HMS
Roberts, built by Swan Hunter, launched 15th April 1915. Arrived
at Preston for breaking up, 19th September 1936.
Abercrombie
Class Monitors. Soon after the outbreak of World war One the
president of the Bethlehem Steel company contacted Winston Churchill
the First Lord of the admiralty on the 3rd November 1914. and
offered for sale Four Twin Turrets armed with two 14-inch Guns
in each. (This guns were originally for the Greek Naval ship
Salamis, but would never get their destination due to the British
Blockade. ) Winston Churchill saw the possibility. The Royal
navy were in need of shallow draft ships with the armament for
heavy shore bombardment. The Admiralty purchased the guns and
set to work
in investigating the potential of producing Four monitors. The
final design was rushed through without thorough testing including
tank tests. the final ships were unwieldy and slow.
Initially
they were called the Styx class but soon were allocated M1 -
to M4. These names remained until February 1915, when it was
arranged to give them American names to acknowledge the guns
US Origins. M! was to be Admiral Farragut, M2 General Grant,
M3 was to be Robert E Lee M4 was to be Stonewall Jackson. But
because the guns were sold to Britain, which was a flagrant
breach of US Neutrality they were horridly renamed. M1 was to
be HMS Abercrombie, M2 HMS Havelock, M3 was to be called Lord
Raglan but the name was shortened to HMS Raglan, M4 was to be
called Earl Roberts but again shortened to HMS Roberts. These
four ships had been designed to carry seaplanes but did not
carry them for very long as it was found that land based aircraft
called do naval sea spotting more efficiently, also the aircraft
which were fitted on top of the turret, had to be hoisted off
and over the side, while the ships guns were used to protect
the aircraft against blast damage. In September 1917 HMS Abercrombie
experimented with a Sopwith Schneider, and HMS Ragland on two
occasions carried seaplanes. In October 1916 a Short166 and
In September 1917 a Short 184, HMS Roberts also carried a Short
166 in September 1915 for a few weeks.
