.98 m). She was powered by two vertical triple expansion steam engines, which developed a total of 4000 ihp from four Yarrow
watertube boilers and gave a maximum speed of 12 knots (6.5 m/s).
She was armed with two 9.2-inch guns arranged in two single-gun turrets, one each fore and aft. Her secondary armament consisted of four six-inch guns, also in single-gun turrets, two of which superfire
d over the 9.2-inch turrets. The other two were positioned on each side of the superstructure. One 3 in (76.2 mm) anti-aircraft gun
was mounted on each center-line 6-inch turret. She also carried four 3-pounder and two 2-pounder guns on high-angle mounts.
on 11 September 1918 to prepare for the offensive planned for later that month. At 6:15 on the evening of 16 September, Glattons midships 6-inch magazine had a low-order explosion that ignited the cordite
stored there. Flames shot through the roof of 'Q' turret, starboard midside, and started to spread aft. The ship's captain—Commander N. W. Diggle
—ordered the forward magazines flooded, but the crew were unable to flood the rear magazines as the flames blocked access to the magazine flooding controls. The presence of the ammunition ship Gransha only 150 yd (137.2 m) away risked a massive explosion that would devastate Dover if Glattons rear magazine exploded and set off Granshas ammunition. Vice-Admiral Keyes—who had been walking with Commander Diggle when Glattons magazine exploded—boarded the recently arrived destroyer once apprised of the danger. He ordered Cossack to torpedo Glatton in an attempt to flood the magazine before it detonated. Cossacks first 18 in (457.2 mm)
torpedo struck the anti-torpedo bulge amidships, but failed to explode because it had been fired too close to Glatton. Her second torpedo blew a hole in Glatton at 7:40, but the torpedo's 200 lb (90.7 kg) warhead was too small to penetrate through her bulge and Glatton remained afloat, still burning. Keyes transferred to the destroyer and ordered her to fire on Glatton with her 21 in (533.4 mm) torpedoes at 8:15. They were aimed at the hole blown in Glatton's starboard side by Cossacks second torpedo and succeeded in causing Glatton to capsize until her masts and superstructure rested on the harbour bottom and dousing the fire. Casualties were heavy: 60 men were killed outright and 124 were injured of whom 19 later died of their burns.
As a precaution, Gorgons lagging was stripped out and replaced by silicate wool which revealed the real cause. Part of the cork was missing and folded newspapers were found in the empty space which were left there by the dockyard workers when she was building. Furthermore, a number of rivets were entirely missing which meant that 0.5 inches (12.7 mm) holes were present which could have ignited the newspapers when exposed to the hot ashes. The forced draught pressure in the boiler room would have supplied air through the rivet holes which would have caused the cork to given off the flammable gases and eventually ignited the cordite charges.
However, it should be noted that additional research has revealed the fact that the Glatton was subsequently salvaged on site to a great degree. Therefore, any impression that an intact monitor remains under the current car ferry terminal would be an erroneous one.
Coastal defence ship
Coastal defence ships were warships built for the purpose of coastal defence, mostly during the period from 1860 to 1920. They were small, often cruiser-sized warships that sacrificed speed and range for armour and armament...
s for the Royal Norwegian Navy
Royal Norwegian Navy
The Royal Norwegian Navy is the branch of the Norwegian Defence Force responsible for naval operations. , the RNoN consists of approximately 3,700 personnel and 70 vessels, including 5 heavy frigates, 6 submarines, 14 patrol boats, 4 minesweepers, 4 minehunters, 1 mine detection vessel, 4 support...
, as Bjørgvin and Nidaros respectively. She was purchased from Norway at the beginning of World War I, but was not completed until 1918 although she had been launched over three years earlier. On 16 September 1918, before she had even gone into action, she suffered a large fire in one of her 6-inch magazines, and had to be torpedoed to prevent an explosion of her main magazines that would have devastated Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
. Her wreck was partially salvaged in 1926, and moved into a position in the northeastern end of the harbour where it would not obstruct traffic. It was subsequently buried by landfill underneath the current car ferry terminal.
Background
Bjørgvin was ordered by Norway in 1913 to supplement the older and classes of coastal defense ships. She would have been known in Norway as P/S Bjørgvin; P/S stands for PanserskipCoastal defence ship
Coastal defence ships were warships built for the purpose of coastal defence, mostly during the period from 1860 to 1920. They were small, often cruiser-sized warships that sacrificed speed and range for armour and armament...
("armoured ship"), while Bjørgvin was the old name for the Norwegian city of Bergen. However, when World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
broke out, the Royal Navy requisitioned most warships under construction in Britain for foreign powers and refunded the two-thirds of Bjørgvins £370,000 purchase price already paid by the Norwegians.
Construction and description
Bjørgvin was laid down by Armstrong WhitworthArmstrong Whitworth
Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd was a major British manufacturing company of the early years of the 20th century. Headquartered in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, Armstrong Whitworth engaged in the construction of armaments, ships, locomotives, automobiles, and aircraft.-History:In 1847,...
at Elswick
Elswick, Tyne and Wear
Elswick is a ward of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, in the western part of the city, bordering the river Tyne. One of the earliest references to the coal mining industry of the north east occurs in 1330, when it was recorded that the Prior of Tynemouth let a colliery, called Heygrove, at...
on 26 May 1913 and launched on 8 August 1914. She was renamed as Glatton, after an earlier breastwork monitor
Breastwork monitor
A breastwork monitor was one of a number of ships designed by Sir Edward Reed, the Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy between 1863 and 1870....
of 1871. Her completion was greatly delayed by the modifications made by the British, which included modifying the boilers to use both oil and coal and conversion of 12 double-bottom tanks to carry the oil. This work began on 9 January 1915, but was suspended the following May, when it was estimated that only another 10-12 months of work remained, to allow for faster progress to be made on the large light cruisers and that were building in Armstrong's Naval Yard downriver. In September 1917, work was resumed to a new design that added a large anti-torpedo bulge along about 75% of the hull's length, suppression of the torpedo tubes and 100 millimetres (3.9 in) guns planned by the Norwegians, and a large tripod mast was to be fitted behind the single funnel to carry the directors for both the 6 inches (152 mm) and 9.2 inches (234 mm) guns. Both of the these guns had to be relined to use standard British ammunition and the mount for the 9.2-inch gun was modified to give a maximum elevation of 40° which gave the gun a maximum range of 39000 yards (35,661.6 m). Addition of the bulges cost 2 knots (1.1 m/s) in speed, but prevented the extra weight resulting from all of these changes from deepening her draft. She was finally completed on 8 September 1918.
Glatton displaced 5746 long tons (5,838.2 t) at deep load as built, with a length of 310 ft (94.5 m), a beam of 73 in 7 in (22.43 m) at maximum, although her main hull only had a beam of 55 feet (16.8 m) and a draught of 16 in 4 in (4.98 m). She was powered by two vertical triple expansion steam engines, which developed a total of 4000 ihp from four Yarrow
Yarrow
Achillea millefolium or yarrow is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to the Northern Hemisphere. In New Mexico and southern Colorado, it is called plumajillo, or "little feather", for the shape of the leaves. In antiquity, yarrow was known as herbal militaris, for its use in...
watertube boilers and gave a maximum speed of 12 knots (6.5 m/s).
She was armed with two 9.2-inch guns arranged in two single-gun turrets, one each fore and aft. Her secondary armament consisted of four six-inch guns, also in single-gun turrets, two of which superfire
Superfire
The idea of superfire is to locate two turrets in a row, one behind the other, but with the second turret located above the one in front so that the second turret could fire over the first...
d over the 9.2-inch turrets. The other two were positioned on each side of the superstructure. One 3 in (76.2 mm) anti-aircraft gun
Anti-aircraft warfare
NATO defines air defence as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action." They include ground and air based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and passive measures. It may be to protect naval, ground and air forces...
was mounted on each center-line 6-inch turret. She also carried four 3-pounder and two 2-pounder guns on high-angle mounts.
Fate
After completion, Glatton sailed for DoverDover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
on 11 September 1918 to prepare for the offensive planned for later that month. At 6:15 on the evening of 16 September, Glattons midships 6-inch magazine had a low-order explosion that ignited the cordite
Cordite
Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom from 1889 to replace gunpowder as a military propellant. Like gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burning rates and consequently low brisance...
stored there. Flames shot through the roof of 'Q' turret, starboard midside, and started to spread aft. The ship's captain—Commander N. W. Diggle
Neston Diggle
Captain Neston William Diggle, CMG, RN was a Royal Navy officer during the First World War.Diggle was born in 1880, the son of Wadham Neston Diggle who had previously been a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Diggle, Senior married on 5 April 1883 Lily Julia Noble Captain Neston William Diggle, CMG,...
—ordered the forward magazines flooded, but the crew were unable to flood the rear magazines as the flames blocked access to the magazine flooding controls. The presence of the ammunition ship Gransha only 150 yd (137.2 m) away risked a massive explosion that would devastate Dover if Glattons rear magazine exploded and set off Granshas ammunition. Vice-Admiral Keyes—who had been walking with Commander Diggle when Glattons magazine exploded—boarded the recently arrived destroyer once apprised of the danger. He ordered Cossack to torpedo Glatton in an attempt to flood the magazine before it detonated. Cossacks first 18 in (457.2 mm)
British 18 inch torpedo
There have been a number of 18 inch torpedoes in service with the United Kingdom. These have been used on ships of the Royal Navy and aircraft of both the Fleet Air Arm and Royal Air Force...
torpedo struck the anti-torpedo bulge amidships, but failed to explode because it had been fired too close to Glatton. Her second torpedo blew a hole in Glatton at 7:40, but the torpedo's 200 lb (90.7 kg) warhead was too small to penetrate through her bulge and Glatton remained afloat, still burning. Keyes transferred to the destroyer and ordered her to fire on Glatton with her 21 in (533.4 mm) torpedoes at 8:15. They were aimed at the hole blown in Glatton's starboard side by Cossacks second torpedo and succeeded in causing Glatton to capsize until her masts and superstructure rested on the harbour bottom and dousing the fire. Casualties were heavy: 60 men were killed outright and 124 were injured of whom 19 later died of their burns.
Inquiry
A Court of Enquiry held immediately afterwards found that the explosion had occurred in the midships 6-inch magazine situated between the boiler and engine rooms. The cause was less easy to establish, but the Court did note that the stokers were in the habit of piling the red-hot clinker and ashes from the boilers against the bulkhead directly adjoining the magazine to cool down before they were sent up the ash ejector. The magazine was well insulated with 5 inches (13 cm) of cork, covered by wood planking 0.75 inches (1.9 cm) thick and provided with special cooling equipment so it was not likely that the cordite had spontaneously combusted. The magazine of Glattons sister ship Gorgon was emptied and examined. The red lead paint on the bulkhead was blistered beneath the lagging and tests at the National Physical Laboratory demonstrated that it had been subject to temperatures of at least 400 °F (204.4 °C). Recorded temperatures inside the magazine did not exceed 83 °F (28.3 °C) and a test of red-hot ashes was inconclusive as the temperature in the lagging only reached 70 °F (21.1 °C) with occasional hot spots of 150 °F (65.6 °C). Other tests did reveal that the cork could give off flammable fumes under high heat and pressurized air. While not entirely satisfied with this conclusion it found in April 1919 that "The slow combustion of the cork lagging of the 6-inch midship magazine of the Glatton led to the ignition of the magazine and then to the ignition of the cordite in it and so caused the explosion."As a precaution, Gorgons lagging was stripped out and replaced by silicate wool which revealed the real cause. Part of the cork was missing and folded newspapers were found in the empty space which were left there by the dockyard workers when she was building. Furthermore, a number of rivets were entirely missing which meant that 0.5 inches (12.7 mm) holes were present which could have ignited the newspapers when exposed to the hot ashes. The forced draught pressure in the boiler room would have supplied air through the rivet holes which would have caused the cork to given off the flammable gases and eventually ignited the cordite charges.
Aftermath
Glatton remained in Dover Harbour, an obstruction to shipping, with her hull visible at low tide as the Harbour Board could not afford the £45,000 quoted on average by salvage companies. Finally they asked the Harbourmaster, Captain John Iron, if he could do it for less. He estimated it would cost about £5,000 if he was granted use of the salvage craft already at Dover. The Board accepted his offer and work began in May 1925. Some 12000 ST (10,886.2 t) of silt were removed from underneath Glatton and her mainmast and superstructure were blasted away from the wreck. Four lifting lighters, with a capacity of 1000 long tons (1,016.1 t), were hired, but they would not suffice to lift a water-logged 5000 long tons (5,080.3 t) ship. It was necessary to seal all of the holes on her topside and pump air into each compartment at a rate of 70000 cubic feet (1,982.2 m³) per minute to restore her buoyancy. The first attempt to lift her began on 2 December 1925 and was successful in breaking the suction holding her to the bottom in combination with the rising tide. That was enough for the first try and the major lifting effort began the following day. Slowly she was moved, taking advantage of the tides, until on 16 March 1926 she was moved to a deep gully next to the western pier of the submarine harbour, close by the shore. The total cost was considerably more than originally estimated, but still far less than that quoted by the salvage companies, at no more than £12,000. There she remains, buried by landfill underneath the current car ferry terminal.However, it should be noted that additional research has revealed the fact that the Glatton was subsequently salvaged on site to a great degree. Therefore, any impression that an intact monitor remains under the current car ferry terminal would be an erroneous one.