HMS Chrysanthemum (1917)

HMS ''Chrysanthemum'' was an sloop of the Royal Navy, launched on 10 November 1917. She received a Le Cheminant chronometer from the Royal Observatory on 15 May 1925.Ledger of Receipts and Issues of Chronometers. Held by the Royal Observatory, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, UK. Le Cheminant chronometers Nos.18723 http://collections.rmg.co.uk/archive/objects/274122.html After service in the Mediterranean, in 1938 she became a drill ship with Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) and then the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR). She was sold in 1988 to private owners and subsequently scrapped in 1995.

Construction and design

''Chrysanthemum'' was one of 20 ''Anchusa''-class convoy sloops ordered on 21 February 1917. The ship was laid down at Armstrong Whitworth's High Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne shipyard as Yard number 929 on 9 July 1917 and was launched on 10 November 1917. ''Chrysanthemum'' was completed on 8 February 1918.

The ''Anchusa''s were the final group of Flower-class sloops, and were intended primarily for anti-submarine duties. As such they were designed to look like merchant ships so hostile submarines would remain on the surface for long enough for the sloops to engage them. The detailed appearance varied between builders and even between ships build by the same builder, while armament also varied.

''Chrysanthemum'' was long overall and between perpendiculars, with a beam of and a draught of . Displacement was about normal. Two coal-fed boilers fed steam to a three-cylinder triple-expansion steam engine rated at giving a speed of . The ship had a crew of 82 officers and men.

''Chrysanthemum'' was built with a gun armament of two 4-inch BL guns, a single 12-pounder (3-inch, 76 mm) gun on a tilting mounting, a single 2-pounder gun and a machine gun. Two 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes were fitted, together with an anti-submarine 200-lb stick bomb mortar and four depth-charge throwers.

Sea service

''Chrysanthemum'' was deployed to Gibraltar after commissioning. By July 1918, the Gibraltar-based sloops, including ''Chrysanthemum'' were organised into the 11th Sloop Flotilla. ''Chrysanthemum'' remained part of the 11th Sloop Flotilla when the First World War ended on 11 November 1918. After convoy duty in the late stages of World War I, ''Chrysanthemum'' joined the Mediterranean Fleet, serving as a target towing ship, based at Malta. On 4 March 1927, Sir Walter Congreve VC, the Governor of Malta, was buried at sea from her in accordance with his last request. ''Chrysanthemum'' was also used at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 to rescue British nationals from Barcelona. The officer recorded commanding ''Chrysanthemum'' 1935-1936 was Captain Russell Hamilton McBean, one of the men of the 1919 raid on Kronstadt.

RNVR and RNR service

In 1938 HMS ''Chrysanthemum'' was docked permanently on the River Thames next to for use as a drill ship by the RNR. During the Second World War she was used as a boot camp for navy recruits. After the war she continued as an RNR base. There was even a rugby union club based on her. As a warship in Commission she correctly wore the White Ensign during her time as a drill ship of London Division RNR.

Fate

As part of the move of the RNR to a new purpose built shore based drill ship in St Katharine Docks, London, ''Chrysanthemum'' was decommissioned. She was later sold to the charity Inter-Action in 1988.

''Chrysanthemum'' was hired to Steven Spielberg for the boat chase sequences shot in 1988 in Tilbury Docks for the film ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade''. She was given the fictional name ''Tiber'' for the film. She was then laid up on the River Medway, where the brackish water rusted her hull so badly that she was scrapped in 1995.

Notes

References

Publications

*
*
*
*
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chrysanthemum
Anchusa-class sloops
1917 ships
Ships built by Armstrong Whitworth