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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Cobh Museum (Scots Church) HMHS St Andrew model and pictures


Talesofaseadog

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I visited the above Museum in March 2023 and I thought members might be interested in the pictures that I took of this model.

It is only a small museum, but has some WW1 information about the USN destroyers that were based there in 1917 as well.

Regards

Tony

 

DSD_1946.JPG

DSD_1947.JPG

DSD_1948.JPG

DSD_1951.JPG

DSD_1952.JPG

DSD_1953.JPG

DSD_1954.JPG

DSD_1955.JPG

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The ship carried the prefix ‘HMHS’ when used as a hospital ship during the Great War - but St. Andrew was built as a triple steam turbine steamship, not a motor vessel, so the ‘MV’ designation appended by the museum is in fact incorrect.  
Built by John Brown’s Shipyard, Glasgow in 1908.

M.

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Here is the "holy quartet" St Andrews, St David, St Denis, St Georg from my collection. Unfortunately I don´t have a photo of St. Patrick yet.- Only St. Georg is mentioned in the description above. Obviously they are not all looking the same, especially the St Denis looks different, but I included it anyhow.

I noted that on three photos there were numbers legible:

0821 St. Andrews, 0861 St David, 0862 St Georg. What did these numbers stand for, please? And why does only St. David have an additional number on its side?

Thank you!

GreyC

 

St Andrews HMHS 0821 kl.jpg

St David HMHS 0861 kl.jpg

St Denis HMHS kl.jpg

St Georg HMHS 0682kl.jpg

Edited by GreyC
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Grey C

The "Holy Quartet" that you describe did not really include the ST DENIS.  The St.Patrick, St.George, St..Andrew and St.David were all built for the Great Western Railway Co. for their service from Fishguard to Ireland.  The St.Denis was built for a different railway company, this time the Great Eastern Railway operating from Harwich to the Continent.  Originally called Munich, her name was changed in 1916. The fact that they all became HS(M) Hospital Ships Military is coincidental.

Ships taken up by the military or navy were issued with pennant numbers which were generally displayed on the bridge front for identification purposes.  These can be found in the Merchant Ship Service List 14-18.  The pennant numbers were not maintained throughout the war, numbers changing as the ships did different jobs and were taken up at different times, some numbers being used by two or three ships at different times.

St Denis was E 8160

St George     E 0682  which she continued to use when she became an expeditionary force transport after  15 Dec 1917

St Andrew    C 0821 

St David      C 0861 

St Patrick    C 0826

The pennant numbers only used the letters A to G and the numbers 0,1,2,6 & 8 to prevent confusion at distance with similar looking numbers.

I cannot explain the other numbers on the shell plating.

Picture of St Patrick attached from a postcard, not great definition I'm afraid

Tony

StPatricka.jpg.9077a3a6f80f81642b962815b0dbce1d.jpg

 

 

Edited by MerchantOldSalt
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6 minutes ago, MerchantOldSalt said:

Grey C

The "Holy Quartet" that you describe did not really include the ST DENIS.  The St.Patrick, St.George, St..Andrew and St.David were all built for the Great Western Railway Co. for their service from Fishguard to Ireland. 

The official registered owner of the four Irish Sea ferry ships was actually ‘Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbours Co. Ltd.’   This  was a joint venture company formed in 1906, co-owned by Great Western in England and the Great Southern & Western Railway of Ireland.

M.

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Hi Tony and Michael,

thanks a lot for all the information. I actually have a photo of the St Denis still in her ferry paint coat with the caption St Denis,  ex-Munich. I wonder why her name was changed:innocent:. Is the Merchant Ship Service List 14-18 available online or in print somewhere?

Love the St. Patrick photo!

GreyC

Edited by GreyC
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On 30/10/2024 at 20:46, KizmeRD said:

The ship carried the prefix ‘HMHS’

HMHS was sometimes used, even at the time, but strictly speaking no hospital ships (not even the Naval ones as opposed to the Army ones) were commissioned, so that the correct prefix was Hospital Ship (H.S.).

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Nevertheless HMHS was a prefix that was in common use at the time, in fact St Andrew only stopped doing so in June 1917 (after which it adopted the descriptor HMAT = (His Majesty’s) Ambulance Transport.

See WO-95-4149-1 (War Diary), extract below…

M.

 

IMG_3008.jpeg

Edited by KizmeRD
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