HMS Yarmouth (1911)

Yarmouth in 1912
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Yarmouth
Namesake:	Great Yarmouth
Builder:	London & Glasgow Co.
Laid down:	27 January 1910
Launched:	12 April 1911
Commissioned:	April 1912
Fate:	Sold for scrapping 2 July 1929
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type:	Town-class light cruiser
Displacement:	5,275 long tons (5,360 t)
Length:	430 ft (131.1 m) p/p 453 ft (138.1 m) o/a
Beam:	47 ft 6 in (14.5 m)
Draught:	15 ft 6 in (4.72 m) (mean)
Installed power:	22,000 shp (16,000 kW) 12 × Yarrow boilers
Propulsion:	2 × shafts; 2 × Brown-Curtis steam turbines
Speed:	25 kn (46 km/h; 29 mph)
Range:	5,610 nautical miles (10,390 km; 6,460 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:	475
Armament:	8 × single BL 6 in (152 mm) Mk XI guns 4 × single QF 3-pounder (47 mm (1.9 in)) guns 2 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour:	Deck: .75–2 in (19–51 mm) Conning Tower: 4 in (102 mm)

HMS Yarmouth was a Town-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy launched on 12 April 1911 from the yards of the London & Glasgow Co. She was part of the Weymouth subgroup.

The Sopwith Pup of Flight Commander Rutland takes off from a platform on the forward gun turret of HMS Yarmouth, June 1917

On the outbreak of the First World War, Yarmouth was on the China Station, and later in 1914, she was involved in the hunt for the German commerce raider SMS Emden. In October that year she captured two German colliers. She returned to home waters in December 1914 and was assigned to the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet, and in February 1915 to 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron. Whilst serving with this squadron, she took part in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May-1 June 1916.

On 28 June 1917, Royal Naval Air Service Flight Commander F. J. Rutland took off in a Sopwith Pup from a flying-off platform mounted on the roof of one of Yarmouth's gun turrets, the first such successful launch of an aircraft in history.^[1] On 21 August a Pup flown by Flight Sub-Lieutenant B. A. Smart flown from Yarmouth shot down the Zeppelin L 23 near Bovbjerg.^[2]

Yarmouth was sold for scrapping on 2 July 1929 to the Alloa South Breaking Company, of Rosyth.

Notes

1. Sturtivant, Ray, British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917-1990, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1990, ISBN 0-87021-026-2, p. 215.
2. Robinson, D. The Zeppelin in Combat, Henley-on-Thames, UK: Foulis, 1971 (3rd ed.). ISBN 0 85429 130 X, p.241-2

References

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475.
• Jane's Fighting Ships of World War One (1919), Jane's Publishing Company
• Ships of the Weymouth group