HMS M.33, the last surviving warship to have taken part in the Dardanelles Campaign of the First World War, was designed specifically for the task of inshore bombardment of land targets following the disastrous naval operations preceding the Gallipoli landings of April 1915. Operating in shallow waters infested with Turkish mines and within easy striking distances of the artillery of the Turkish forts on either side of the Dardanelles Strait linking the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara, the British and French navies had suffered significant losses during the initial bombardment operations in February and March 1915. Monitors such as M.33 were better suited to such inshore naval gunfire support operations, with a combination of large calibre guns capable of knocking out enemy defences and a shallow draught which allowed the vessels to operate closer to shore and reduced the threat posed by sea mines.
With Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill always looking for ingenious methods of taking the fight to the enemy, 14 large monitor-type vessels were ordered built at the beginning of the war, armed with 12-, 14-, or 15-inch guns, and weighing up to 6,500 tons. This was followed in February 1915 by an order for an additional 14 monitors, each mounting a single 9.2-inch gun. A third order, for five small monitors each mounting two 6-inch guns taken from the new Queen Elizabeth class battleships, was placed in March 1915, with the last of these eventually being commissioned as HMS M.33. Built at the Workman, Clark and Company shipyard in Belfast, M.33 was built remarkably quickly due to its simplistic, no frills design, with the keel being laid on 1 April 1915 and the ship launched on 22 May. With its crew aboard on 17 June, M.33 left Pembroke Dockyard 11 days later and was towed to Malta as a first stop before being deployed to take part in naval operations against Turkey in the Dardanelles Campaign.
Arriving at the Allied base on the Aegean island of Lemnos on 24 July 1915, HMS M.33 was quickly ordered to sail to the waters off the Gallipoli peninsula to support a big offensive by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) on 6 August. Over the course of the next eight exhausting days, M.33 fired 316 of her full stock of 400 6-inch shells at Turkish troops, fixed gun batteries, and mobile artillery. Although this was the most concentrated period of action for the ship in the Gallipoli campaign, M.33 continued with offshore gunfire support operations for the next five months before the ANZACs and other Allied troops were evacuated from the peninsula in January 1916. Over the course of these operations, HMS M.33 endured near misses and minor shell splinter damage from Turkish guns but avoided any casualties.
Despite the end of the Gallipoli campaign, HMS M.33 remained based in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean for the next three years, serving in various detached squadrons conducting patrolling, gunfire support, base protection, and blockading duties, as well as interdicting enemy coastal shipping. When M.33's original crew was repatriated to Britain, the ship took on a replacement crew, recommissioned in October 1918, and continued operations in the Aegean until February 1919. She returned to the UK, arriving at Chatham Dockyard on 10 April 1919.
On 10 May 1919, HMS M.33 departed the UK for the three-week journey to the north of Russia to support anti-Bolshevik ('White Russian') forces in the Russian Civil War then raging. Deployed as part of a major reinforcement of British naval units already at the Russian port of Archangel, M.33 arrived at that port on 9 June 1919 and soon joined a force of 20 other monitors, minesweepers, and coastal motor boats sent up the Dvina River. For the next three months, M.33 provided gunfire support to White Russian forces fighting ashore, suffering a number of enemy shell hits herself, including one that shattered the ship's sea boat, another that penetrated the Wardroom, and a third that pierced the deck and lodged in the Engine Room without exploding on 7 August 1919. Ordered to withdraw to Archangel before the winter freeze-up of the Dvina, M.33 and her squadron faced the challenge of low late-summer water levels on the river which caused groundings and required extraordinary measures to lighten the ship's weight and reduce its draught. Although M.33 made it out of the river, the crews of the monitors HMS M.25 and M.27 were forced to destroy their vessels after being immovably grounded. With the Bolsheviks having triumphed, British forces were withdrawn from Archangel on 27 September 1919; HMS M.33 was one of the last Royal Navy vessels to depart from Russian waters, arriving at Chatham Dockyard on 18 October 1919.
Following the end of Russian deployment, HMS M.33 spent four years laid up in reserve at The Nore in the Thames estuary before being converted into a minelayer in 1924. She served as a tender to the Mine Warfare School in Portsmouth and was renamed HMS Minerva on 1 December 1925 before being laid up again and occasionally recommissioned for short periods as a tender until 1936. Although slated to be sold in 1939, the start of the Second World War brought a reprieve and Minerva was converted into a floating staff office. In 1943, the vessel was repurposed as a floating boom defence workshop on the River Clyde, with her engines, funnel, and mast being removed. Returned to Portsmouth in 1946, she was again converted into a floating office and workshop and moored at nearby Gosport, serving in this capacity until 1984. Sold to the Hartlepool Ship Preservation Trust in 1987, the ship was bought by Hampshire County Council in 1990 and returned to Portsmouth in 1991 for a lengthy preservation and restoration project. In 2014, M.33 was transferred to the National Museum of the Royal Navy for further restoration work, and now resides as one of the star attractions at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
With Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill always looking for ingenious methods of taking the fight to the enemy, 14 large monitor-type vessels were ordered built at the beginning of the war, armed with 12-, 14-, or 15-inch guns, and weighing up to 6,500 tons. This was followed in February 1915 by an order for an additional 14 monitors, each mounting a single 9.2-inch gun. A third order, for five small monitors each mounting two 6-inch guns taken from the new Queen Elizabeth class battleships, was placed in March 1915, with the last of these eventually being commissioned as HMS M.33. Built at the Workman, Clark and Company shipyard in Belfast, M.33 was built remarkably quickly due to its simplistic, no frills design, with the keel being laid on 1 April 1915 and the ship launched on 22 May. With its crew aboard on 17 June, M.33 left Pembroke Dockyard 11 days later and was towed to Malta as a first stop before being deployed to take part in naval operations against Turkey in the Dardanelles Campaign.
Arriving at the Allied base on the Aegean island of Lemnos on 24 July 1915, HMS M.33 was quickly ordered to sail to the waters off the Gallipoli peninsula to support a big offensive by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) on 6 August. Over the course of the next eight exhausting days, M.33 fired 316 of her full stock of 400 6-inch shells at Turkish troops, fixed gun batteries, and mobile artillery. Although this was the most concentrated period of action for the ship in the Gallipoli campaign, M.33 continued with offshore gunfire support operations for the next five months before the ANZACs and other Allied troops were evacuated from the peninsula in January 1916. Over the course of these operations, HMS M.33 endured near misses and minor shell splinter damage from Turkish guns but avoided any casualties.
Despite the end of the Gallipoli campaign, HMS M.33 remained based in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean for the next three years, serving in various detached squadrons conducting patrolling, gunfire support, base protection, and blockading duties, as well as interdicting enemy coastal shipping. When M.33's original crew was repatriated to Britain, the ship took on a replacement crew, recommissioned in October 1918, and continued operations in the Aegean until February 1919. She returned to the UK, arriving at Chatham Dockyard on 10 April 1919.
On 10 May 1919, HMS M.33 departed the UK for the three-week journey to the north of Russia to support anti-Bolshevik ('White Russian') forces in the Russian Civil War then raging. Deployed as part of a major reinforcement of British naval units already at the Russian port of Archangel, M.33 arrived at that port on 9 June 1919 and soon joined a force of 20 other monitors, minesweepers, and coastal motor boats sent up the Dvina River. For the next three months, M.33 provided gunfire support to White Russian forces fighting ashore, suffering a number of enemy shell hits herself, including one that shattered the ship's sea boat, another that penetrated the Wardroom, and a third that pierced the deck and lodged in the Engine Room without exploding on 7 August 1919. Ordered to withdraw to Archangel before the winter freeze-up of the Dvina, M.33 and her squadron faced the challenge of low late-summer water levels on the river which caused groundings and required extraordinary measures to lighten the ship's weight and reduce its draught. Although M.33 made it out of the river, the crews of the monitors HMS M.25 and M.27 were forced to destroy their vessels after being immovably grounded. With the Bolsheviks having triumphed, British forces were withdrawn from Archangel on 27 September 1919; HMS M.33 was one of the last Royal Navy vessels to depart from Russian waters, arriving at Chatham Dockyard on 18 October 1919.
Following the end of Russian deployment, HMS M.33 spent four years laid up in reserve at The Nore in the Thames estuary before being converted into a minelayer in 1924. She served as a tender to the Mine Warfare School in Portsmouth and was renamed HMS Minerva on 1 December 1925 before being laid up again and occasionally recommissioned for short periods as a tender until 1936. Although slated to be sold in 1939, the start of the Second World War brought a reprieve and Minerva was converted into a floating staff office. In 1943, the vessel was repurposed as a floating boom defence workshop on the River Clyde, with her engines, funnel, and mast being removed. Returned to Portsmouth in 1946, she was again converted into a floating office and workshop and moored at nearby Gosport, serving in this capacity until 1984. Sold to the Hartlepool Ship Preservation Trust in 1987, the ship was bought by Hampshire County Council in 1990 and returned to Portsmouth in 1991 for a lengthy preservation and restoration project. In 2014, M.33 was transferred to the National Museum of the Royal Navy for further restoration work, and now resides as one of the star attractions at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
HMS M.33 - Specifications:
Displacement: 580 tons
Length: 53.95 metres (177 feet)
Beam: 9.45 metres (31 feet)
Draught: 1.80 metres (5 feet 11 inches)
Propulsion: 2 x boilers, 2 x triple-expansion reciprocating steam engines, generating 400 horsepower
Speed: 9.61 knots (17.78 km/h)
Armament: 2 x BL 6-inch (152.4 mm) Mk XII naval guns;
Complement: 5 officers and 67 men
Displacement: 580 tons
Length: 53.95 metres (177 feet)
Beam: 9.45 metres (31 feet)
Draught: 1.80 metres (5 feet 11 inches)
Propulsion: 2 x boilers, 2 x triple-expansion reciprocating steam engines, generating 400 horsepower
Speed: 9.61 knots (17.78 km/h)
Armament: 2 x BL 6-inch (152.4 mm) Mk XII naval guns;
Complement: 5 officers and 67 men
Photos taken on 12-13 October 2019
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A starboard bow view of HMS M.33 from the of the top of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard's No. 1 Dock, in which she now rests. She wears the same black and white 'dazzle' camouflage paint scheme applied by the crew in 1918 to confuse German U-boats.
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Sitting high and dry, HMS M.33 is now open to visitors, who access openings on the side of the hull via a staircase and walkway.
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Approaching HMS M.33 from the walkway along the bottom of No. 1 Dock. This dock, measuring 84 metres long and 8.4 metres deep, was built in 1801 using only shovels and pick-axes and was used by Royal Navy ships until 1984. In March 1941, the dock suffered a direct hit by a German bomb, with a large crater being blasted into the dock's southern wall, which was later repaired with concrete in place of the original stone.
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Below: The free tour guide for HMS M.33.
Below: A free pamphlet about HMS M.33 targeted at children and school groups, which includes trivia and a scavenger hunt.
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A signboard showing a cutaway view of the ship as it appeared in service during the First World War.
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The Provision Room, located right forward in the ship's hull, was used to store all of the crew's food supplies. The cheap and rapid construction of the First World War monitors was made possible by a rudimentary design that omitted any luxuries, including an onboard refrigerator. Instead, monitors like M.33 relied upon depot ships, usually large, old cruisers, to supply fresh provisions, such as fruit, vegetables, and eggs.
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The Mess Deck, located in the forecastle below the forward gun and above the Provision Room, and accessible only through two narrow hatches. It was in the Mess Deck that 44 of the ship's complement of 72 slept, in hammocks, and where 52 crewmen ate their meals. During the ship's initial deployment, to the Dardanelles, the age of the crewmen ranged from 16 to 50, and included career navy sailors, experienced reservists, and 'hostilities only' men. This cramped space would have been filled with the men's ditty boxes, boots, lifebelts, and eating utensils, with the hammocks strung up overhead. With no central heating throughout the ship, in winter the men who lived in the frigid Mess Deck relied on the heating stove seen in the centre of the photo for warmth and to cut down on condensation. The stove's chimney, which exits above, in front of the forward gun, would be taken down prior to the gun being fired. During the summertime deployment to the Dardanelles in 1915, the Mess Deck would have been stiflingly hot due to the effect of the hot sun heating the bare steel of the ship's hull and decks.
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The Forward Magazine, serving the 6-inch gun on the forecastle.
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Entering the magazine which held ammunition for the 6-pounder Hotchkiss gun and small arms carried aboard M.33.
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One of the tanks which stored the oil fuel used to generate steam in HMS M.33's two boilers, which in turn powered the ship's unreliable twin triple-expansion reciprocating steam engines. The tanks carried 45 tons of oil fuel, which gave the ship a range of 2,317 kilometres (1,440 miles) at 8 knots (14.82 km/h). Part of the heating coil used to pre-heat the fuel oil to make it flow and burn more easily can be seen in the lower right side of the photo.
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Part of the ship's Engine Room, now empty after the engines and boilers were stripped out in 1943 when M.33 was converted into a floating boom defence workshop. Conservators have balanced preservation and restoration aboard M.33, choosing to preserve this space in its 'original' condition rather than reconstruct the engines and boilers. The ship's conservation team spent 3,600 hours cleaning and applying Waxoyl preservative to all exposed areas of the ship to inhibit rust. The Engine Room is now used for an audio-visual presentation on the Dardanelles campaign, which is projected onto the bare walls of the Engine Room.
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A compartment aft of the Engine Room is now used to present information on HMS M.33's crew, which comprised the captain and four officers, 10 Royal Marines, 10 stokers and engine room artificers, 4 signalmen, 29 gunners, and 14 seamen.
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The sign on a bulkhead in the Aft Shell Room, which held 200 of the ship's inventory of 400 shells for the two 6-inch guns.
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The Aft Shell Room, with stacks of 6-inch shells and crates of fuzes. Shells stored here were carried up to the main deck to be loaded into and fired from the 6-inch gun on the quarterdeck.
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The Steerage Flat, located at the stern of the ship. This space was home to the ten Royal Marines assigned to HMS M.33, and was infamous for being the worst spot on the ship, with poor ventilation, extreme dampness caused by steam emanating from the steering engine, and the noise and smell of the ship's main engines.
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Looking aft on the port side upper deck. Davits at the deck edge were used to carry a small boat.
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An officer's cabin, located in the aft deckhouse on the upper deck. Each of M.33's five officers had a small cabin.
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The Galley, in which meals for all 72 officers and crew were cooked.
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| While M.33's engines were powered by oil fuel, 1.5 tons of coal was carried aboard the ship to fuel the stove and oven in the Galley. |
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One of the two toilets aboard HMS M.33. In addition to these two toilets, the ship possessed only two washbasins.
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| The forward deckhouse contains the Wheelhouse and, aft, the wood-panelled, felt-lined Wireless Telegraphy (radio) Room which contained a small radio set with a range of 80 kilometres (50 miles). The ship's compass can be seen atop the exposed Compass Platform above the large square window. The large square window is the elevated Wheelhouse. A crow's nest near the top of the mast was especially useful for safely navigating M.33 in the narrow confines of the shallow Dvina River in north Russia in 1919. |
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The interior of the elevated Wheelhouse. The helmsman was located here on this raised platform in order to be able to see over the gun and the smoke generated when the gun was fired. Below the helmsman's position was a chart table for the navigating officer and an engine telegraph for transmitting orders to the Engine Room.
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| One of HMS M.33's two breech-loading 6-inch guns, the principal weapon and the monitor's raison d'etre as a shallow draught shore bombardment platform. Out of a total displacement of 580 tons, the guns, their mountings, and the ammunition fired from them accounted for fully 62 tons. Each gun fired a 45 kilogram (100 pound) high explosive shell to a distance of 13.44 kilometres (14,700 yards). Although a well-drilled gun crew could achieve a rate of fire of six rounds per minute, in practice such a rapid rate of fire would have suffered from poor accuracy. The guns currently fitted to HMS M.33 are not the ship's originals, as these were removed when M.33 was converted into a minelayer in 1924. Instead, the forward gun (seen here) was originally installed aboard the First World War cruiser HMS Delhi, and the aft gun was part of the secondary armament of the battleship HMS Canada, which took part in the Battle of Jutland (1916) and then went on to serve in the Chilean Navy as the Almirante Latorre between 1920 and 1958. |
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| A small mess used by the ship's four stewards and cooks. |
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| The short passageway through the aft deckhouse containing officer's cabins on either side and the wardroom. |
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An officer's cabin, with single bunk and drawers for storage. A stuffed cat sleeping on a towel on the deck is meant to represent Miss Muggins, the ship's cat and mascot during the deployment to north Russia, who became a casualty during that mission.
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Officer's cabins provided not only space to sleep and relax, but also a place to complete required ship's administrative work.
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The shower stall located at the aft end of the deckhouse along the passageway containing officers' cabins.
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The Wardroom, where the officers ate their meals and socialised when off duty. The tiny Wardroom featured a small electric fireplace which, along with the stove in the Mess Deck forward, were the only two sources of heat aboard M.33. Although the ship's captain was a Royal Navy career officer at the rank of Lieutenant Commander, the other officers comprised a Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve medical officer, two Lieutenants from the Royal Naval Reserve with years of experience in the merchant marine, and one commissioned Chief Gunner.
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Nelson's flagship HMS Victory dominates the view over HMS M.33's bow.
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A final look at the preserved HMS M.33 on a sunny, breezy afternoon in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, 13 October 2019.
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