Service
Gorgon arrived at Dover on 6 June 1918 where she spent the next five weeks working up. Her first engagement was on 26 July when she fired eight rounds at a range of 33,000 yards (30,000 m) at a German howitzer battery to calibrate her guns and fire control system, which provoked a response from the German 380-millimetre (15 in) gun of Batterie Pommern south of Ostende. Three days later, she accompanied Marshal Soult on a bombardment of Batterie "Tirpitz". She spent the next month and a half either out on patrol in the English Channel or preparing for the bombardment scheduled for the end of September in support of a major offensive along the coast.
At daybreak on 28 September 1918, Gorgon, in company with General Wolfe, anchored about 7 mi (6.1 nmi; 11 km) off De Panne, Belgium and opened fire about 7:15 on a bridge at Snaeskerke, Belgium at a range of 36,000 yd (33,000 m). Conditions were not good as both wind and tide were against her. Gorgon's stern anchor cable parted and she swung around on her bow anchor so that only her rear turret could bear on the target. No aircraft were made available to spot for her so there was little chance of a hit and she only fired eleven rounds. She, and the other monitors, were attacked several times during the day by German aircraft with little effect and several coast defense batteries attempted to engage them through the smokescreen put up by the motor launches supporting the operation. She fired thirteen shells the next day in another attempt to destroy the bridge and claimed one hit although this was not confirmed by subsequent observations.
On 14 October, she repeated the experience, except that her target was now the Middelkerke batteries. She fired 41 rounds during the morning at a range of 26,000 yards (24,000 m), but she accompanied Vice-Admiral Keyes in the destroyer Termagant in a reconnaissance mission to see if the Germans were still holding the coast in strength. The fire of the Tirpitz and Raversyde Batteries soon disabused them of any notions to the contrary and Gorgon was forced to turn away at maximum speed (14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)), which was faster than she'd made on trials, when they straddled her and hit her with splinters from the near-misses. The following day she returned to her original target and fired 30 rounds in 20 minutes. These were the last shots of the war fired against German batteries on the Belgian coast.
She was sent to Portsmouth after the end of the war where she was made available to investigate the cause of her sister ship Glatton's magazine explosion. She was moved to Devonport as a temporary tender to the stone frigate Vivid in April 1919. She was paid off on 31 August and joined the Reserve Fleet in September. She was offered back to the Norwegians, but they rejected her as unsuitable to their requirements, especially since she was now too broad for their dock at Horten. Several attempts were made to sell her, but she was disarmed in 1922 and used as a target ship to evaluate the effects of bombs bursting underwater near a ship and the effects of six-inch gunfire. She was finally sold for scrap on 26 August 1928 and broken up at the former naval dockyard at Pembroke.
Read more about this topic: HMS Gorgon (1914)
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“Whatever events in progress shall disgust men with cities, and infuse into them the passion for country life, and country pleasures, will render a service to the whole face of this continent, and will further the most poetic of all the occupations of real life, the bringing out by art the native but hidden graces of the landscape.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Finally, your lengthy service ended,
Lay your weariness beneath my laurel tree.”
—Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65–8)
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—Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–?)