Depot ships

[Yorts]

How were depot ships employed during the Great War? Whilst the use of a submarine depot ship and a destroyer depot ship is relatively straightforward, what about a 'general' depot ship? What activities occurred onboard? Would men have been transferred from a depot ship to one of the vessels served by the depot ship and back again whilst remaining on the books of the depot ship?

More specifically what kind of depot ship was HMS Theseus during 1918?

Best regards,

Alex.

[Eddie Morton]

Hello Alex

Depot ships in the main were support vessels and carried our the role of a floating maintanance depots. As for the personnel apart from the ships company who were the crew of the depot ship they would also carry a number of personnel who were "Spare crew" and when needed would be transfered to the other vessels on a temperary basis, and sometimes permanantly.

As for HMS Theseus, she was a first class cruiser of the Edgar class, launched in 1892. She saw service as a tender to HMS Cambridge 1905 to 1913 then joined the Queenstown training squadran in February 1913.

In 1914-15 she was attached to the 10th Cruiser Squadran after which she was re armed and went to the Dardanelles.

She returned from service in the Med in 1916 and was sent to the White sea.

In 1918 she was stationed as a depot ship in the Aegean and later in 1919 in the Black sea, returning home in 1920.

She was sold and scrapped in 1921.

Hope this information will be of assistance.

Regards. Eddie.

[Yorts]

Thanks for the reply. Trying to work out how someone could win a gallantry award whilst attached to a depot ship that did not see any action (I've checked the log).

However, I've found out when the recommendations were written for the award, and whilst the award is supposedly for service aboard HMS Theseus Jan-July 1918 (according to the LG) the recommendations were written in both 1916 and 1917 but none in 1918 for my man. In which case the award couldn't be for services in 1918 but must be for beforehand when HMS Theseus was serving in the Med and White Sea. How does my theory sound?

Rgds,

Alex.