HMS ''Marshal Ney'' was the
lead ship of
her class of two
monitors
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, West Vir ...
built for the
Royal Navy during the
First World War. Laid down as ''M13'', she was renamed after the French
field marshal
Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army and as such few persons are appointed to it. It is considered as ...
of the
Napoleonic Wars Michel Ney. After service in the First World War, she became a
depot ship and then an
accommodation ship. Between 1922 and 1947, she was renamed three times, becoming successively ''Vivid'', ''Drake'' and ''Alaunia II''. She was
scrapped
Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has monetary value, especially recovered me ...
in 1957.
Design
Designed for inshore operations along the sandbank-strewn Belgian coastline, ''Marshal Ney'' was equipped with two massive naval guns. Originally, these guns were to have been stripped from one of the
battlecruiser
The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attr ...
s and after they were redesigned. However, the guns were not ready, and guns intended for the battleship were used instead.
The
diesel engines used by the ''Marshal Ney''-class ships were a constant source of technical difficulty, hampering their use. ''Marshal Ney'' in particular was—in the words of ''
Jane's Fighting Ships''—"practically a failure", on account of her
MAN diesel engines being so unreliable. A contemporary description of the engines by Admiral
Reginald Bacon, commander of the
Dover Patrol from April 1915, shows how fault-prone they were:
:"Reliability both in officer and a ship is the first thing that an Admiral values. The ''Marshal Ney'', judged by this standard, was a hopeless sinner; but her officers and men made up for her deficiencies. Her engines not infrequently exploded when asked to start; her engine-room was scarred as if by shrapnel from the fragments of burst cylinder heads, and the escapes of the engine-room staff were miraculous. Her Chief Engineer, Mr. Swan, stuck to the engines like a Trojan and almost overcame their bad habits; and really, when talking to him, you were almost converted to the opinion that just one little alteration would make them start next time the ship was required. Added to this, when they did not burst, they usually would not start, and when once started no one liked to stop them for fear of not being able to start them again. But, without exaggeration, the more they burst and the worse they behaved, the more Mr. Swan loved them and the more cheery Captain
ugh J.Tweedie became."
Service
Assigned to the
Dover Patrol, ''Marshal Ney'' served with her sister ship .
Following her poor sea trials and continued poor operational performance off the Belgian coast, it was decided to remove her 15 inch guns and place them in the hull of a new monitor. Her 15 inch turret was removed at
Elswick in January 1916, where it was re-engineered to fire up to an increased angle of 30 degrees. The turret was then shipped to Belfast and fitted to . ''Terror'' would soon launch, and join the Dover Patrol together with her sister, .
''Marshal Ney'' was then rearmed with a single
gun and four guns, all of which had been taken from . However, another refit in 1916 to 1917 saw the 9.2 inch gun removed for use ashore in France. In the large gun's place her 6 inch armament was increased to six
BL 6-inch Mk XI naval gun
The BL 6-inch Mark XI naval gun was a British 50 calibres high-velocity naval gun which was mounted as primary armament on cruisers and secondary armament on pre-dreadnought battleships from 1906 onwards.
History
The gun with its increased ...
s, which had been removed from .
After her refit, ''Ney'' was relegated for service as a moored guardship at
The Downs. She engaged German destroyers during a raid on
Ramsgate
Ramsgate is a seaside resort, seaside town in the district of Thanet District, Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century. In 2001 it had a population of about 40,000. In 2011, according to t ...
on 27 April 1917, causing the German force to withdraw.
During 1919, ''Marshal Ney'' was used as a base ship at
Queenborough, before being disarmed and becoming a depot ship at
Fort Blockhouse
Fort Blockhouse is a military establishment in Gosport, Hampshire, England, and the final version of a complicated site. At its greatest extent in the 19th century, the structure was part of a set of fortifications which encircled much of Gos ...
from 1920. Renamed ''Vivid'' in July 1922, she then served as an
accommodation ship for the
stoker training section at
Devonport, where she remained until 1957. She was again renamed ''Drake'' in January 1934, and ''Alaunia II'' in 1947.
She arrived at
Thos. W. Ward's shipyard at
Milford Haven
Milford Haven ( cy, Aberdaugleddau, meaning "mouth of the two Rivers Cleddau") is both a town and a community in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is situated on the north side of the Milford Haven Waterway, an estuary forming a natural harbour that has ...
on 6 October 1957 for breaking up.
Footnotes
References
Notes
Bibliography
* &nbs
Vol. 1â€
Vol. 2*
*
*
* Dittmar, F. J. & Colledge, J. J., "British Warships 1914-1919", (Ian Allan, London, 1972),
*
* Gray, Randal (ed), "Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921", (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1985),
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marshal Ney (1915)
1915 ships
Marshal Ney-class monitors
Ships built on the River Tyne
World War I monitors of the United Kingdom