Part of the
Acorn Archive
Hearts of Oak
Last days
of HMS Duke of York
Wolf Rock
Lighthouse 49° 56.7' N : 5° 48.4' W
I saw HMS DUKE
OF YORK on that very foggy day.
The sky was almost solid, hanging
over the SCILLONIAN
and spreading out in all
directions,
It was hard to distinguish
where the cloud, sea or fog began and finished.
A feint ghostly light came from
the horizon,
Wolf Rock lighthouse stood out
against this light.
The Captain announced we were
being held over,
as the HMS DUKE OF YORK was due
to be towed
North. We all gathered along
the ships railings,
and watched, with an almost
reverend hush
We were lifting and drifting on
very powerful seas,
thankfully not the high waves
we often get on the
run between the mainland and
the Scillies, just broad
waves, the some troughs 5 feet
deep. We waited what
seemed to be an hour, sometimes
the mist dropped to the horizon,
all we could see was the seas
around us; the only sound was
the engines as they were used
to keep course and position;
the fog lifted a little and
then there was a quiet call,
"there she is", not a
word more was uttered as she passed along
the horizon behind the Wolf
Rock and disappeared into the fog.
I was ten years of age.
This, for me, was a defining
moment.
HMS Duke of York; under tow in
the English Channel
The ship left Spithead on
Monday September 3rd 1951, in the company of the tugs JAUNTY, SAUCY and
ENVOY to be placed in Gladstone Dock, Liverpool.
Moving these large ships was
not without its problems;
HMS WARSPITE was a particular
ship with her own
view of just where she should
end her life, here in Mount’s Bay.
I will cover her story
elsewhere on this site.
Ian Buxton writes …
A typical towing speed for a BB
was about 5knots. It is bollard pull
(thrust) rather than power that
gives a tug its performance,
as a tug has to overcome the
drag (resistance)
of the towed vessel (which is
quite small at 5kN).
Paul Benyon writes …
They had problems with HMS
VANGUARD not wanting to leave
Portsmouth Harbour in 1960, for
the breakers : she tried to join those
watching the spectacle from
Still and Wests
( a lovely old pub in Old
Portsmouth, situated at just about the
narrowest part of the entrance
to the harbour where the current is at
its strongest ) - so it can be a
distinct problem in confined
waters or when wind and wave have other
ideas. Looking through the large number of vessels
that have been
towed away to be broken up it's
quite surprising the number of vessels
that never made it to the
breakers yard.
From Liverpool, HMS DUKE OF
YORK
was to be towed to Gareloch to be laid up with other ships.
She damaged her last vessel, at
Liverpool.
On Friday September 7th
at 10 pm she was
in collision with the new £250,000 Wallasey cruise ship,
the ROYAL IRIS,
in the Mersey, off Gladstone
Dock, Liverpool.
ROYAL IRIS was nearing the end of a three hour cruise
organised
by the Merseyside Branches of
the Amalgamated Engineering Union.
The ROYAL IRIS is electrically operated and
went temporarily out of
control. She was
carried by the floodtide
against the battleship.
ROYAL IRIS was damaged about the superstructure.
Over 60 people were injured,
most of them superficially.
The ROYAL IRIS called at
Liverpool, where three people were taken
to hospital for treatment and
then she crossed the river to Seacombe Stage
where a fleet of ambulances and
taxis took over
60 people to hospital - only 10
were detained.
~~~o~o~~~
Tuesday, 6th
November 1951
HMS DUKE OF
YORK was towed to Gareloch for laying up.
~~~o~o~~~
Battleships in
The Gareloch
The Gareloch is a natural harbour
inlet, of Rosneath Peninsula, Scotland.
The first to arrive there was
HMS ANSON – November, 1949.
Then HMS KING GEORGE V – June,
1950.
HMS DUKE OF YORK – November,
1951.
All three lay moored bow and
stern in the Gareloch until 1957.
HMS HOWE was mothballed at
Devonport.
Mothballing (officially
cocooning ) was a new method of preserving warships.
The process involved sealing a
ship's armarment inside cocoons constructed of a timber and webbing material,
covered with fish netting, sprayed with a lacquer and coated with a latex of
plastic, a dessicant being placed inside to absorb moisture.
To preserve the underwater
section of the hull, dehumidification units were fitted in all the internal
compartments. The main and auxiliary machinery and the boilers, together with
the electrical and radio equipment, were packed and sealed.
The plan was to keep them at
virtual readiness, in case of a war.
But it soon became evident that
there was little likelihood of them being useful in anything other than convoy
protection; and that itself was unlikely given the outcome of a nuclear
exchange.
There was also the prohibitive
cost of conversion into guided missile ships.
So, in April of 1957, all four
ships were approved for scrap.
HMS ANSON was the first to be towed
from Gareloch - December 17th 1957.
HMS KING GEORGE V was towed
from the Gareloch - January 20th 1958
Sold to Arnott Young and Co,
Dalmuir for breaking up.
HMS DUKE OF YORK was moved out
of the Gareloch on February 18th 1958
Sold for scrap to Shipbreaking
Industries Ltd., Faslane, only a short distance away.
Thanks to
Ian Buxton,
Paul Benyon
and
Royal Naval
Museum - Portsmouth, Hampshire UK
Raymond
Forward