History
The ship was built in 1885 by famed shipbuilders Laird Brothers Ltd of Birkenhead and delivered to the Liverpool company Liverpool Screw Towing & Lighterage Co Ltd. [2]
At the outbreak of World War I the ship was hired by the British Royal Navy on 11 August 1914 and was later purchased outright on 4 November 1915. [2]
In 1915 the Blackcock along with five other tugboats (Liverpool's Sarah Joliffe and T. A. Joliffe, and Danube II, Southampton and Revenger from the Thames fleet) were ordered to tow the naval monitors HMS Severn and HMS Mersey from the UK to the Rufiji River delta in German East Africa. There the two warships assisted in the destruction of the German light cruiser Königsberg. [3] Though lightly armed, the tugs were ready to assist. They were not called upon, but according to Commander in Chief, Vice-Admiral Herbert King-Hall, the example the tugs "set was most praiseworthy." [4]
On 17 January 1918 the ship, commanded by Lieutenant Robert Weir, set off on a mission to deliver supplies and passengers from Vardø, Norway to Murmansk, Russia. [2] The next morning at 07:45 on 18 January 1918 [A 1] the ship ran aground and started to take on water. [6] Lifeboats were dropped and all the passengers and some of the crew were taken to the shore. They walked along the shore through very difficult weather until they reached the community of Tsypnavolok. [2] At the town a rescue party made up of dog sleds returned to the tug and got the rest of the crew. There were no deaths but some of the crew and passengers suffered frostbite. The tug was abandoned and later believed to have been crushed in the ice and lost. [2]
HMS Liverpool was a 4,800 ton Town-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy commissioned in 1909. Named for the port city of Liverpool, the cruiser served continuously in home waters subordinated to the Home Fleet from 1909 through the initial stages of the First World War.
SMS Königsberg was the lead ship of her class of light cruisers built by the German Kaiserliche Marine. Named after Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia, she was laid down in January 1905, launched in December of that year and completed by June 1906. Her class included three other ships: Stettin, Stuttgart, and Nürnberg. Königsberg was armed with a main battery of ten 10.5-centimeter (4.1 in) guns and had a top speed of 24.1 knots.
RMS Arlanza was a 14,622 GRT ocean liner of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. She was built in Belfast in 1912 for RMSP's scheduled route between England and South America. She was a Royal Navy armed merchant cruiser from 1915 until 1920. She returned to civilian liner service in 1920 and was scrapped in 1938.
The Battle of the Rufiji Delta was fought in German East Africa from October 1914–July 1915 during the First World War, between the German Navy's light cruiser SMS Königsberg, and a powerful group of British warships. The battle was a series of attempts, ultimately successful, to sink the blockaded German light cruiser.
Empire Sandy is a tall ship providing chartered tours for the public from Toronto, Canada. She was built as an Englishman/ Larch Deep Sea-class tugboat for war service by the British government in 1943. After the end of World War II she was renamed Ashford and then Chris M before reverting to the original name of Empire Sandy and being converted to a schooner.
HMS Mimi and HMS Toutou were motor launches of the Royal Navy. After undergoing an unusual journey from Britain to Lake Tanganyika in the interior of Africa, the ships played an important role in the African naval struggle between Britain and Germany during World War I. The names mean Meow and Fido in Parisian slang. They had originally been named Dog and Cat by their erstwhile commander, Geoffrey Spicer-Simson, only to have the names rejected by an apparently scandalized Admiralty.
Arapaho-class tugboats were oceangoing tugboats designated fleet tugs by the United States Navy during their service in the early half of the 20th century. They were in service during World War I and World War II. Arapaho was built by the Seattle Construction and Drydock Company in Seattle, Washington.
SS Merion was an ocean liner built in 1902 for the American Line, a subsidiary line of the International Mercantile Marine (IMM). She also sailed for the Red Star Line and the Dominion Line—both subsidiary lines of IMM—during her passenger career. After the outbreak of World War I she was bought by the British Admiralty and converted to serve as a decoy resembling the Royal Navy battlecruiser HMS Tiger. In May 1915, while posing as Tiger in the Aegean Sea, Merion was sunk by the German submarine SM UB-8.
HMS Phaeton was a second class cruiser of the Leander class which served with the Royal Navy. Paid off in 1903, she then did harbour service until 1913 at Devonport, where she was used for training stokers and seamen. Sold in 1913 to a charitable institution that ran a training ship for boys based at Liverpool, she was renamed TS Indefatigable until repurchased by the Admiralty in 1941 and renamed Carrick II, whereupon she served as an accommodation hulk at Gourock throughout World War II. In 1946 she was sold to shipbreakers Thos. W. Ward in Preston and broken up in 1947.
HMS Helmuth was a German tug that the Royal Navy captured at the beginning of World War I and armed as a picket boat. She served in the East African campaign including the battles of Zanzibar and Tanga, she survived a German attack at Dar es Salaam, and took part in blockading SMS Königsberg in the Rujifi Delta. In 1916 she took part in an amphibious assault on the coastal town of Bagamoyo.
HMS Onslow was an Admiralty M-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. She took part in the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and was sold for scrap in 1921.
RMS Victorian was the world's first turbine-powered ocean liner. She was designed as a transatlantic liner and mail ship for Allan Line and launched in 1904.
SS Zealandic was a British ocean liner initially operated by White Star Line. She was used both as a passenger liner and a cargo ship as well as serving during both world wars.
Admiralty tugs were tugboats built for and operated by the Royal Navy. These were vessels built to Admiralty specifications and in specific classes during the First and Second World Wars. They were built to meet the Royal Navy's demand for auxiliary vessels and to supplement the civilian tugs requisitioned by the Admiralty for war service.
HMS Sabre was an Admiralty S-class destroyer of the Royal Navy launched in September 1918 at the close of World War I. She was built in Scotland by Alex Stephens and completed by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan. Commissioned for Fleet service in 1919, she was the first Royal Navy ship to carry this name.
HMS Ambrose was a steamship that was built for in 1903 as a passenger liner. The Booth Steam Ship Company ran her scheduled on services between Liverpool and Brazil until the First World War.
SS Trent was a British steamship that was built in 1899 as an ocean liner for the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSP) service between England and the Caribbean. In the First World War she was a Royal Navy depot ship. She was scrapped in 1922.
HMS Murray was a Royal Navy Admiralty M-class destroyer. Ordered before the outbreak of war, she was therefore the first of her class to enter operation during the early months of the First World War. She was also the first vessel of the Royal Navy to carry the name HMS Murray.
During the First World War, the Commander-in-Chief at the Cape, Rear Admiral Herbert King-Hall, expended much effort to destroy the elusive German light cruiser Königsberg.
Intibah was a ship used by the Ottoman Navy as a tugboat and minelayer in World War I.
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
United Kingdom