Warspite

Warships of the Royal Navy

Iain Ballantyne

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Maritime
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781783461288
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia britannica

"The dramatic career of the Queen Elizabeth class super-dreadnought, which fought with such distinction throughout two World Wars . . . a great story." —White Ensign Association
No warship name in British naval history has more battle honors than HMS Warspite. While this book looks at the lives of all eight vessels to bear the name (between 1596 and the 1990s), it concentrates on the truly epic story of the seventh vessel, a super-dreadnought battleship, conceived as the ultimate answer to German naval power, during the arms race that helped cause WW1. Warspite fought off the entire German fleet at Jutland, survived a mutiny between the wars and then covered herself in glory in action from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean during WW2.
She was the flagship of Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham when he mastered the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean, her guns inflicting devastating damage on the enemy at Calabria in 1940 and Matapan in 1941. She narrowly avoided destruction by the Japanese carrier force that devastated Pearl Harbor. She provided crucial fire support for Allied landings in Sicily, Italy, Normandy and Walcheren. A lucky ship in battle, she survived dive-bombers off Crete and glide bomb hits off Salerno.
But this is not just the story of a warship. Wherever possible the voices of those men who fought aboard her speak directly to the reader about their experiences. Warspite is also the story of a great naval nation which constructed her as the ultimate symbol of its imperial power and then scrapped her when the sun set on that empire.

Chapter One

CREATORS AND FOREBEARS

Anxious Moments on the Tamar

On 26 November 1913, a young politician witnessed the launching of a gigantic vessel of war upon which he had gambled his political career and the safety of the British Empire. The vessel’s name was Warspite; the politician was Winston Churchill.

Gathered around the First Lord of the Admiralty at Devonport Dockyard in the English naval city of Plymouth, was a tumultuous crowd of 30,000. Under a grey overcast sky, the assembled thousands held their breath as one, for the Warspite stubbornly refused to be launched. Mrs Austen Chamberlain, wife of the Government minister, had broken a bottle of wine against the bow and then, using a hammer to hit a chisel held by a dockyard official, severed a cord releasing with a massive crash, wooden supports either side of the gigantic hull. However, despite the best efforts of burly dockyard workers and hydraulic rams to send her down the slipway, the battleship had stayed put.

But then the creaking of timber blocks giving way under the hull shattered the tense silence and someone cried out: ‘She’s off!’ With the masses cheering their lungs out, and craft on the river blasting their sirens, the Warspite finally went on her way, sliding stern first into the wide Tamar. She settled gracefully in the water, the cheers of sailors aboard her answered from all sides by the crowd.

With 30,000 people cheering her down the slipway, HMS Warspite is launched at Devonport in November 1913. US Naval Historical Center.

Overjoyed, Mr Churchill blew off steam by lustily joining in the singing of ‘Rule Britannia’, giving extra emphasis to the song - and his relief - with the enthusiastic waving of his hat.

The launch of Warspite at Devonport Dockyard had been delayed a month to await the arrival of heavy castings and time was of the essence. Never before had a hull of some 12,000 tons been put in the water on the Tamar and there would not be another adequate high tide for a long time. Britain was engaged in a rapidly escalating naval construction race with Germany and just under nine months later the two nations would be at war.

Churchill had fought tooth and nail to build Warspite and her four sister ships, in a bold bid to achieve final supremacy over the Kaiser’s fleet with a class of new super dreadnoughts.

A controversial concept, they mounted 15-inch guns on a heavily armoured hull. Not only was it by no means certain such large calibre guns could be mounted and fired safely, the new super dreadnoughts also rejected plentiful British coal in favour of oil from the Middle East to fire their boilers.

But, if the First Lord of the Admiralty had needed a boost to his confidence, he had only to study the history of the six previous Warspites, each of which carved an illustrious career.

From Raleigh & Essex to Pax Victoriana

The first Warspite set the fighting tradition commanded by swashbuckling Elizabethan high seas privateer Sir Walter Raleigh.

The origins of the name Warspite are not clear but the most popular theory is that it was a compound creation – ‘War’s spite’ embodies contempt for one’s enemies (an obvious reflection of English feelings towards Spain at the time). The word ‘spight’ was also a colloquial name for the green woodpecker. A ‘warspight’ would obviously be ready to ‘peck’ at the wooden hulls of opponents.

From the first moment he went aboard Warspite at Plymouth in 1596, Raleigh was certainly eager to hurl spite, and peck at the Spaniards with a cannonade or two. The forty-two-year-old adventurer’s new ship had been launched earlier that year at Deptford, on the Thames, displacing approximately 650 tons and carrying thirty-six guns. Now Sir Walter was getting her ready to sail at the head of a squadron in an ambitious raid on Cadiz.

The year 1596 was not a good one for England.

Standing outside Sherborne Abbey is this statue of the first Warspite’s first Captain, Sir Walter Raleigh. Nigel Andrews.

The sheen of victory over the Spanish Armada of 1588 had well and truly dulled and everywhere the threats grew. The Spaniards had taken Calais that April and were said to be assembling a new armada at Cadiz.

England’s security could therefore be assured by the destruction of enemy naval vessels in the port, so removing the means to transport troops across the Channel.

But the stars of the ‘old firm’, which had vanquished the previous armada, were dead – Hawkins and Drake during the Panama expedition that had set off in August 1595 and ended in disaster. Most painful for Raleigh was the loss of his cousin and mentor, Richard Grenville, killed in the Azores some five years before, after his ship, the Revenge, was trapped by fifty Spanish men-of-war. Two vessels that had played a leading role in destroying Grenville - the Saint Philip, on whose deck he gasped his last breath before his corpse was thrown overboard, and the Saint Andrew - were said to be at Cadiz.

Raleigh once enjoyed an intimate and unrivalled position in the Queen’s favours which had brought him a knighthood, rich lands and power. But his place in the Queen’s affections had been taken by the Earl of Essex who was also his rival in martial affairs. When Raleigh heard Essex was to be joint leader of the expedition with Howard of Effingham – the man who led English naval forces against the 1588 armada – he was outraged. His hatred for Essex, and jealousy of his joint command, poured more oil on his burning determination to make Cadiz a personal triumph. But when Raleigh went to Plymouth to join Warspite he managed to keep his temper under control and showed only courtesy to Essex.

A large force had been assembled – eighteen Royal Navy ships, ten armed merchant vessels and twenty-four Dutch warships plus 100 other assorted craft. Nearly 10,000 English and Dutch soldiers were to be carried by the fleet. Warspite was to lead one of four naval squadrons while Essex had charge of another, with the Repulse as his flagship. Despite the Queen blowing hot and cold over the whole venture this ‘bristling and ferocious fleet’¹ finally set sail from Plymouth on 1 June and three weeks later was approaching Cadiz.

Things did not get off to a good start. In heavy seas an ill-fated attempt was made to disembark troops for a direct attack on the city of Cadiz.

Raleigh’s squadron had been sent off to clear the approaches of any Spanish warships which might interfere, so Sir Walter had been unavailable to point out the folly of such an opening move. Its cardinal sin was ignoring destruction of the armada and capture of treasure ships. A direct assault on the city could bog down the English, allowing the Spanish vessels to slip away. Witnessing the chaos and confusion from Warspite on his return, Raleigh immediately intervened. Putting Warspite near the Repulse, he rowed across to have an urgent conference with Essex during which his bitter rival surprisingly bowed to his wisdom. Next he rowed to Effingham’s ship and managed to persuade the overall commander to cancel the assault on the city. It was decided that on high tide in the morning the English warships – spearheaded by Raleigh’s squadron with Warspite at the very tip – would sail straight into Cadiz Harbour.

With the Lion, Rainbow, Dreadnought, Nonpareil, Mary Rose, Swiftsure and a dozen armed merchantmen close behind, Raleigh’s Warspite brazenly braved fierce gunfire from cannons on the port’s fortifications. Ever the showman, Raleigh declined to waste ammunition on the battlements, instead ordering trumpeters to blow blasts as his defiant response.

The first Warspite leads the English and Dutch naval assault on Cadiz. Specially commissioned painting by Dennis C. Andrews.

Raleigh later wrote that ‘the volleys of cannon and culvern came as thick as if it had been a skirmish of musketeres.’

Warspite was badly damaged but still brushed off these annoyances, forcing the Spanish vessels to run before her.

Meanwhile Essex, frightened Raleigh would steal all the glory, pushed Repulse through the mêlée until she was also at the forefront of the action.

The Warspite was at this point pummelling the Saint Philip, her gun crews urged on by an exultant Raleigh, his blood lust for revenge knowing no bounds against this hated vessel. But he could see the Warspite would herself come to grief before the Spaniard was finished off unless he could send across boarders. But he had no small boats for his men to use in this endeavour. Clambering down into a skiff, he dodged through the hellfire to the nearest English man-of-war which was the Repulse.

Hatred of the Spanish overwhelmed any qualms Raleigh might have felt about begging his bitter rival for help. Calling up he asked for the loan of some small boats and, to his surprise, Essex eagerly agreed to his request. However, Raleigh need not have bothered for, realizing they were doomed anyway, the crew of the Saint Philip ran her aground and set fire to her.

Raleigh’s triumph was sealed when he captured the Saint Andrew but he was wounded in the leg and would be lame for the rest of his life.

After several hours of fighting, and despite his wound, Raleigh was ready to push on deeper into the massive harbour, for he knew the treasure ships were trapped within. But his energetic pleas for the English force to waste no time in capturing them were ignored in favour of looting Cadiz. The merchants who owned the heavily laden treasure ships offered to pay the English a large sum to let the vessels leave. This was turned down by Effingham and Essex yet Raleigh and the Warspite were still not unleashed. The Spaniards then set light to the galleons, rather than let them fall into the hands of the English, with more than three million pounds worth of treasure going up in smoke.

The English troops occupied Cadiz for a fortnight and treated the town’s occupants with humanity despite looting and destroying its buildings, causing twenty million ducats worth of mayhem. Two dozen major Spanish vessels were destroyed and over 1,000 cannon and other weapons captured. Raleigh advised sailing for Plymouth, as the English vessels were by then in no fit state for lengthy adventures in which they might encounter strong Spanish naval forces. Effingham agreed.

Ultimately the Queen’s coffers would receive less than £10,000 in prize money from the Cadiz raid. This was a grave disappointment, particularly in light of the millions lost in the destroyed treasure ships. However some are happy to view the Cadiz raid in less dismal light.

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy describes the raid as: ‘One of the most efficient acts of war carried out by any Tudor government.’

Hugh Ross Williamson went even further in his book Sir Walter Raleigh, hailing the raid led by the first Warspite as an ‘Elizabethan Trafalgar’ which secured English naval supremacy and the decline of Spain.

The year after Cadiz, Raleigh was once more at the helm of Warspite, embarking on another expedition with Essex. This time the aim was to destroy Spanish warships at Ferrol, for fear they would form another Armada. The English also intended capturing treasure ships off the Azores to deny the Spaniards war-fighting funds. Known as ‘The Islands Voyage’, it failed miserably.

Setting sail from Plymouth in July 1597, under the command of Essex, bad weather caused disarray in the English force. The storm was ‘so shattering that the bulkheads of the Warspite were broken and her cookroom smashed.’²

Raleigh returned to Plymouth and Essex sought shelter in Falmouth. He made his way to Plymouth and boarded the Warspite to discuss an alternative course of action with his deputy. The attack on Ferrol was abandoned and the fleet headed for the Azores. Their intention was to capture one of the islands – Fayal – to use as a base while they waited for a treasure fleet from the West Indies to appear. But, while Raleigh was delayed at another island in the Azores by some essential maintenance work on Warspite, which had suffered a d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• HMS Warspite Battle Honours 1596-1944
• Chapter One Creators and Forebears
• Chapter Two Birth of a Super Dreadnought
• Chapter Three Jutland
• Chapter Four Armistice & Mutiny
• Chapter Five Reconstruction
• Chapter Six to Narvik
• Chapter Seven Calabria, Taranto & Matapan
• Chapter Eight Desperate Hours
• Chapter Nine Delivering a Knockout Blow
• Chapter Ten Swansong
• Chapter Eleven Stubborn to The End
• Epilogue
• Appendix
• Bibliography