HM Coastal Motor Boat 4 is the torpedo boat used when Lieutenant Augustus Agar earned a Victoria Cross for carrying out a raid on Soviet warships in Kronstadt and sinking the cruiser Oleg.
CMB 4 was 45 feet (14m) long and 8ft 6in (2.59m) in the beam. She displaced 5 tons drawing 2ft 9in (0.84m) of water. Power was a 275bhp (205kW) Thornycroft V-12 petrol engine driving a single propeller and achieved a top speed of 24.8 knots (45.9km/h). The boat was armed with one 18 inch (450 mm) torpedo and two single .303 in (7.62km) Lewis machine guns for the attack on Oleg. It was operated by a crew of three.
In May 1916, Lieutenant W. N. T. Beckett took command of the newly built HM Coastal Motor Boat 4. In December 1916 he proceeded to Dunkirk in charge of the 3rd CMB Division and operated on the Belgian coast. Beckett was in command of a Divisional CMB attack on German destroyers at Zeebrugge on 7 April 1917; as a result one was sunk and one very seriously damaged. For these actions Beckett was mentioned in Despatches and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC).[1]
After the action the boat was returned to the United Kingdom, where it was on display first at the Imperial War Museum in London and then at the Vosper works on Platt's Eyot (island) on the River Thames near Kingston for many years with a Victoria Cross painted on the side until the Vosper works there closed. It was then restored and displayed (with details of the action but with the painted VC removed) at the Imperial War Museum's out-station Imperial War Museum Duxford near Cambridge.[3] In July 2019 the boat was moved to Boathouse 4 in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, where she is being displayed above a full-size, working replica being constructed by volunteers. The replica boat will be ready for sea trials in the spring of 2022. CMB 4 remains in the ownership of the Imperial War Museum, and is currently on loan to Boathouse 4 until 2024.
Agar's VC is held by the Imperial War Museum in London.[4]
The boat was inscribed on the National Register of Historic Vessels in May 1996, becoming part of the National Historic Fleet.[5]
Augustus Willington Shelton Agar, was a Royal Navy officer in both the First and the Second World Wars. He was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, for sinking a Soviet cruiser during the Russian Civil War.
Captain Gordon Charles Steele VC was an English Naval officer and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
Rear-Admiral Claude Congreve Dobson VC, DSO was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
Major General Sir John Carstairs McNeill was a senior British Army officer and Scottish recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
Rear Admiral Eric Gascoigne Robinson was a Royal Navy officer and a recipient of the Victoria Cross. He earned his award by going ashore and single-handedly destroying a Turkish naval gun battery while a lieutenant commander with the fleet stationed off the Dardanelles during the Gallipoli campaign in the First World War.
John I. Thornycroft & Company Limited, usually known simply as Thornycroft, was a British shipbuilding firm founded by John Isaac Thornycroft in Chiswick in 1866. It moved to Woolston, Southampton, in 1908, merging in 1966 with Vosper & Company to form one organisation called Vosper Thornycroft. From 2002 to 2010 the company acquired several international and US-based defence and services companies, and changed name to the VT Group. In 2008 VT's UK shipbuilding and support operations were merged with those of BAE Systems to create BVT Surface Fleet. In 2010 remaining parts of the company were absorbed by Babcock International who retained the UK and international operations, but sold the US based operations to the American Jordan Company, who took the name VT Group.
Vosper & Company, often referred to simply as Vospers, was a British shipbuilding company based in Portsmouth, England.
Platt's Eyot or Platt's Ait is an island on the River Thames at Hampton, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England, on the reach between Molesey Lock and Sunbury Lock.
Captain Walter Napier Thomason Beckett, MVO, DSC was a noted Royal Navy officer in both the First World War and the Second World War. He was known to most people as "Joe" Beckett, after a famous British boxer of the same era, as they shared the same surname. Beckett was also a capable amateur boxer, holding the title of Royal Navy Heavyweight boxing champion for some time.
The British campaign in the Baltic 1918–1919 was a part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. The codename of the Royal Navy campaign was Operation Red Trek. The intervention played a key role in enabling the establishment of the independent states of Estonia and Latvia. It failed to secure the control of Petrograd by White Russian forces, which was one of the main goals of the campaign.
Coastal Forces was a division of the Royal Navy initially established during World War I, and then again in World War II under the command of Rear-Admiral, Coastal Forces. It remained active until the last minesweepers to wear the "HM Coastal Forces" cap tally were taken out of reserve in 1968. The division received more gallantry awards than any other branch of the Royal Navy during that period.
Coastal Motor Boat was a small high-speed British torpedo boat used by the Royal Navy in the First World War and up to end of the Second World War.
Oleg was the 4th and final Bogatyr-class protected cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy.
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Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is an area of HM Naval Base Portsmouth which is open to the public; it contains several historic buildings and ships. It is managed by the National Museum of the Royal Navy as an umbrella organization representing five charities: the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust, the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth, the Mary Rose Trust, the Warrior Preservation Trust Ltd and the HMS Victory Preservation Company. Portsmouth Historic Dockyard Ltd was created to promote and manage the tourism element of the Royal Navy Dockyard, with the relevant trusts maintaining and interpreting their own attractions. It also promotes other nearby navy-related tourist attractions.
Captain Russell Hamilton McBean DSO DSC was an officer in the Royal Navy and was one of the men who took part in the Raid on Kronstadt in August 1919.
Gavriil was an Orfey-class destroyer of the Russian Imperial Navy. The destroyer was built by the Russo-Baltic Yard at Reval, launching on 5 January 1915 and completing in October 1916. She served with the Baltic Fleet during the remainder of the First World War, and after the October Revolution joined the Bolshevik Red Fleet. She was active during the Russian Civil War, taking part in several engagements against British ships during the British campaign in the Baltic, and was sunk by a mine on 21 October 1919.
HMS Spenser was a Thornycroft type flotilla leader of the British Royal Navy. She was built by J I Thornycroft from 1916 to 1917 as the lead ship of her class, launching in September 1917 and completing in December that year.
Azard was one of eight Orfey-class destroyers built for the Russian Imperial Navy during World War I. Completed in 1916, she served with the Baltic Fleet and joined the Bolshevik Red Fleet after the October Revolution of 1918. She was active during the Russian Civil War, taking part in several engagements against British ships during the British campaign in the Baltic. The destroyer was renamed Zinoviev in 1922 and Artem in 1928. She remained in service with the Soviet Baltic Fleet when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, and was sunk by a mine on 28 August.
The raid on Kronstadt was an attack by Royal Navy coastal motor boats (CMBs) and Royal Air Force aircraft on the Bolshevik Baltic Fleet at its home base on 18 August 1919. After the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, Allied naval units operated in the Baltic Sea to support the independence of Estonia and Latvia, which were threatened by Bolshevik movements. The raid followed a similar one carried out by a single motor torpedo boat outside the harbour on 17 June 1919, in which Lieutenant Augustus Agar's CMB-4 sank the Bolshevik cruiser Oleg.
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