CHAPTER TWO War in the Baltic and Trouble at Home
1919-23
HMS Venomous was built at John Brown's shipyard on the Clyde and at the start of her first Commission on the 17 June 1919 steamed south to take part in the Fleet
Review at Southend to celebrate the end of the Great War and was then sent to Scapa Flow
to help salvage the scuttled German High Sea Fleet. During her first
Commission Venomous helped the Baltic States defend themselves against
Russian Bolshevik forces and a renegade German general and quelled
social unrest in Britain and political unrest in Ireland.
Illustrations
HMS Hood and HMS Venomous in the fitting-out basin at John Brown’s shipyard on the Clyde
Views of the bow and stern of HMS Venomous fitting-out in John Brown’s shipyard on the Clyde in 1919
Courtesy of Warships on Clydesite, see http://www.clydesite.co.uk/warships/index.asp
Midshipman Renfrew Gotto RN
Courtesy of Brian Gotto
Mid Hugh M.S. Mundy RN (left) and Gunner (T) Alfred E. Perry RN
Courtesy of Brian Gotto
HMS Venomous with crew members on foc’sle taken shortly after its launch in 1919
Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum
HMS Venomous in the destroyer pens at Port Edgar
Courtesy of Brian Gotto
The German High Sea Fleet at anchor in Scapa Flow after its internment with Houton Bay Air Station in foreground
Photograph and drawing by Thomas Kent. Reproduced Courtesy of Orkney Library and Archive
Lt S.B. de Courcy-Ireland RN joined HMS Venomous in September 1920
Courtesy of Don Williams
The Baltic theatre of operations, 1919 - 23
Map graphic Kelly Erlinger. Map source Freeing the Baltic by Geoffrey Bennett
Reval (Tallinn, Estonia) photographed from HMS Venomous by Mid Renfrew Gotto
Courtesy of Brian Gotto
HMS Venomous iced up and lying alongside a sister V & W after returning from patrol
Courtesy of Don Williams
In warmer waters: view of A and B Guns from the bow of HMS Venomous
Courtesy of Don Williams
The memorial in Portsmouth cathedral to those who died in the Baltic campaign of 1918-9
Courtesy of Tim Backhouse of History in Portsmouth
A practice torpedo firing during the Spring Cruise with the Atlantic Fleet, January 1921
Courtesy of Don Williams
The officers and ship’s company of HMS Venomous at Hull in April 1921
FCourtesy of Don Williams
Ron Williams’ shipmates on HMS Venomous
Courtesy of Don Williams
The peacetime Navy encouraged the men to stay fit and active through sport.
Courtesy of Don Williams
Studio portrait of AB Reginald W. Williams
Courtesy of Don Williams
Notes
1. Geoffrey Bennett, Freeing the Baltic (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2002), p. 4.
2. In his e-mail, on 8 February 2009, Peter C. Smith wrote that the ship’s name was changed from Venom to Venomous was “…because the name Venom
was … too much like Vernon, the Royal Navy’s Mine Base at Portsmouth
and it was felt it would lead to confusion if that shore establishment
was ordered to proceed to sea!”
5. Brian Gotto gave the publisher a copy of “Renfrew”, the life of his
father, self published for the family in 2009 and consent for the use
of his father’s photographs in this new edition of A Hard Fought Ship. A copy of “Renfrew” is held by the Imperial War Museum, London.
7. HMS Campbell would have an eventful World War II service. One heroic event pitted the old destroyer against the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen
when these ships and their destroyer escorts successfully dashed
through the English Channel back to Wilhelmshaven on 12 February 1942.
For a synopsis on her career visit Service Histories of Royal Navy Warships in World War 2 at http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-10DD-03Scott-Campbell.htm
9. Capt Stanley Brian de Courcy-Ireland (1900-2001) was the last
surviving naval officer present at both the Battle of Jutland and the
historic event at Scapa Flow. The private Papers of S B de
Courcy-Ireland (Imperial War Museum Catalogue Number 739 92/4/1) were
privately published as A Naval Life
(Englang Publishing, 1990). A second edition (2002) includes
corrections and additions discovered after de Courcy-Ireland’s death.
The first edition of A Hard Fought Ship
contained quotations from a handwritten copy of the journal sent to the
author, Robert J. Moore, by de Courcy-Ireland in the 1980s. An
eleven-reel recorded interview with de Courcy-Ireland about his naval
service was made by the Imperial War Museum, London, in 1991 and can be
listened to online: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80011978
See his obituary (Independent 29 November 2001) at https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/154067-a-naval-obituary-from-2001-captain-brian-de-courcy-ireland/
10. Ibid
11. Ibid
12. SMS stands for Seiner Majestät Schiff,
the German equivalent of HMS. Destroyers in the German Imperial Navy
were not named but numbered (like U-boats) hence SMS V82. The initial
letter signifies the place of construction of the class (and most of
its members); V was the AG Vulcan Yard at Hamburg.
13. Renfrew Gotto (1900-82) was a Midshipman on Venomous
from June – December 1919 and his 96-page Midshipman’s Journal is in
the Imperial War Museum, London (IWM 4312) along with a collection of
his photographs (IWM 8303-46). He was awarded two DSO, for the Dunkirk
operation to evacuate the troops and for Operation Neptune, the Normandy landings, and retired as a Captain. See: See: http://www.unithistories.com/officers/RN_officersG3.html#Gotto_R
14. Wikipedia: Gustav Adolf Joachim Rüdiger Graf von der Goltz was the commander of the German Baltische Landeswehr, which contributed to the defeat of Russian Bolsheviks and their local allies in Finland (1918) and Latvia (1919).
15. Count von der Goltz claimed in his memoir, Meine Sendung in Finnland und im Baltikum (Leipzig: K.F. Koehler, 1920) that his goal had
been to launch a campaign in co-operation with the White Russian forces
to overturn the Bolshevik regime by marching on St. Petersburg and to
install a pro-German government in Russia.
16. The force included four Royal Navy H Class submarines and several
support ships, such as destroyer and submarine depot ships, colliers,
and supply ships. There was also a significant fleet train that
supported the Royal Navy’s Baltic force.
17. Rear Admirall Sir Walter Henry Cowan
entered the Royal Navy in 1884 and was a classmate and friend
of another future admiral, David Beatty. He was a small man – just 5
feet tall – and was known as Tich Cowan. In 1898 he commanded the Royal
Navy’s river gunboat
flotilla that supported Lord Kitchener’s expeditionary force against
the Khedive of the Sudan. At Khartoum, he received the Distinguished
Service Order for his heroism. He was aide-de-camp to both Lord Roberts
and Kitchener during the Second Boer War. In the years between the Boer
War and the Great War, Cowan was the seagoing assistant to Admiral
Roger Keyes who commanded the Royal Navy’s fledgling destroyer command.
With Keyes, Cowan developed new tactics for destroyers. During the
Battle of Jutland he commanded the Lion Class battle-cruiser HMS Princess Royal. At the end of the war, Cowan, now a flag officer, received orders to the Baltic from the Admiralty.
18. Bennett, Freeing the Baltic, pp.70-71.
19. Ibid, p. 70.
20. The strains on the social fabric of the nation were manifested
through a succession of economic and political difficulties that came
to the fore with the Armistice. The UK had to switch its large
industrial base from war production to supporting a peacetime economy.
The largest army and navy in its history had to be demobilised and
integrated into an economy that was having considerable difficulty
regaining its pre-war markets. There were simply not enough jobs for
all the returning service men. National strikes by coalminers and
railway workers ensued. Those on board Venomous would experience these unsettled times.
21. Ready For Anything: The Royal Fleet Auxiliary 1905-1950; by Geoff Puddefoot (Seaforth Publishing, 2010)
22. Libau is now Liepãja, Latvia. Its old fortress as well as the large
former home of the Soviet Red Banner Baltic Fleet Naval Base can be
seen on Google Earth.
23. Bennett, Freeing the Baltic, p.189.
24. As with Venomous, Erebus’
career would take her through the Second World War. The monitor played
a critical role by providing devastating gunfire support during the
Normandy landings.
25. Bennett, Freeing the Baltic, pp.191-192.
26. To protect his new capital of St Petersburg, the Czar, Peter the
Great, founded the naval base and fortress of Kronstadt in 1704. St Petersburg was
renamed Petrograd in 1914 at the start of the Great War.
27. As Christopher McKee wrote in his book Sober Men and True: Sailor Lives in the Royal Navy 1900-1945
(Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 160, “The lower deck (and officers
as well) took Christmas seriously. Messes began stocking up on special
foods and preparing puddings days in advance… The youngest boy in the
ship put on the captain’s uniform. At the conclusion of the Christmas
morning church service, during which he had stood alongside the
captain, the boy-commander took over and gave the ship’s orders until
ten o’clock ‘lights out’ that night.” Christmas was one of those days
in which roles were reversed.
28. All ships were assigned to one of the Royal Navy’s three “home
ports”, Chatham on the Medway, Portsmouth on the Solent and Devonport
near Plymouth. Ratings were posted to their ship from the naval
barracks at her homeport and returned to barracks at the end of a
Commission. Their families frequently lived nearby and a visit to the
homeport was always welcomed. HMS Venomous was a “Chatham ship” from construction in 1919 to being placed in Reserve in 1930.
30. Edward Hurry (1899-1959) left HMS Venomous
in October to spend six months at Pembroke College, under a government
programme to send young naval officers to Cambridge. He served on a
further three V & W Class destroyers, HMS Wessex, Vansittart and Whitshed,
before leaving the Royal Navy in 1926 when they transferred him to
Gunnery (he wanted to remain a torpedo officer). He was recalled in
1939 and posted to HMS Rodney at Rosyth and took part in Narvik and the sinking of the Bismarck; he was traumatised by what he saw and after service as Assistant King’s Harbourmaster in New Zealand and on HMS Erebus was invalided out, probably due to stress. See: http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/officers.html
31. HMS St Cyrus was a member
of the Saint Class and together with her sister ocean-going tugs
performed rescue duties in addition to her role as a tugboat. St Cyrus was completed in 1919 and was mined off the Humber Estuary on 22 January 1941. See http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/7347.html
32. Midshipman Robert Rodger, was to become one of the Fleet Air Arm’s “Early
Birds,” gaining his wings on the second naval pilots training course
conducted by the Royal Navy. Rodger would serve in the aircraft
carriers HMS Eagle, Courageous and Glorious. He would also hold command of the gunboat HMS Aphis,
serving on the Yangtze River patrol. As a commander, Rodger would serve
in the Admiralty during the Second World War. A talented singer, Rodger
often mimicked Noel Coward amongst his friends. For his war service, he
was awarded the OBE in 1946 and retired to Dorset where he died in 1996
at the age of 95.
33. The Commander of a Flotilla of destroyers was commonly referred to by his rank, Captain D (Destroyers).
34. Queenstown (Cobh) in Cork harbour in the south west of Ireland was a major naval base for the Royal Navy.
35. Robertson apparently longed for more excitement, because he served
in submarines during the interwar years and commanded the submarine HMS
L 69. He survived the war and retired as a Captain.
36. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire,
by Lawrence James (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), p.375-80. In
the spring of 1920, the British Government under Lloyd George passed
the Government of Ireland Act that partitioned Ireland, creating two
Irish parliaments, one for the Protestant north and the other for the
largely Catholic south, which could collect taxes and enact laws,
whilst foreign and defence policies remained in the hands of the
British Government. Under its provisions, the Irish would hold general
elections the following spring. By that time it was hoped that the
British Armed Forces and the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) would be
able to break the back of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The Act was
rejected by Sinn Fein and the IRA who supported a united Ireland,
totally free from British rule, and by the summer of 1920, the pattern
of guerrilla warfare became well entrenched.
37. Reginald Walter Williams was born on 1 August 1900 at Leicester and
was a fitter’s apprentice when he joined the Royal Navy as a boy sailor
on 22 January 1916. After training at HMS Ganges he joined HMS Kent as an OD on 11 January 1917 and was rated AB on 20 March 1919. He left HMS Venomous
on 5 February 1923 and paid £36 to buy himself out of the RN on 23
March shortly before he got married. I am indebted to his son, Don
Williams, for a scan of his service record and his photographs. See http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/Reginald_Williams.html
38. Reynold Meynell Alleyne (1892-1978) retired as a Commander in 1935.
Through the war years he served ashore in Egypt, the Isle of Man and
finally at HMS President (Accounting Section. For more information on
this officer, visit: http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/officers.html
39. Lt Cdr Young (1902-96) became a prisoner of war when Japanese
forces captured Hong Kong. He survived captivity and retired as a
Commander. He took up farming in Cumberland and enjoyed a long
retirement at Sedbergh. Robert J Moore corresponded with Rex Young and
visited him and his wife at their home in Sedbergh. For details of his
service career see: http://www.unithistories.com/officers/RN_officersY.html#Young_RS
40. The war brought higher wages and the nationalisation of the mines
but at the war’s end the economic boom ended and the demand for coal
dropped. The government announced that the mines would be returned to
private ownership at the end of March, and the owners stated they would
drastically cut wages. The miners refused to accept these conditions,
which led to a lockout of the miners. The miner’s strike lasted eleven
weeks until they were forced to accept wage cuts of up to 40 per cent.
41. Cdr Somerville Peregrine Brownlow Russell RN (1883-1946) was forty when he
retired on a navy pension, young enough to make a success of a new
career ashore, and was a Freeman of London when he died from a
perforated gastric ulcer on 9 November 1946. His only son, Lieutenant
Edward P. S. Russell RNVR was drowned (body recovered) trying to save a
shipmate from HMS Eskimo on 9 May 1942. See: http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/commandingofficers.html#Russell
42. Philip Welby-Everard (1902-85) would continue to serve through
World War II. He obtained the rank of Captain after the war. He
received his DSC as executive officer of HMS Belfast when his cruiser took part in the destruction of the German battle-cruiser Scharnhorst.
Welby-Everard received his Order of the British Empire in 1980. See:
https://www.unithistories.com/officers/RN_officersW3.html#Welby-Everard_PHE
43. Gunner (T), Frank Arthur Dunn, was 36 years old when he was
“dismissed the service for theft” and taken to court; his future must
have seemed bleak (see his service record at the NA: ADM 196/156/916).
44. The German town of Memel and its surrounding territory was made a
protectorate of the Entente States after the First World War but was
taken over by Lithuania in 1923 and renamed Klaipëda in 1924.
45. Douglas-Watson (1896-1941) continued his service through the early
years of World War II. He was promoted to acting Commander in 1939.
During the evacuation of Dunkirk, he received the DSO for his actions
as commanding officer of the minesweeper HMS Pangbourne.
He was killed in action when a British merchant ship blew up in the
harbour of Piraeus, Greece, on 7 April 1941 after being bombed by the
Luftwaffe. For more on this officer, see: http://www.unithistories.com/officers/RN_officersD4.html#Douglas-Watson_F
47. The ship is in commission, but it is not available for immediate
operations; the time required could be measured in weeks. The USN would
use the expression, “reduced status”.
