HMS Cyclops (F31)

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Cyclops.

History
HMS Cyclops off the Isle of Bute, circa 1943
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Cyclops
Builder:	Sir James Laing & Son (Sunderland, U.K.)
Launched:	27 October 1905
Commissioned:	5 November 1907
Nickname(s):	Cycle Box
Fate:	Scrapped in 1947
General characteristics
Displacement:	11,300 long tons (11,500 t)
Length:	145.1 m (476 ft 1 in) o/a
Beam:	16.8 m (55 ft 1 in)
Draught:	2.51 m (8 ft 3 in)
Propulsion:	Triple Expansion Engines = 1100 indicated horse power
Speed:	13 knots (15 mph; 24 km/h) 25.5 kn (29.3 mph; 47.2 km/h) full
Complement:	266
Armament:	Two 4 inch MkV naval guns

HMS Cyclops (F31) was a submarine repair and depot ship of the Royal Navy. She was originally the passenger liner Indrabarah sister ship to Indralema, built by Laing, for the Indra Line Ltd then bought by The Admiralty, while she was building. She was launched 27 October 1905.

Cyclops was 460 feet (140.2 m) long between perpendiculars and 476 feet (145.1 m) overall, with a beam of 55 feet (16.8 m).^[1]

Career

Cyclops served during the First World War as a repair ship with the Grand Fleet where she served the whole of the War at Scapa Flow.^[2] She was paid off 1 April 1919, then was recommissioned for White Sea duty at Archangel. She returned to Chatham in October 1919 and on 31 January 1920 went into reserve for refit and conversion to a submarine depot ship, commissioning for the 1st Submarine Flotilla , Atlantic Fleet, on 21 December 1922 at Chatham Dockyard.

Between the wars HMS Cyclops served in Malta and was in reserve at the start of the Second World War before returning to Home Waters in late 1939 as the depot ship for the Royal Navy's 7th Submarine Flotilla based in Rothesay

In 1944 she sailed from Rothesay to Singapore via India and returned to the UK in 1946.

Facilities

Cyclops was well served with a distilling plant for fresh water, machinery, carpenters' and blacksmiths' shops, coppersmiths', iron, and brass foundrys.

Commanders

Name	From	To
Capt. Philip Ruck-Keen, RN	15 Nov 1939	27 May 1940
A/Capt. Edward Henry Longsdon RN	27 May 1940	11 Jul 1940
A/Capt. Roderick Latimer Mackenzie Edwards	11 Jul 1940	5 Apr 1943
A/Capt. Harold Robson Conway	5 Apr 1943	30 Oct 1944
Cdr. Benjamin Bryant, DSO, DSC, RN	30 Oct 1944	4 Feb 1945
A/Capt. David Caldicott Ingram, DSC, OBE, RN	5 Feb 1945	1946

Fate

Cyclops was sold to John Cashmore Ltd and scrapped at Newport in July 1947.

References

↑ The Engineer 23 July 1909, p. 77.
↑ Dittmar; Colledge. British Warships 1914–1919. p. 292.

Publications

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.
Dittmar, F.J.; Colledge, J.J. (1972). British Warships 1914–1919. Shepperton, UK: Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-0380-7.
"H.M.S. Cyclops, Floating Repair Shop for the Navy" (PDF). The Engineer 108: 77–79. 23 July 1909.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to HMS Cyclops (F31).

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, March 08, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.