Humber class monitor
Encyclopedia
The Humber class monitors were three large gunboats under construction for the Brazilian Navy
Brazilian Navy
The Brazilian Navy is a branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces responsible for conducting naval operations. It is the largest navy in Latin America...

 in Britain in 1913. Designed for service on the Amazon River
Amazon River
The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...

, the ships were of shallow draft and heavy armament and were ideally suited to inshore, riverine and coastal work but flawed for service at sea, where their weight and light draft reduced their speed from a projected twelve knots to under four. All three were taken over by the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 shortly before the outbreak of the First World War and were commissioned as small monitors
Monitor (warship)
A monitor was a class of relatively small warship which was neither fast nor strongly armoured but carried disproportionately large guns. They were used by some navies from the 1860s until the end of World War II, and saw their final use by the United States Navy during the Vietnam War.The monitors...

. All three saw extensive service during the war and were sold in 1919.

Construction

The three Humber class monitors were originally ordered for the Brazilian Navy as the Javary class gunboats intended for inshore work on the River Amazon and its tributaries. Ordered from the Vickers Limited
Vickers Limited
Vickers Limited was a famous British engineering conglomerate that merged into Vickers-Armstrongs in 1927.-Early history:Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor &...

 shipyard at High Walker on the River Tyne
River Tyne
The River Tyne is a river in North East England in Great Britain. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers: the North Tyne and the South Tyne. These two rivers converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'.The North Tyne rises on the...

, the three ships were launched by 1913 and were undergoing sea trials when the Brazilian government informed Vickers that they would not be able to pay for the warships. Vickers attempted to find a foreign buyer for the boats and the British government stepped in to purchase the gunboats for ₤155,000 each in order to prevent them being bought by a neutral navy and then sold onto Germany.

War service

The ships were stationed at 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...

 for service in the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

, attached to the Dover Monitor Squadron. During the Battle of the Frontiers
Battle of the Frontiers
The Battle of the Frontiers was a series of battles fought along the eastern frontier of France and in southern Belgium shortly after the outbreak of World War I. The battles represented a collision between the military strategies of the French Plan XVII and the German Schlieffen Plan...

 and subsequent operations in 1914, the Humber class monitors were all employed in bombarding German batteries and positions under the command of Rear-Admiral Horace Hood
Horace Hood
Rear Admiral the Honourable Sir Horace Lambert Alexander Hood KCB, DSO, MVO was a British Royal Navy admiral of the First World War, whose lengthy and distinguished service saw him engaged in operations around the world, frequently participating in land campaigns as part of a shore brigade...

.

Severn and Mersey's guns soon wore out and they were each re-armed with a single 6" Mk VII gun stripped from the wreck of HMS Montagu
HMS Montagu (1901)
HMS Montagu was a Pre-dreadnought battleship of the British Royal Navy.In May 1906 in thick fog, she was wrecked on Lundy Island, fortunately without loss of life....

, a battleship
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

 which was wrecked on the Isle of Lundy
Lundy
Lundy is the largest island in the Bristol Channel, lying off the coast of Devon, England, approximately one third of the distance across the channel between England and Wales. It measures about at its widest. Lundy gives its name to a British sea area and is one of the islands of England.As of...

 in 1906. Humber retained her twin gun turret throughout the war, with guns being replaced by refurbished guns removed from the other 2 ships, as needed.

During early 1915 HMS Mersey
HMS Mersey (1914)
HMS Mersey was a Humber-class monitor of the Royal Navy. Originally built by Vickers for Brazil and christened Madeira, she was purchased by the Royal Navy in 1914 on the outbreak of World War I along with her sister ships Humber and Severn.She had a relatively successful career in World War I and...

 and HMS Severn
HMS Severn (1914)
HMS Severn was a Humber-class monitor of the Royal Navy. Originally built by Vickers for Brazil, she was purchased by the Royal Navy in 1914 on the outbreak of World War I along with her sister ships Humber and Mersey. She had been christened Solimoes by the Brazilians, but was renamed by the British...

 were dispatched to German East Africa
German East Africa
German East Africa was a German colony in East Africa, which included what are now :Burundi, :Rwanda and Tanganyika . Its area was , nearly three times the size of Germany today....

, where the cruiser
Cruiser
A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...

 SMS Konigsberg was hidden in the Rufiji Delta
Rufiji River
The Rufiji River lies entirely within the African nation of Tanzania. The river is formed by the convergence of the Kilombero and Luwegu rivers. It is approximately 600 km long, with its source in southwestern Tanzania and its mouth on the Indian Ocean at a point between Mafia Island called Mafia...

. Only the long range guns of the shallow draft monitors could reach the hidden cruiser and although the journey to East Africa took nearly six months under tow from Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

, the monitors were ultimately successful in destroying the German ship, their shells directed by two seaplane observers.

For the remainder of the war, all three ships participated in further attacks on German-held territory, Humber and Mersey operating with the rest of the ships in the Dover Monitor Squadron in numerous bombardments on the Belgian Coast whilst Severn remained in East Africa and operated against German positions in the colony. At the war's conclusion all three ships were sold for scrap in 1920 and 1921. Humber was ultimately saved from the breaker's yard, and was used as a floating dockyard crane for many years.

Humber-class monitors

  • HMS Humber
    HMS Humber (1914)
    HMS Humber was a Humber-class monitor of the Royal Navy. Originally built by Vickers for Brazil as the Javary, she was purchased by the Royal Navy in 1914 on the outbreak of the First World War along with her sister ships and ....

     (ex Javary); commissioned 1914, served in Dover Monitor Squadron, sold 1921.
  • HMS Mersey
    HMS Mersey (1914)
    HMS Mersey was a Humber-class monitor of the Royal Navy. Originally built by Vickers for Brazil and christened Madeira, she was purchased by the Royal Navy in 1914 on the outbreak of World War I along with her sister ships Humber and Severn.She had a relatively successful career in World War I and...

     (ex Madeira); commissioned 1914, served in Dover Monitor Squadron and off the Rufiji Delta, scrapped 1920.
  • HMS Severn
    HMS Severn (1914)
    HMS Severn was a Humber-class monitor of the Royal Navy. Originally built by Vickers for Brazil, she was purchased by the Royal Navy in 1914 on the outbreak of World War I along with her sister ships Humber and Mersey. She had been christened Solimoes by the Brazilians, but was renamed by the British...

    (ex Solimoes); commissioned 1914, served in Dover Monitor Squadron and off the Rufiji Delta, scrapped 1921.

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