HMS Curlew was a C-classlight cruiser built for the Royal Navy during World War I. She was part of the Ceressub-class of the C class. The ship survived World War I to be sunk by German aircraft during the Norwegian Campaign in 1940.
Design and description
The Ceres sub-class was redesigned to move one of the amidships guns to a superfiring position in front of the bridge to improve its arcs of fire. This required moving the bridge and tripod mast further aft and rearranging the compartments forward of the aft boiler room. The ships were 450 feet 6 inches (137.3 m) long overall, with a beam of 43 feet (13.1 m)[3] and a mean draught of 14 feet 8 inches (4.5 m). Displacement was 4,190 long tons (4,260 t) at normal and 5,020 long tons (5,100 t) at deep load. Curlew was powered by two Parsonssteam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, which produced a total of 40,000 indicated horsepower (30,000 kW). The turbines used steam generated by six Yarrow boilers which gave her a speed of about 29 knots (54 km/h; 33 mph). She carried 935 long tons (950 t) tons of fuel oil. The ship had a crew of about 460 officers and ratings.[4]
The armament of the Ceres sub-class was identical to that of the preceding Caledon sub-class and consisted of five BL 6-inch (152 mm) Mk XII guns that were mounted on the centreline. One superfiring pair of guns was forward of the bridge, one was aft of the two funnels and the last two were in the stern, with one gun superfiring over the rearmost gun. The two QF 3-inch (76 mm) 20-cwtanti-aircraft guns were positioned abreast of the fore funnel. The Ceress were equipped with eight 21 in (533 mm)torpedo tubes in four twin mounts, two on each broadside.[4]
Construction and career
She was laid down by Vickers Limited on 21 August 1916, and launched on 5 July 1917, being commissioned into the navy on 14 December 1917.
She was hove to offshore, outside Bermuda's encircling reefline, when the 1926 Havana–Bermuda hurricane reached Bermuda on 22 October 1922. Vessels in the Bermudian dockyard at the time included Admiralty Floating Dock No. 1 (AFD1), the cruisers HMS Calcutta, flagship of the America and West Indies Station, and HMS Capetown, the sloop HMS Wistaria (which was in the submerged AFD1 in the South Yard), RFA Serbol, the tugboats St. Abbs, St. Blazey, and Creole, and No. 5 Battle Practice Target.[5] The dockface (or 'the wall') in the South Yard and old North Yard of the dockyard are on the eastern (Great Sound) shore of the island of Ireland (with the western shore on the open North Atlantic). Calcutta was torn free of the wharf, with all forty hawsers that had tethered her snapping, when the windspeed reached 138 mph (the highest speed recorded before the storm destroyed the dockyard's anemometer) and was saved only by the most desperate actions of her crew and other personnel, including Sub-Lieutenants Stephen Roskill of Wistaria and Conrad Byron Alers-Hankey of Capetown, who swam to attach new lines to the oil wharf.[6][7][8]
Meanwhile, Curlew, which had sustained damage to her upper deck ("No. 1 gun, bent shield and stay Forecastle Deck torn and supporting stanchions bent. Other slight damage to material, fittings etc. Motor Boat badly damaged. Both whalers and 3 Carley Floats lost") while she rode out the storm offshore, was instructed at 16:10 on the 22nd to attempt to make contact with HMS Valerian, which had signalled "Am hove-to 5 miles south of Gibb's Hill" at 08:30 (and which had already gone down at 13:00).[9] The dockyard received wireless SOS transmission from Eastway at 17:52. SS Luciline and SS Fort George made way to the position of Eastway. Although a wireless signal was sent to Curlew at 18:40 by the Commander-in-Chief, America and West Indies, to continue searching for Valerian as the two merchant ships were going to aid Eastway, Curlew signalled the Commander-in-Chief a minute later that she was heading towards Eastway. Eastway signalled at 18:45, "W/T signals are weak. Am shorting with water here. Cannot last long old man. Am listing more every few minutes. Port lifeboats gone. Urgent assistance required. Radio giving out and stokehold flooding". The Commander-in-Chief signalled Curlew at 18:54 to cancel the previous instruction and go to the aid of Eastway. At 19:00, this message was cancelled and Curlew ordered to resume the search for Valerian. Capetown was ordered to put to sea to join the search for Valerian at 20:03.[10] The following day, 23 October, Capetown signalled that two men had been sighted on a raft at 31.59 North, 64.45 West. These were the first survivors from Valerian to be rescued. Two officers and seventeen men would be plucked from the ocean by 11:33. Luciline rescued twelve survivors from the crew of the Eastway by 12:34 and took them to Bermuda.[11]
In common with most of her sisters Curlew was rearmed to become an anti-aircraft cruiser in 1935–36.
On the outbreak of war, she served with the Home Fleet. She participated in the Norwegian Campaign, and whilst operating off the Norwegian coast on 26 May 1940, she came under attack from German Junkers Ju 88 bombers of Kampfgeschwader 30 and was sunk in Lavangsfjord, Ofotfjord near Narvik.[12] Nine sailors were lost with the ship.[13]
Notes
^"Cwt" is the abbreviation for hundredweight, 20 cwt referring to the weight of the gun.
Footnotes
^Colledge, J J (1972). British Warships 1914–1919. Shepperton: Ian Allan. p. 49.
^Dodson, Aidan (2024). "The Development of the British Royal Navy's Pennant Numbers Between 1919 and 1940". Warship International. 61 (2): 134–66.
^Stranack, Royal Navy, Lieutenant-Commander B. Ian D (1977). The Andrew and The Onions: The Story of The Royal Navy in Bermuda, 1795–1975. Bermuda: Island Press Ltd., Bermuda, 1977 (1st Edition); Bermuda Maritime Museum Press, Royal Naval Dockyard Bermuda, Ireland Island, Sandys, Bermuda, 1990 (2nd Edition). ISBN9780921560036.
^"SAVED THE FLAGSHIP". Edinburgh Evening News. Edinburgh. 7 October 1943. p. 4. On the day that Admiral Cunningham took over his new job as First Sea Lord one of his young officers of early years was distinguishing himself off the coast of France. Commander Conrad Alers-Hankey was in command of the light forces which routed enemy destroyers off the Sept Isles early on Tuesday. Alers-Hankey won the D.S.C. at Dunkirk when in command of the destroyer Vanquisher. Since then he has been twice mentioned in dispatches. As a sub-lieutenant in the West Indies he once had the distinction of saving the flagship, the cruiser Calcutta. A hurricane parted all the wires securing the Calcutta to the centre mole, and the ship was being swept down on to the jetty. Alers-Hankey dived overboard with a rope secured to a stout hawser. He made fast the hawser, which finally stopped the ship's way. The captain of the Calcutta was Capt. A. B. Cunningham.
Campbell, N.J.M. (1980). "Great Britain". In Chesneau, Roger (ed.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. New York: Mayflower Books. pp. 2–85. ISBN0-8317-0303-2.
Dunn, Steve R. (2022). The Harwich Striking Force: The Royal Navy's Front Line in the North Sea, 1914-1918. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-3990-1596-7.
Lenton, H. T. (1998). British & Empire Warships of the Second World War. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN1-55750-048-7.
Newbolt, Henry (1996). Naval Operations. History of the Great War Based on Official Documents. Vol. V (reprint of the 1931 ed.). Nashville, Tennessee: Battery Press. ISBN0-89839-255-1.
Preston, Antony (1985). "Great Britain and Empire Forces". In Gray, Randal (ed.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. pp. 1–104. ISBN0-85177-245-5.
Raven, Alan & Roberts, John (1980). British Cruisers of World War Two. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN0-87021-922-7.
Rohwer, Jürgen (2005). Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945: The Naval History of World War Two (Third Revised ed.). Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN1-59114-119-2.
Stranack, Lieutenant-Commander B. Ian D (1990) [1977]. Written at HM Naval Base Bermuda (HMS Malabar), old Royal Naval Dockyard, Ireland Island, Bermuda. The Andrew and The Onions: The Story of The Royal Navy in Bermuda, 1795–1975 (2nd ed.). Royal Naval Dockyard, Ireland Island, Sandys Parish, Bermuda: Bermuda Maritime Museum Press. ISBN9780921560036.
