HMS ''Raglan'' was a

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

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monitor 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 ...

, which was sunk during the Battle of Imbros in January 1918.

Design

On 3 November 1914, Charles M. Schwab of

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offered

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, then

First Lord of the Admiralty The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the di ...

, the use of eight /45 cal BL MK II guns in twin

gun turret A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechani ...

s, originally destined for the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

battleship . These turrets could not be delivered to the German builders, due to the British blockade. The Royal Navy immediately designed a class of monitors, designed for shore bombardment, to use the turrets.

Construction

''Raglan'' was laid down at the

Harland and Wolff Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the W ...

Ltd shipyard at

Govan Govan ( ; Cumbric?: ''Gwovan'?''; Scots: ''Gouan''; Scottish Gaelic: ''Baile a' Ghobhainn'') is a district, parish, and former burgh now part of south-west City of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated west of Glasgow city centre, on the south ba ...

on 1 December 1914. The ship was named ''Robert E Lee'' in honour of the

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General

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, however as the

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was still neutral, the ship was hurriedly renamed HMS ''M3'' on 31 May 1915. She was then named HMS ''Lord Raglan'' on 20 June 1915 and again renamed HMS ''Raglan'' on 23 June 1915.

Career

''Raglan'' sailed for the

Dardanelles The Dardanelles (; tr, Çanakkale Boğazı, lit=Strait of Çanakkale, el, Δαρδανέλλια, translit=Dardanéllia), also known as the Strait of Gallipoli from the Gallipoli peninsula or from Classical Antiquity as the Hellespont (; ...

in June 1915. She remained in the Eastern Mediterranean, based at

Imbros Imbros or İmroz Adası, officially Gökçeada (lit. ''Heavenly Island'') since 29 July 1970,Alexis Alexandris, "The Identity Issue of The Minorities in Greece And Turkey", in Hirschon, Renée (ed.), ''Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1 ...

. On 29 October, ''Raglan'' took part in the Third Battle of Gaza. On 20 January 1918, while the battleships and were absent, ''Raglan'' and other members of the Detached Squadron of the Aegean Squadron were attacked by the Turkish battlecruiser ''Yavuz Sultan Selim'' (formerly

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battlecruiser ), the

light cruiser A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to th ...

''Midilli'' (formerly German light cruiser ) and four destroyers. ''Raglan'' was sunk with the loss of 127 lives. The monitor was also sunk in the same battle. ''Midilli'' and ''Yavuz Sultan Selim'' ran into a minefield while withdrawing; ''Midilli'' sank and ''Yavuz Sultan Selim'' was badly damaged.

References

Bibliography

* *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:Raglan (1915) Abercrombie-class monitors Ships built in Govan 1915 ships World War I monitors of the United Kingdom World War I shipwrecks in the Aegean Sea Maritime incidents in 1918 Ships built by Harland and Wolff Shipwrecks of Turkey