HMS DEVONSHIRE (C39)
HMS DEVONSHIRE, 1931 - 1934
To most of you in England. the Royal Navy is but a name, an unseen power., the target of the calumny of Communists and pseudo-intellectuals with more resolutions than resolution. In post-war years, you of the older generation have never known how much you owe to the Navy. There was a time not so long ago, a bare twenty years in fact, when you sang those old songs, extravagant perhaps in their appeal to patriotism, but none the less true, about the "Boys of the Bulldog Breed -, and "Hearts of Oak Are Our Ships", and over your tankard of porter, passed into the limbo of the lost like the ships you sang of, you chorused at the music halls, "All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor". They still do, you know. Perhaps you read in your morning newspaper, between the bacon and the marmalade, of the Mediterranean Fleet paying a visit to some Continental ~. or, if you are a young man, you spare a glance for tile recruiting posters "Join the Navy and See the World---; but speaking generally, the Royal Navy doesn't steam into your ken. We, in Malta, the base of Britain's largest Fleet, however, understand these things with the intimacy which makes for real understanding. The Mediterranean Fleet is part and parcel of us, even from the less pleasant, but in these days more emphasised, economic aspect. To us is given in plenty the humour, the work, the play and sometimes the tragedy of the Fleet. With us always are its indefinable grandeur, its traditions its humanity. Some of you in England know that too, of course; you who remember the grey ships that swept the Northern seas during those five years that gave birth to the League of Nations, and the grim mockery of disarmament. You will also remember, some dimly through the mist of lime, others with a tug at the heartstrings, the battered ships with weary men which crept back under the rain clouds from the sea wastes of Jutland. It's not so long ago, after all. You in Portsmouth, Chatham, Devonport, Harwich and bleak Rosythe, remember only too well the anxious perusal of the daily casualty lists. Great memorials soar skywards to help you remember ..... In this book, we try to recapture your memory. These photographs speak louder and clearer than words. They depict the Mediterranean Fleet on duty, at work and at play, they give you a glimpse of the human element, although as the Bosun in---Westward Ho! " said:---Ships are as live as you an' me, an' as queer as women Malta is an ideal setting for such pictures. A tiny and beautiful island of the Mediterranean, it has harboured the Fleets of the centuries and has been the base of British sea power in the Middle Sea since the days of Nelson. Before then the long painted galleys of the Knights of St. John swept out to fight the Corsairs of Barbary. Malta, now an island of peace, was well accustomed to battle, murder and sudden death. Yet earlier, its giant bastions defied the might of Islam. It was the last valiant island outpost of the Cross. In conclusion, we express our warm thanks to the Naval authorities for their generous co-operation, and trust that this book will render a service to England by inculcating an appreciation of the Royal Navy, men and ships. HMS
Devonshire 1929-1954 By
Neil McCart In
the 312 years since 1692 eight Royal Navy warships have borne the name Devonshire, and they have been
associated with some of the famous names in naval history, including Russell at
La Hogue, Hawke at Ushant, Anson at Finisterre, and Pocock at Havana in
1762. Today, some 50 years after she
went to the shipbreakers, the most famous Devonshire remains the heavy cruiser whose career spanned four
decades, and many retired naval officers still have nostalgic memories of their
first queasy days spent at sea in the training ship during the late 1940s or
the early 1950s. Laid
down in March 1926 as one of four County-class cruisers, Devonshire was built at the South
Yard of Devonport Royal Dockyard, and she was launched at midday on Sunday 23
October 1927 by Lady Elizabeth Mildmay, the wife of the Lord Lieutenant of
Devon, who broke a bottle of Devonshire cider over the bows of the new
cruiser. With the ceremony over Devonshire was towed up the Hamoaze
to the North Yard for fitting out.
Armed with eight Mk VIII 8-inch guns in four turrets (two forward and
two aft), four single 4-inch high-angle guns, four 2-pdr pom-poms (12 more were
added in March 1941), and eight 21-inch torpedo tubes, by the standards of the
late 1920s Devonshire was a
powerful cruiser. She had an overall
length of 633 feet, a beam of 66 feet, a draught of 22 feet and a displacement
tonnage of 10,500. Capable of speeds of
over 32 knots, she was powered by a four-shaft arrangement of Parsons geared
steam turbines which were built by Vickers Ltd of Barrow-in-Furness, with the
steam being provided by eight Admiralty three-drum, superheat boilers. In appearance, with her two tall tripod
masts and three funnels, she closely resembled the units of the earlier Kent
class, although she and her sisters were fitted with hangar space for three
Walrus aircraft, together with a catapult.
She carried a complement of some 700 officers and men. On
19 March 1929, 17 months after her launch, HMS Devonshire was commissioned into the Royal Navy and on 11 May,
after carrying out trials at Portland, she sailed for Gibraltar. Before joining the First Cruiser Squadron of
the Mediterranean Fleet Devonshire,
together with her sister Sussex,
underwent an eight-week work-up period at Gibraltar before, on 8 July, she
finally steamed east to Malta, arriving in Grand Harbour three days later. Eight
days after arriving on station,
Devonshireand the rest of the Mediterranean Fleet sailed for manoeuvres
in the Aegean Sea, off the island of Skiathos. Controlling the exercises was the C-in-C in his Royal Oak flagship and also taking part were Queen Elizabeth London and Sussex, together with units of the Third Destroyer
Flotilla. Arriving off Skiathos on 21
July the fleet lay at anchor, and while the senior officers planned the
forthcoming manoeuvres the sailors were granted recreational leave for 'picnic
and bathing parties'. When they got
under way Devonshire and the
destroyers practised torpedo firing, after which there was gunnery practice. At O800 on Friday 26 July the fleet weighed
anchor, and within minutes London,
Sussex and Devonshire
had formed single line ahead in order to carry out a full calibre shoot. At 08.45 there was a flurry of manoeuvring
as Sussex, which was rejoining
the line, almost collided with Devonshire;
the latter’s stem did in fact touch Sussex's
port quarter, but no damage was done and the exercise continued. At 10.00 exactly Devonshire fired her first broadside, but practically
simultaneously a huge explosion shook the ship. A faulty breech mechanism in X turret had caused a shell and some
cordite bags to ignite, and the force of the explosion blew the roof off the
gun turret and started fires in the gun house and pump room. Fortunately these
were soon extinguished, but the explosion took a heavy toll of the Royal
Marines who were manning the turret.
One officer and six men were killed instantly, one of them being blown
overboard. Devonshire, meanwhile, made for the Greek port of Volos
where 17 injured men were transferred to the hospital ship Maine. However, 11 of these subsequently died and 16 of the victims were
buried at Volos with full military honours.
Devonshire, with the
guns of X turret awry, returned to Malta and from there proceeded to Devonport
where, on 14 August 1929, her tragic first commission ended. Most of Devonshire’s pre-war career was spent in the Mediterranean and on 3 December 1939, when war was declared, she was at Alexandria. It
was not long, however, before she returned to home waters to join the fleet at
Scapa Flow. On 3 April she sailed from Rosyth as part of a battlefleet which
included Rodney, Furious, Berwick and
York, to set course for Norwegian waters. The force was acting as escort
to two large minelaying groups which were to lay mine barrages off the
Norwegian coast and during the afternoon of 9 April, the day that German forces
invaded Denmark and Norway, Devonshire
came under heavy air attack whilst she was off Stavanger. One bomb exploded in the sea close to the
ship's port side, abaft B turret, causing some slight damage, but it did not
affect her operational capability.
During the naval battles at Narvik Devonshire was escorting Allied troop convoys to the port, and
patrolling the northern Norwegian coastline, between Kirkenes, on the edge of
the Barents Sea, to Tromso, north of Narvik. In
early May she assisted the Allied evacuation of Namsos and escorted a troop
convoy to Scapa Flow, coming under heavy air attack from which she emerged
unscathed. By mid May Devonshire had returned Namsos to
assist with the evacuation of Allied troops from that port and on 18 May she
came under heavy air attack, with one of her Walrus aircraft being shot down
and two crew members killed. Throughout
May and early June the cruiser remained in northern Norway and on 7 June,
whilst anchored off Tromso, she embarked the King of Norway, together with the
Crown Prince and 56 members of their staff and Norwegian Government
officials. Also embarked were over 400
rearguard troops and a number of political refugees, and after m fast three-day
passage they were all disembarked
safely at Greenock. For Devonshire
there followed a transatlantic crossing to Halifax, NS, for a refit. In
mid-1941 Devonshire was once again operating from Scapa Flow, and some five
weeks after the massive German invasion of Russia, the cruiser was involved in
the first incursion by the Royal Navy into Arctic waters. Devonshire
was to escort the aircraft carriers Furious and Victorious
well into the Barents Sea, from where bombing raids were to be mode on enemy
shipping at Kirkenes and Petsamo. The force, which also included Suffolk and a destroyer screen, left
Iceland's Seydis Fjord on 26 July 1941 to steam east and four days later
aircraft from the two carriers made their attacks. In the event, however, 15 aircraft were shot down and only
superficial damage was inflicted on shipping in the two harbours. By 5 August the force had returned to Scapa
Flow. Just over two weeks later, on 23
August, again in company with Victorious
and the elderly Argus, Devonshire left Scapa Flow to escort
the first Russian supply convoy of the Second World War, PQI, to
Archangel. On the last day of August Devonshire and other units of the
escort force anchored in Spitzbergen’s Sardon Bay and with the convoy safely
delivered, during the return passage aircraft from the to carriers attacked
shipping, an aluminium plant and a power station in northern Norway. By mid September the cruiser was back at
Scapa Flow and preparing for service in warmer waters. In
late October 1941 Devonshire
was in the South Atlantic, patrolling between Freetown and Simonstown, when
trawlers of the South African Defence Force sighted a convoy of five French
merchant ships, escorted by the French sloop D’Iberville, which was en route from vichy-held Madagascar into
the South Atlantic and steaming well south of Cope Town. Devonshire, which was
at Simonstown, was ordered to intercept and on 1st November she sailed
south. Next day she rendezvoused with Colombo and the armed merchant
cruiser Carthage, and they were
later joined by Carnarvon Castle. The French convoy was sighted during the
afternoon and next day, having refused to be diverted to South African ports,
the merchant ships were boarded and sent in to Cape Town with prize crews. The sloop D’Iberville, being outgunned by the two cruisers and two armed
merchant cruisers, was forced to part company with her convoy and move away to
the west. With the operation over Devonshire steamed into the Indian
Ocean to escort the troopship Viceroy
of India, after which she moved into the Atlantic Ocean to head north
for Freetown. Nine
days after leaving Simonstown, at 07.10 on Saturday 22 November, in a position Lat 040 - I0'S/180 - 45'W, some 1,000 miles west of Gabon, the observer in the cruiser's Walrus
aircraft sighted a suspicious merchant ship to the west. Devonshire immediately
altered course to close the position and 50 minutes later the merchant ship was
sighted. By this time the aircrewman
had given a description of the ship and after consulting the weekly
intelligence report and a copy of the 23 June 1941 issue of Life magazine, it
was strongly suspected that the ship was the German armed raider Atlantis, or ‘Raider C' as she was
known to British Intelligence. The
ship's frequent alterations of course deepened suspicions in the minds of those
on Devonshire's bridge. Atlantis, or ''Raider C', had
been built in 1938 as MV Goldenfels,
a 7,862-ton general cargo ship owned by the Hansa Line. On 30 November 1939,
having been armed with six 150mm guns from the old 1906 battleship Schlesien, one 75mm bow gun, two twin
37mm and four 20mm guns, as well as four torpedo tubes and two Heinkel He 114B
seaplanes, she was commissioned into the German Navy. After leaving Kiel in March
1940 and making a daring escape into the Atlantic she had ranged the Atlantic
and Indian Oceans sinking or capturing 22 Allied merchant ships, including SS Automeden which was carrying top
secret documents relating to Britain's garrison defences at Singapore. On 22 November, however, she had been
ordered to rendezvous with, and fuel, U 126, which is what she was doing when
found by Devonshire. Although the
submarine made an emergency dive there was no escape for Atlantis. Once
Devonshire was within sight of
the merchant ship, to frustrate any submarine attack, she manoeuvred to keep a
distance of between 12,000 and 18,000 yards away, maintaining a speed of 26
knots with frequent alterations of course.
Devonshire signalled the
merchantman to stop and to identify herself but no reply was received. Instead she hoisted the ‘L' flag meaning,
‘Stop, I have something to communicate' and the ‘MT' flags meaning, ‘My engines
are stopped'. Apart from this she
refused to answer any signals. At 08.37
Devonshire fired two 8-inch
salvoes to the left and right of the ship, hoping to provoke either a return of
fire or to induce her to abandon ship.
At 08.40 Atlantis transmitted
a raider report in the form ‘RRR RRR RRR de
Polyphemus', a Dutch merchant ship which, eight weeks earlier, had
called at Balboa. By 09.34, however, Devonshire had received confirmation
that this was false and a minute later, at a range of 17,500 yards, the cruiser
opened fire with her main armament. Devonshire's fourth salvo hit Atlantis's No 2 hold, setting it on
fire and subsequently blowing up the magazine, and by 09.39 Atlantis herself was on fire and
sinking. At 10.14 there was a heavy
explosion and two minutes later the raider sank. With the strong On 17 April 1941 the German raider Atlantis had sunk the Egyptian SS Zamzan with over 100 neutral US citizens on board, including the Life photographer David
Scherman. It was his smuggled photograph which helped to identify the raider. possibility
of a U-boat in the area there was no question of stopping to rescue survivors
and two days later Devonshire
returned to Freetown. Later that month
and in early December she was back in the Atlantic Ocean carrying out an
unsuccessful search for survivors of HMS
Dunedin. By
May 1942 Devonshire was in the
Indian Ocean as part of ‘Operation Ironclad', the invasion of strategic ports
in Vichy-held Madagascar, and in the follow-up to this operation she escorted
troop convoys, including the giant Cunarder Queen Mary, between Suez and Simonstown. In July 1944 she formed part of the escort
for the aircraft carriers Formidable
and Indefatigable when they
carried out air attacks on Tirpitz in Norway's Kaafjord and in December that
year she escorted the carrier Trumpeter
during minelaying operations off Norway.
During this latter operation she came under heavy air attack by JU88
torpedo bombers, one of which was shot down by the close-range armament. In
May 1945, when the war in Europe ended, Devonshire
was at Scapa Flow and, accompanied by Apollo,
Ariadne and other units, she then sailed for Oslo. Embarked in Ariadne was Prince Olav of
Norway who was returning for the first time since he had been evacuated from
Tromso by Devonshire in June 1940.
During the visit to Oslo peacetime conditions returned as the cruiser
was opened to the public each day, with over 2,800 people visiting her, and a
children's party was organised. From
Oslo Devonshire set course for Copenhagen where, guided by German minesweepers,
she was the first Allied warship to berth in the harbour since 1939. The
cruiser's officers took over North Dockyard Island naval base and handed it
back to the Danish Navy while her engineers inspected the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and the light cruiser Nurnburg, which surrendered to
them. The commanding officers of the
two German ships reported to Devonshire
for their orders and on 22 May Devonshire,
accompanied by Dido and HMCS Iroquois, escorted the two German
warships out of Copenhagen bound for Wilhelmshaven where the escort was turned
over to the Canadian destroyer and the two British cruisers returned to Rosyth. During the latter half of 1945 Devonshire made a
number of trooping voyages east of Suez, on one occasion returning 700 naval
ratings from Sydney to Devonport for demobilisation. During the outward passage to Sydney she assisted in the search for survivors from the British steamer Empire Patrol which had caught fire and sunk off Port Said while carrying over
500 Italian refugees from Ethiopia. In
April 1946, on her return from her last trooping voyage to Colombo, Devonshire steamed north to Rosyth
to be fitted out as a cadet training ship to replace the even older Frobisher, taking over her role 12
months later in April 1947. Devonshire's first
training cruise began in autumn 1947, when she visited the Irish port of
Berehaven (Castletown Bere), in the beautiful setting of Bantry Bay on
Ireland's south coast, the visit being hosted by the Irish Naval Service. From Ireland Devonshire steamed
south to the Mediterranean where she visited Ajaccio, Malta and Mers el Kebir
before returning to Devonport for Christmas.
Over the next six years Devonshire's
spring and summer cruises took; her to home and European ports, to the
Mediterranean and, on occasions, to the Caribbean; for the cadets, they were
the highlights of her training programme.
In June 1953, taking her place in 'E-Line' between INS Delhi (ex-HMS Achilles) and HMS Battleaxe,
Devonshire was the oldest ship to form part of the Coronation Review of
the Fleet. Her career was, however, nearing
its end and the Coronation Review marked the final cruise for the last of the
old three-funnelled cruisers. During
the final leg of the passage from Torquay Devonshire’s commanding officer, Captain William Crawford,
donned a boiler suit and kept watch in the engine room, while the engineer
officer took over the bridge watch. On
7 September 1953, having transferred her ship's company and cadets to HMS Triumph, the old cruiser was paid off
into the lowest category of 'Class Four Reserve. The end came in June 1954 when she was sold to Cashmore Ltd, to be broken up at
Newport, Monmouthshire. On 10 December
1954, when she left Devonport under tow for her final voyage to South Wales, it
was the end of a distinguished 25-year career during which she had added the
battle honours 'Norway I94O' and 'Diego Suarez 1942' to her name. Ray Bradley the Grandson of Marine George Henry HARKCOM, who was a survivor of the X-Turret explosion on HMS Devonshire on 29th July 1929, supplied these photographs and newspaper cuttings. It is not certain if he was actually IN the turret, there seems to be some doubt about this. SEE BELOW One Photoshows George ( on the left ) stood by the guns on HMS Devonshire. another shows him outside the municipal Zoo in Alexandria and in the other the family believe this is George on shore leave somewhere in the Med’ possibly Malta.
Part of a letter from RM Historical Society I am the publications editor of the RM Historical Society and am currently engaged in writing a Special Publication on Albert Medals awarded to Royal Marines. In doing so I came across your website giving details of Ray Bradley's grandfather, Marine George Harkom, which stated that he was the only survivor of the terrible explosion aboard HMS Devonshire in 1929. As you might know Marine Albert Streams who was subsequently awarded the Albert Medal is, according to all he official reports and the court of enquiry, the only person who survived who was in the turret itself and he went back in to rescue survivors. I have been looking at his diaries and whilst he mentions that Mne Harkon was nominally No 4 of the right gun and was wounded, there is nothing to say that he was actually in the turret at the time.
FIRST CRUISER SQUADRON
MEDITERRANEAN FLEET DETACHED ON SPECIAL SERVICE IN CHINA February 1932 -- March 1933.
Captain D. B. LE MOTTEE October 1931 -- March 1933 Captain L. F. POTTER March 1933 - February 1934
PLACES VISITED
PLYMOUTH, COLOMBO, HONG KONG, ST. RAPHAEL, ALEXANDRIA,
GIBRALTAR, SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE, MALTA, GAVRION BAY,
MALTA HONG KONG! PENANG CORFU MUDROS
PORT AUGUSTA, AMOY, COLOMBO, DURAZZO, MILO,
VATIKA BAY, WEI HAT WEI, ADEN, ANCONA, OROPOS BAY,
MALTA, SHANGHAI, SUEZ, PORTO ROSE, NAVARIN,
SYRACUSE, HANKOW, PORT SAID, SPLIT, MALTA,
PORT SAID, WEI HAI WEI, MALTA, KOTOR, GIBBRALTAR,
SUEZ, HONG KONG, POLLENZA BAY, MALTA, PLYMOUTH,
ADEN, SHANGHAI, VADO, BEIRUT.
Distance
Steamed
37,200
Miles,
Malta, HMS Revenge with HMS LONDON in the Background
REMEMBER THIS? Now you found out why as Boy seamen they taught you to climb a rope, if you want a cup of tea you need to climb back up, on a big ship it was a long climb.
HMS Cumberland - A Kent Class Cruiser
More Photographs of the Class
The Squadron at Navarrin , Greece Devonshire and Shropshire. Other Photos of HMS London and her Crew during the period shown on the map.
