HMS London

Warships of the Royal Navy

Iain Ballantyne

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Maritime
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781783400294
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

A fascinating and lively account of the lives of British warships named London, looking at history from the perspective of the men who were there.
There is no current warship in the Royal Navy called HMS London, but vessels carrying the name have featured in some of the most controversial episodes of British naval history.
For example, the wooden wall battleship HMS London of the late 18th century could be called "the ship that lost America" while the heavy cruiser of WW2 was command vessel for the escort force that failed to safeguard the controversial convoy PQ17.
Examining the stories of HMS Londons all the way from the English Civil War, through the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801—where Nelson famously ignored signals to break off the action displayed by HMS London—we also learn of the pre-dreadnought London's participation in the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign of WW1.
Among the people Iain Ballantyne interviewed for this book were veterans of the Arctic convoys of WW2, the Yangtse Incident and warriors of the Cold War and 1991 Gulf War. It all adds up to a thoroughly researched and exciting narrative of naval history.
Adding to the authenticity of the tale, Iain even sailed to Russia in the last HMS London, a Type 22 guided-missile frigate, in August 1991. During a WW2 convoy re-enactment the ship was almost hit by a practice torpedo launched from a Soviet submarine and had to take evasive action.

Chapter One

PRIVATEERS, ROYALISTS AND ROUNDHEADS

In the Service of King Charles

Prior to any ship called London serving in the Royal Navy, there were several merchant vessels carrying the name built on the Thames and crewed by sailors from local towns and villages.

In 1620 one of these early privateering Londons saw action against Portuguese pirates in the Arabian Gulf, fighting under the flag of the East India Company as it expanded into that area. It was entirely appropriate that a ship called London was one of the company's stalwarts, as the original Royal Charter signed by Queen Elizabeth I on the last day of 1600, ‘…gave birth to the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies, commonly known as the East India Company.¹’

The first London to serve with ‘His Majestie's Navie Royall’, as the Royal Navy was known in the early 1600s, was a 40-gun converted merchantman that was one of ten armed ships provided by the merchants of the City of London to serve in the fleet of Charles I in the late 1630s. They were required as an essential bolster to the Navy, as the King was keen to counter the growing Dutch and French naval threats.

In the summer of 1642, as civil war erupted, the London was one of sixteen naval vessels lying at a fleet anchorage called the Downs. They were asked to declare for either King or Parliament and London was among eleven that immediately declared for the Parliamentarian cause. These then turned on the other five and threatened to blow them out of the water if they did not surrender. Three of them gave in immediately, but the other two refused and a tense stand-off developed that was inevitably resolved in favour of Parliament. The fleet had no real incentive for staying loyal to a monarch who had neglected it so sorely:

Ships rotted at their moorings for lack of attention; shortness of victuals, and pay constantly in arrears, were chronic causes of discontent among the men. In 1642, when the Civil War began, some of the sailors had received no pay for several years. Captains were reduced to selling the masts and yards of their ships to obtain money to feed and clothe their crews.²

With the fleet going over to Parliament, King Charles could expect no help from overseas against the rebels. Seven years later he was beheaded and the Parliamentarians, under the iron hand of Oliver Cromwell, turned England's attention once again to securing riches overseas, where the East India Company was locked in a bitter struggle with the United Provinces’ Long Distance Company. The Dutch were the giants of world trade and their merchant vessels linked the United Provinces with exotic sources of riches across the globe, from Japan and China (silk) to the West Indies (sugar cane), from the East Indies (spices) to North America and West Africa (precious metals and slaves).³

The Dutch killed English trading links with the Baltic and threatened to supplant them elsewhere, even in England's own backyard. They were sailing their ships into English ports to offload goods at the expense of local merchants. The temperature was further raised by Anglo-Dutch disputes over trade with Russia.

Even when Dutch republicans gained ascendancy, after King William II died in 1650, things did not improve. By then the English were pushing for unification between Holland and England to create a Protestant superstate to present a single face against the Catholic enemies.

The Dutch viewed Cromwell's Commonwealth with some trepidation - it was a warlike monster with a fierce religious ideology they found repellant. It ‘recalled the Spanish hegemony which they had heroically thrown off.’⁴

When England claimed sovereignty over the English Channel and the North Sea, it seemed the Dutch fears were well founded. Any ship that did not dip her flag in salute to English authority was attacked, and, to stamp England's authority on those waters, privateers seized nearly 200 Dutch ships in the period 1651-52. The passing of a Navigation Act ‘…required all imports to this country to be brought in only by English ships or those of the country of origin’.⁵ This was the precursor to three naval wars that stretched across twenty-two years.

The next London of the Royal Navy was another converted merchant ship, blooded at Kentish Knock in September 1652, a nervous, disjointed and brutal series of scraps off the mouth of the Thames. The English fielded sixty-eight ships, under the legendary General at Sea Robert Blake, against fifty-nine Dutch warships led by Admiral Witte de With. Honours were more or less even, each side feeling the strength of the other. In this first Anglo-Dutch War, the English would hold the advantage, as their warships were generally bigger, with heavier armament, and were more numerous.⁶

London was there the following June when a massive English naval force of more than 115 ships inflicted a crushing defeat on a Dutch fleet of 104 warships at the Battle of Gabbard off the Suffolk coast. For the loss of no ships, the English took eleven Dutch vessels and destroyed nine others. A blockade of the United Provinces was enforced.

On 31 July, at Scheveningen, London was one of 100 English warships that clashed with a Dutch fleet of similar size off the Texel. While it resulted in the siege of the Hague being lifted, it was otherwise another crushing defeat for the Dutch. England suffered just two ships lost and 250 men killed, while the Netherlands lost eighteen and 1,600 casualties including, worst of all, Admiral Maarten Tromp, who was shot through the heart. The death of Tromp knocked all the fight out of the Dutch and Scheveningen was the last sea battle of the war. Such was English confidence in the wake of this victory that Cromwell declared himself Lord Protector of England in December 1653. But the peace agreement signed at Westminster in 1654 created no change in the situation that led to war, making it inevitable hostilities would break out again.

Oliver Cromwell's ‘Lusty Ship’

The naval triumphs of the First Anglo-Dutch war were the true beginnings of the formidable Royal Navy. It was a time of great reform, which echoed what had happened ashore with the New Model Army that defeated the Royalists. Many of the Articles of War, which to this day underpin the effectiveness of the Royal Navy, were introduced. As a converted merchant vessel, the first London that served in Charles I's and Cromwell's navy was a bridge between the old buccaneering approach and the new military style organization. In essence, under Blake and other senior Generals at Sea, and with the full backing of Parliament and influenced by the merchants of London, who wanted more effective protection for trade, the English fleet was transformed from a collection of vessels largely in the business of privateering for the national good, into a formal fighting force. The dockyards were shaken up and reorganized, ships were supplied properly with rations and pay became a regular occurrence for the crews of the warships rather than a rarity. Naval hospitals were also established to care for sailors when they became sick.

A 64-gun, 2nd Rate of 1,104 tons, the third London of the English fleet was launched in the summer of 1656. The event was reported in one of the esteemed organs of Cromwell's dictatorship, the newspaper Mercurius Politicus. It relayed that the ‘Comissioners of the Admiralty’ had ‘launched a lusty ship…named the London…’⁷ It was also reported that Cromwell himself had decided the new warship's name only a fortnight before her launch. Choosing the name of England's capital city to grace her was an unusual decision, as other recent additions to the fleet had been named after famous Roundhead victories, such as Naseby. It seems his aim was to provide a tribute to a city that showed stout support for the Parliamentarian side in the Civil War. Cromwell, more than anyone, realized the value of a strong Navy as the main bulwark against invasion for an island power. This new purpose built London was part of a massive investment in seapower, for in 1656-57 Cromwell spent £809,000 out of a total National Revenue of just £1,050,000 on the Navy.

In August 1657, London first fired her guns, to mark the passing of the heroic Robert Blake. The legendary General at Sea had finally succumbed to his wounds, and his body was carried to its last resting place; London and other ships were on Channel guard duty.

This London took part in her first act of war when she helped escort English troops across to Dunkirk, which was taken as a Commonwealth possession. In 1658 Cromwell died and his son, Richard, became Lord Protector, but found it was a task beyond his powers. In 1659, he stepped down. Parliament assumed power, but believed that the nation still needed a powerful figurehead to weld everything together and so it asked the exiled Prince Charles to take the Crown.

In May 1660, the Royal Navy declared its allegiance to the new King Charles II and Samuel Pepys, Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board, was aboard the London when the whole of the assembled fleet fired an exultant salute to the new ruler.

London was in a squadron of warships that sailed to the Continent to collect Charles and his court. She carried back the King's brother, James, Duke of York, who had been appointed Lord High Admiral (Commander-in-Chief). As a reward for bringing the Royal group back to England in safety, the officers and men of the escort ships were each awarded a bonus equivalent to a month's pay. It was never paid.

Pride and Joy of the Monarch

The triumphant return of the King and his brother to England trailed dismay and tragedy in its wake. While the Dutch rebuilt their maritime power to unprecedented levels and dominated world trade almost in its entirety, England paid its navy off. But, by 1665 the English had again woken up to the fact that he who has a strong Navy controls world trade and, desperate to revive the country's fortunes, were rebuilding their naval strength. The London was one of many neglected warships put into refit. But, in early March 1665, shortly after leaving Chatham, she blew up and three hundred people aboard her were killed instantly. Just nineteen of her crew survived and the cause of the explosion was never fully ascertained.

Within a week of the tragedy, the Lord Mayor of London and the aldermen of the city had sent a letter to King Charles offering funds to build a new London. As a sign of his gratitude, King Charles allowed the ship to be called Loyall London.

She was to be a grand man-of-war, for at Deptford they set to work building an 80-gunner with three decks. Of the £18,355 needed to build her, £16,272 was raised by subscription in the city. However, the fund raising ran out of steam. Massive corruption was exposed in the Navy's dockyards and this combined with the after effects of the Great Plague, made the citizens of London reluctant to part with their cash. A mortagage had to be arranged to find the balance and this would not be paid off until 1675.

The need for a new warship was pressing, for in the summer of 1665 war had returned and the enemy was once again the United Provinces. Cromwell's Commonwealth might have gone, but the great rivalry based on trading disputes still existed.

As Loyall London was being launched in early June 1666, the war was going badly for England. At the Battle of the Four-Day Fight, 1-4 June 1666 – four English warships were sunk and half a dozen captured. English casualties were severe – 4,500 dead or wounded and taken prisoner. Capitalizing on this victory, the Dutch blockaded the Thames.

But, with glorious ships like the Loyall London joining the fleet, surely the tide would turn? She looked magnificent – her hull and ornaments were a riot of yellow, black, blue, white and gold, but the decks and fittings out of sight were painted a grim red colour to hide the blood that would undoubtedly be spilled aboard her. But, before she could play her part in the conflict, she needed reliable weapons ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• Chapter One: PRIVATEERS, ROYALISTS AND ROUNDHEADS
• Chapter Two: THE SHIP THAT LOST AMERICA
• Chapter Three: MUTINY AT SPITHEAD
• Chapter Four: NELSON TURNS A BLIND EYE
• Chapter Five: BOMBARDING SEVASTOPOL
• Chapter Six: AT WAR WITH THE KAISER
• Chapter Seven: RUNNING THE DARDANELLES
• Chapter Eight: POLICEMEN OF THE EMPIRE
• Chapter Nine: THE BISMARCK HUNT
• Chapter Ten: THE KREMLIN DELEGATION
• Chapter Eleven: THE TIRPITZ CHASE
• Chapter Twelve: THE SHAME OF CONVOY PQ17
• Chapter Thirteen: AN UNDESERVING SCAPEGOAT
• Chapter Fourteen: SURRENDER AT SABANG
• Chapter Fifteen: THE FINAL DAYS OF EMPIRE
• Chapter Sixteen: STORMING UP THE YANGTZE
• Chapter Seventeen: THE LONG RETREAT
• Chapter Eighteen: IN DANGEROUS WATERS
• Chapter Nineteen: SADDAM'S APOCALYPSE
• Chapter Twenty: THE FALL OF THE SOVIET UNION
• Chapter Twenty-One: KEEPING WATCH ON THE BALKANS
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX