HMS Resolution (09)

HMS ''Resolution'' (pennant number: 09) was one of five s built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Completed in December 1916, ''Resolution'' saw no combat during the war as both the British and German fleets adopted a more cautious strategy after the Battle of Jutland in May owing to the increasing threat of naval mines and submarines.

''Resolution'' spent the 1920s and 1930s alternating between the Atlantic Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet. Whilst serving in the Mediterranean in the early 1920s, the ship went to Turkey twice in response to crises arising from the Greco-Turkish War, including the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922. She also saw limited involvement during the Franco-British intervention in the Russian Civil War in the Black Sea in 1920. The ship's interwar career was otherwise uneventful. With the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, ''Resolution'' was assigned to the Channel Force before being transferred to convoy escort duties in the North Atlantic. In May 1940, she participated in the Battles of Narvik until German air attacks drove her off.

In June 1940, the ship was transferred to Force H, where she took part in the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in July after the French surrender to Germany. She was also involved in the Battle of Dakar, an attempt to neutralise the French battleship that ended with ''Resolution''s torpedoing by the French submarine . Badly damaged, ''Resolution'' was repaired first in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and then the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard under Lend-Lease. Thereafter assigned to the Eastern Fleet, her age kept her from seeing action against the Japanese fleet, and she instead escorted convoys off the eastern coast of Africa. She returned to Britain in September 1943 and was decommissioned. Thereafter she saw service with the training establishment , a role she filled until February 1948, when she was paid off, sold for scrap and broken up at Faslane.

Design and description

The ''Revenge''-class super-dreadnought battleships were designed as slightly smaller, slower, and more heavily protected versions of the preceding s. As an economy measure they were intended to revert to the previous practice of using both fuel oil and coal, but First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher rescinded the decision for coal in October 1914. Still under construction, the ships were redesigned to employ oil-fired boilers that increased the power of the engines by over the original specification.

''Resolution'' had a length overall of , a beam of and a deep draught of . She had a designed displacement of and displaced at deep load. She was powered by two pairs of Parsons steam turbines, each driving two shafts, using steam from eighteen Yarrow boilers. The turbines were rated at and intended to give the ship a maximum speed of . During her sea trials on 22 May 1916, the ship only reached a top speed of from . She had a range of at a cruising speed of . Her crew numbered 910 officers and ratings in 1916. Her metacentric height was at deep load.

The ''Revenge'' class was equipped with eight breech-loading (BL) Mk I guns in four twin gun turrets, in two superfiring pairs fore and aft of the superstructure, designated 'A', 'B', 'X', and 'Y' from front to rear. Twelve of the fourteen BL Mk XII guns were mounted singly in casemates along the broadside of the vessel amidships; the remaining pair were mounted on the shelter deck and were protected by gun shields. The ship also mounted four 3-pounder () guns. Her anti-aircraft (AA) armament consisted of two quick-firing (QF) 20 cwt Mk I"Cwt" is the abbreviation for hundredweight, 20 cwt referring to the weight of the gun. guns. She was fitted with four submerged 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, two on each broadside.

''Resolution'' was completed with two fire-control directors fitted with rangefinders. One was mounted above the conning tower, protected by an armoured hood, and the other was in the spotting top above the tripod foremast. Each turret was also fitted with a 15-foot rangefinder. The main armament could be controlled by 'X' turret as well. The secondary armament was primarily controlled by directors mounted on each side of the compass platform on the foremast once they were fitted in April 1917. A torpedo-control director with a 15-foot rangefinder was mounted at the aft end of the superstructure.

The ship's waterline belt consisted of Krupp cemented armour (KC) that was thick between 'A' and 'Y' barbettes and thinned to 4 to 6 inches (102 to 152 mm) towards the ship's ends, but did not reach either the bow or the stern. Above this was a strake of armour 6 inches thick that extended between 'A' and 'X' barbettes. Transverse bulkheads 4 to 6 inches thick ran at an angle from the ends of the thickest part of the waterline belt to 'A' and 'Y' barbettes. The gun turrets were protected by of KC armour, except for the turret roofs which were thick. The barbettes ranged in thickness from above the upper deck, but were only 4 to 6 inches thick below it. The ''Revenge''-class ships had multiple armoured decks that ranged from in thickness. The main conning tower had 13 inches of armour on the sides with a 3-inch roof. The torpedo director in the rear superstructure had 6 inches of armour protecting it. After the Battle of Jutland, 1 inch of high-tensile steel was added to the main deck over the magazines and additional anti-flash equipment was added in the magazines.

The ship was fitted with flying-off platforms mounted on the roofs of 'B' and 'X' turrets in 1918, from which fighters and reconnaissance aircraft could launch. In 1927 a rotating aircraft catapult was installed on ''Resolution''s quarterdeck. It was removed during her 1929–1931 refit. The flying-off platforms were removed in 1932–1933. A catapult was added on the roof of 'X' turret by September 1936 as well as a crane to handle the aircraft.

Major alterations

''Resolution'' was fitted with anti-torpedo bulges between late 1917 and May 1918. They were designed to reduce the effect of torpedo detonations and improve stability. They increased her beam by over 13 feet (4 m) to , her displacement to and reduced her draught to , all at deep load. They increased her metacentric height to . Later in 1918, a rangefinder was fitted in 'B' turret.

The gun shields for the shelter-deck six-inch guns were replaced by armoured casemates in 1922. Two years later, her anti-aircraft defences were upgraded by replacing the original three-inch AA guns with a pair of QF AA guns. Another pair of four-inch AA guns were added and the six-inch guns from the shelter deck were removed in 1927. During the ship's 1929–31 refit, a High-Angle Control System (HACS) Mk I director was installed on the spotting top and the aft pair of torpedo tubes on either side were also removed. An experimental 4-inch dual-purpose, twin-gun turret was installed in the place of the starboard forward AA gun for evaluation.

By September 1933 a pair of quadruple mounts for Vickers .50 machine guns were added abreast the conning tower. Three years later a HACS Mk II director replaced the Mk I on the roof of the spotting top. A platform for another director was added on the mainmast which was converted into a tripod to handle the additional weight. The torpedo director and its associated rangefinder were removed. In January 1938 the rear HACS was added, the existing AA guns were replaced with QF 4-inch Mk XVI guns in Mk XIX twin mounts and a pair of octuple mounts for two-pounder Mk VIII "pom-pom" guns were added with their directors. The forward pair of submerged torpedo tubes were also removed.

Wartime modifications for the ''Revenge''-class ships were fairly minimal. In 1941 ''Resolution'' was fitted with a Type 279 early-warning radar and a pair of Type 285 anti-aircraft gunnery sets. The following year a Type 273 surface-search radar and a pair of Type 284 gunnery radars for the main guns were added. The quadruple .50-calibre mounts were replaced by nine 20 mm Oerlikons in September 1941. Two four-barrel "pom-poms" were added as in 1942 as well as another Oerlikon. To save weight and make more room available for the additional crew required to man the new equipment like the radars and Oerlikons, two 6-inch guns were removed in 1943.

Construction and service

First World War

''Resolution'' was laid down at Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company, Jarrow on 29 November 1913, launched on 14 January 1915, and commissioned on 7 December 1916. On 30 December, she joined the Grand Fleet in Rosyth, assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron along with her sister ships and several other battleships. After the action of 19 August 1916, in which the Grand Fleet had lost two light cruisers to German U-boat attacks, Admiral John Jellicoe, the fleet commander, decided that the fleet should not be risked in further such sorties unless the German High Seas Fleet ventured north or the strategic situation warranted the risk. For its part, the German fleet remained in port or trained in the Baltic Sea through 1917, as both sides had largely abandoned the idea of a decisive surface battle in the North Sea. Both sides turned to positional warfare, laying fields of naval mines, and Germany resumed the unrestricted submarine warfare campaign early in the year. As a result, ''Resolution'' and the rest of the Grand Fleet saw no action during this period.

In 1917, Britain began running regular convoys to Norway, escorted by light forces; the Germans raided these convoys twice late in the year, prompting Admiral David Beatty, who had replaced Jellicoe the previous year, to send battle squadrons of the Grand Fleet to escort the convoys. The High Seas Fleet went to sea on 23 April to attack one of the escorted convoys, but after the battlecruiser suffered a serious mechanical accident the next day, the Germans were forced to break off the operation. ''Resolution'' and the rest of the Grand Fleet sortied on 24 April once they intercepted wireless signals from the damaged ''Moltke'', but the Germans were too far ahead of the British, and no shots were fired. On 21 November 1918, following the Armistice, the entire Grand Fleet left port to escort the surrendered German fleet into internment at Scapa Flow.

Interwar years

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, ''Resolution'' typically operated with her sister ships, apart from periods where they were detached for refit or modernisation. In April 1919, the ships were transferred to the Atlantic Fleet, still as part of the 1st Battle Squadron. They were then attached to the Mediterranean Fleet for operations in Turkey and the Black Sea as part of Britain's responses to the Greco-Turkish War and the Russian Civil War, respectively. On 10 April, the ship arrived in Constantinople from Malta, and two days later she and several other ships went to Prinkipo to conduct gunnery training. ''Resolution'' then went to Batumi in southern Russia, where she remained until mid-June, when she steamed back across the Black Sea to Constantinople, arriving on 18 June. The ship was then stationed in Chanak, along with her sister and the light cruiser . The two battleships embarked passengers and casualties bound for Britain before sailing for home waters, in company with a pair of destroyers.

In August 1920, the ships returned to the Atlantic Fleet. The 1st and 2nd Battle Squadrons merged in May 1921, with the ''Resolution'' and her four sisters forming the 1st Division and the five ''Queen Elizabeth''-class battleships forming the 2nd Division. ''Resolution'' and three of her sisters were again sent to the Mediterranean Fleet in September 1922 during a crisis in Smyrna that culminated in the Great fire of Smyrna as the Greco-Turkish War came to its conclusion. The ships primarily operated in the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmora, though ''Resolution'' also stopped in Mytilene and Smyrna in February 1923 in company with the battleship and several cruisers and destroyers. With the war over by November, the ships were free to return once again to the Atlantic Fleet.

On 10 January 1924, while conducting training exercises in the English Channel, ''Resolution'' ran into and sank the British submarine as she was surfacing, damaging her bow in the collision. Crewmen aboard ''Resolution'' reported feeling a shock at 11:13, but they were unaware that they had struck the submarine; it became clear later that day when the fleet returned to port and ''L24'' was found to be missing. The submarine was sunk with the loss of all hands. From July to October, ''Resolution'' underwent a refit. On 1 November, the Atlantic Fleet underwent a reorganisation that saw the ''Queen Elizabeth''-class ships sent to the Mediterranean Fleet and the ships of the 1st Division reconstituted as the 1st Battle Squadron. The ship underwent another, more lengthy refit from December 1926 to December 1927. ''Resolution'' and her sisters were transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in August 1927.

In early 1935, the ''Revenge'' and ''Queen Elizabeth'' classes again swapped places, though by this time, the Atlantic Fleet had been renamed the Home Fleet. On 16 July, the ships were present during the fleet review at Spithead for King George V's silver jubilee. In December, ''Resolution'' again went into drydock for a refit that lasted until September 1936. She and her sisters were again present for the Coronation Review for George VI on 20 May 1937. In the last weeks of August 1939, the Royal Navy began to concentrate in wartime bases as tensions with Germany rose. ''Resolution'' steamed to Invergordon, where she joined her sisters ''Royal Sovereign'' and ''Royal Oak'', , and the battlecruiser . By 31 August, the force joined , the flagship of Admiral Charles Forbes, the commander of the Home Fleet.

Second World War

In September 1939, immediately after the start of the Second World War, ''Resolution'' was assigned to the Channel Force, based in Portland. On 1 October, after the German heavy cruiser sank the merchant vessel , the Admiralty ordered ''Resolution'' to join the South Atlantic Command, but rescinded the order four days later. ''Resolution'' was instead sent to the North Atlantic Escort Force in company with . She carried a load of gold bullion to Canada to safeguard it during the war, and thereafter escorted convoys of troopships from Canada to Britain through December 1939. She escorted the first major troop convoy starting on 12 December, in company with the battlecruiser . The Royal Navy purchased the merchant ship in September and disguised her as ''Resolution'' to deceive German aircraft while the battleship was on patrol in the Atlantic, a role she filled until February 1942.

In April 1940, ''Resolution'' re-joined the Home Fleet during the campaign in Norway. She was sent to relieve the battleship off Narvik late that month, arriving on 26 April. The ship and the light cruiser bombarded German positions around Beisfjord on 1 May. She supported the landing at Bjerkvik on 13 May during the Battles of Narvik. She arrived off Bjerkvik late on 12 May as part of a force that included two cruisers and five destroyers; they made preparations for the attack, which began in the early hours of the following morning. She carried five tanks and other vehicles for the landing, which she hoisted out in the darkness. Three of the tanks were sent in first, and as the German defenders engaged the incoming amphibious assault, ''Resolution'' and the cruisers and destroyers shelled German defences in the area. As the men and tanks fought their way inland, the ships conducted a creeping barrage. By 06:00, the troops had secured the town and signaled that ''Resolution'' and the rest of the squadron could depart. Later in May she was attacked by German Junkers Ju 88 bombers; she was hit by one bomb that killed two men and wounded another twenty-seven. On 18 May, she was detached to return to Scapa Flow to prevent her from being damaged by further air attacks.

Forces H and M

On 4 June, ''Resolution'' departed Scapa Flow bound for Gibraltar, where she joined Force H, which also included the battlecruiser and the battleship . She took part in the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir on 3 July 1940. Following the French surrender on 22 June, the French fleet was to be disarmed under German and Italian supervision. The British high command, however, was concerned that the French ships would be seized by the Axis powers and placed in service. Prime Minister Winston Churchill therefore ordered Vice Admiral James Somerville, the commander of Force H, to neutralise the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir. He was instructed to order the French vessels to join the British with the Free French, surrender for internment, to scuttle themselves, or be sunk. On 3 July, Somerville arrived and delivered the ultimatum; the French rejected it, and so the British ships opened fire. Shell hits from ''Resolution'', ''Valiant'', and ''Hood'' struck the French battleship , destroying her in a magazine explosion, and forced the battleship to run herself aground to avoid sinking. The battleship also sank in shallow water, though she was later refloated.

With the fleet at Mers-el-Kebir neutralised, the naval forces at Dakar became the next target for Force H. The nearly-completed battleship , which had fled from Brest, France to escape the advancing German army, was in Dakar and was to be attacked on 6 July. However, Somerville was ordered to return to Mers-el-Kebir to ensure that ''Dunkerque'' was in fact destroyed—the attacks carried out by ''Hood'', ''Valiant'', and ''Ark Royal''—granting ''Richelieu'' a temporary reprieve. Force H, again including ''Resolution'', was then sent on 8 July to divert the attention of the Italian ''Regia Marina'' (Royal Navy) while a Malta convoy steamed to the island. During the operation, the ships made a feint toward Sardinia and ''Ark Royal'' launched a raid on Cagliari. Force H next supported Operation Hurry in late July and early August. Following the operation, ''Resolution'' and ''Ark Royal'' were detached from Force H to finally conduct the attack on ''Richelieu''. The ships joined the battleship , three cruisers, and ten destroyers as Force M, under the command of Admiral Andrew Cunningham.

On the morning of 23 September, Force M appeared off Dakar and Cunningham issued the French commander the same ultimatum as at Mers-el-Kebir. After the French again refused to surrender or scuttle their ship and began firing on the British fleet, the British ships returned fire, and in the course of about half an hour, ''Resolution'' and ''Barham'' had fired more than 100 shells from their main battery. Poor visibility hampered their shooting, and between them the two battleships only scored a single hit on a freighter. Unable to effectively engage the French forces in the harbour, Cunningham broke off the attack after several of his ships received serious hits from French coastal batteries. The next day, Cunningham attempted an air strike from ''Ark Royal'', which failed to damage the heavily-armoured ''Richelieu''. While they were steaming off the coast, the destroyer came under attack from a French cruiser, which ''Resolution'' drove off with a single broadside of her main battery guns. The battleships then moved into position to attack the port; they scored a single hit on ''Richelieu'', though it was only a splinter from a 15-inch shell that did little damage. ''Resolution''s fire director gear broke down ten minutes into the action, drastically reducing her ability to fire accurately. The British briefly withdrew before attacking again later in the afternoon; ''Resolution'' engaged the shore battery while ''Barham'' fired on ''Richelieu''. Neither British ship scored any hits, though ''Resolution'' was straddled by the coastal guns. Cunningham again disengaged, determined to make another attack the next morning.

The two battleships arrived off Dakar at around 9:00 to launch another attack, this time supported by a pair of heavy cruisers. Just as they were manoeuvring into position, the French submarine launched a spread of torpedoes at the battleships, one of which struck ''Resolution'' amidships on her port side. The explosion tore a large hole in her hull and flooded the port boiler room, reducing her to a speed of and causing a serious list to port. ''Resolution'' was forced to withdraw, leaving ''Barham'' to engage ''Richelieu'' by herself. Cunningham escorted the crippled battleship to Freetown for repairs, and the next morning, ''Barham'' had to take her under tow. The ships arrived in Freetown on 29 September, where ''Resolution'' underwent six months of repairs. She returned to Portsmouth in March 1941, where she came under a German air attack that failed to score any hits. ''Resolution'' then crossed the Atlantic to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, where she underwent repairs and modernisation under Lend-Lease; the modifications included altering her main battery turrets to allow elevation to 30 degrees, significantly increasing her range. Work completed in September 1941, allowing ''Resolution'' to return to action.

Eastern Fleet

In early 1942, the Royal Navy began amassing forces to send to the Indian Ocean to defend British India after the start of the Pacific War in December 1941. The ship sailed for Cape Town, where she met the aircraft carrier ; they were later joined by ''Revenge'' and ''Warspite'', and on arriving in the Indian Ocean, they rendezvoused with the carriers and the small and obsolescent . By the end of March 1942, the Eastern Fleet had been formed, under the command of Admiral Somerville. Despite the numerical strength of the Eastern Fleet, many of its units, including the four ''Revenge''-class battleships, were no longer front-line warships. Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo's powerful ''Kido Butai'', composed of six carriers and four fast battleships, was significantly stronger than Somerville's Eastern Fleet. As a result, only the modernised ''Warspite'' could operate with the two fleet carriers; ''Resolution'', her three sisters, and ''Hermes'' were kept away from combat to escort convoys in the Indian Ocean.

In late March, the code-breakers at the Far East Combined Bureau, a branch of Bletchley Park, informed Somerville that the Japanese were planning a raid into the Indian Ocean to attack Colombo and Trincomalee and destroy his fleet. He therefore divided his fleet into two groups: Force A, which consisted of the two fleet carriers, ''Warspite'' and four cruisers, and Force B, centred on ''Royal Sovereign'' and her sisters and the carrier ''Hermes''. He intended to ambush Nagumo's fleet in a night action, the only method by which he thought he could achieve a victory. After three days of searching for the Japanese fleet without success, Somerville returned to Addu Atoll to refuel. While refuelling his ships, Somerville received a report that the Japanese fleet was approaching Colombo, which they attacked the following day, on 5 April, followed by attacks on Trincomalee on 9 April. Following the first raid on 5 April, Somerville withdrew ''Resolution'' and her three sisters to Mombasa, where they could secure the shipping routes in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The four ''Revenge''s departed from Addu Atoll early on the morning on 9 April, bound for Mombasa; they remained based there into 1943. In February 1943, ''Resolution'' and ''Revenge'' escorted the Operation Pamphlet convoy that carried the 9th Australian Division from Egypt back to Australia.

Later career

In September, ''Resolution'' returned to Britain, where she underwent a refit. She was reduced to the reserves in October, and in 1944 was assigned to the training establishment . She was disarmed, her main battery guns being used as spares for ''Warspite'' and , which were being used for coastal bombardment in support of the Normandy landings at the time. ''Resolution'' served as a training ship for the next four years before being paid off in February 1948. She was then placed on the disposal list and sold to the British Iron and Steel Co., who sent the vessel to Metal Industries Ltd. in Faslane to be broken up, arriving there on 13 May. One of ''Resolution''s 15-inch guns, which was later fitted to the monitor , is on display at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Notes

Footnotes

References

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Further reading

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External links

Maritimequest HMS ''Resolution'' Photo Gallery

Royal Navy History HMS ''Resolution''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Resolution (1915)
Revenge-class battleships
Ships built on the River Tyne
1915 ships
World War I battleships of the United Kingdom
World War II battleships of the United Kingdom
Maritime incidents in 1924
Maritime incidents in September 1940