H.M.S. DONEGAL

[jack]

Grandfather, K16869, Leading Stoker, William Sewell, was with HMS Donegal between 21st Nov 1912 and 21st Dec 1913. I know it was with a Training Squadron during 1912 and was attached to the 3rd Fleet, 5th Cruiser Squadron, 1913, But where was the ship stationed during these dates, and are there any photographs available of this ship ?

Jack

[Malcolm]

Donegal was a Kent Class Cruiser which all looked basically the same. I have a photo of HMS Cumberland if you want. Her siste ships were:

Berwick, Cornwall, Cumberland, Essex, Kent, Lancaster, Monmouth and Suffolk.

Aye

Malcolm

[HERITAGE PLUS]

This is HMS DONEGAL in 1901 shortly after build.

[Guest Pete Wood]

There are some more pics on the Polish Warship Website

The pics get much bigger if you click on them.

[Sourhill]

This is HMS DONEGAL in 1901 shortly after build.

Hi HP -

I'm interested in seeing that picture of HMS Donegal but it does not appear on your post.

My maternal grandfather, John Martin, having been wounded on the first day of the battle of Arras was on the Donegal when it was torpedoed in 1917 on its way from France carrying wounded. In a letter home he describes how he was very close to the explosion and that the man sitting next to him was killed instantly. After rescue by the torpedo boat destroyer Jackal he was hospitalized at the Beaufort War Hospital at Fishponds in Bristol.

Incidentally, you can see a picture of the Jackal here:

http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/acheron.htm

[Sourhill]

There are some more pics on the Polish Warship Website

This is indeed a mystery: The Polish site says the Donegal went from 1903 until 1920, whereas Heritage Plus says she was built in 1901 and my Granfather wrote in April 1917 that she was torpedoed while he was aboard en route to hospital in Bristol. Were there two boats called Donegal? Did my Grandad get the name wrong? Is the Polish site accurate in its dates? Can anyone shed some light on this?

[Sourhill]

Oops! Done a bit more digging on the Polish site (and reinterpreted HP's 1901: now understand that this was the date the keel was laid). From the translation on the Polish site:

Laid down at Govan:

14.2.1901

Launched:

4.9.1902

Commissioned:

5.11.1903

Sold for scrapping in July 1920

I had assumed that the Donegal sank as a result of being torpedoed. Perhaps she was salvaged and survived till scrapping in 1920.

I'll do a bit more research.

[Sourhill]

However...

If this is a picture of the Donegal in late 1917 or early 1918 as the Polish site says:

Donegal photos

(bottom picture on the page)

Donegal showing her wartime modifications, late 1917 or early 1918. She is wearing her Norman Wilkinson "dazzle" camouflage scheme.

then she does not look as though she could have been seriously damaged...

Ok that's as far as I go tonight. Over to someone else, hopefully.

[Michael Lowrey]

Sourhill,

There were at least two ships named Donegal. There's the armoured cruiser, but that isn't the one that got torpedoed. The ship that was torpedoed and sunk on April 17, 1917 19 miles south of the Dean LV (50°26'N, 01°00'W) by the German submarine UC 21 was a 1885 grt steamer built in 1904 and owned by the Midland Railway Corporation. Donegal was being used as an ambulance transport – and as such was entitled to the protects afforded to hospital ships (in fact, Donegal was armed) — at the time. 40 lives were lost in the sinking.

Best wishes,

Michael

[Sourhill]

Thanks for clearing that up, Michael.

So apologies to you, Jack, for having taken the subject of this thread away from the boat you referred to initially (even though three years on!).

I did a bit more digging and found my Grandad's Donegal illustrated at this site:

http://www.divernet.com/wrecks/1105qanda.shtml

I'll quote the entry:

Donegal's downfall

On a recent trip out of Littlehampton, we dived the Donegal. It's about 25 miles out on the Back of the Wight in 50m. Can you give me some details so that I can complete my log?

John B

With the help of Martin Pritchard, who co-authored Dive Wight and Hampshire with me and is one of the most experienced dive-boat skippers on the island (01983 525169), I hope this will help you:

The 1885 ton Donegal is often referred to as a "hospital ship", but was in fact an armed transport used as a casualty clearing ship.

She was a passenger steamer, built by J Caird & Co for the Midland Railway Co in 1904. At the outbreak of war in 1914, she was taken over by the Admiralty as a transport and armed.

Donegal was 331ft long, with a beam of 42ft, and drew a little over 17ft. On 17 April, 1917, she was carrying 639 casualties, 33 of which were stretcher cases, a medical officer and four stretcher-bearers from Le Havre to Southampton. Two destroyers were escorting Donegal.

At 7.43pm, Captain John Jackson saw a torpedo track 400m away on his port side, astern of one of his escorts.

"I immediately gave the order to the helmsman: 'hard to starboard'," Jackson reported later. "However, it was too late and my ship was struck near the port propeller, with the result that the stern was practically blown away and carried with it the 13-pounder gun, which had only been mounted the day before. One of the gunners who was standing by it is missing and must have been killed..."

Donegal began sinking so quickly that the destroyer HMS Jackal got alongside only by smashing the port lifeboats out of the way. This enabled some 500 troops and crew to be taken off. Other boats picked up more. At 8.33pm, Donegal lurched violently to starboard, throwing those left aboard into the moderate sea as she sank. Eleven of her 69 crew and 26 of the wounded soldiers were lost.

The U-boat was UC-21, under Oberleutnant Von Zerboni di Sposetti.

It strikes me as odd that the gun should have been fitted just the day before. I wonder if there is more documentaion regarding how the Donegal was pressed into service as a hospital ship and why it was thought necessary to fit a gun. Do you have any leads?

Leslie.

[Sourhill]

I've just tried the link I gave in my previous post. It's ok if you search from the page it brings up (e.g. for "Donegal") but here is a direct link to the page I took my quote from:

http://www.divernet.com/cgi-bin/articles.p...mp;show=donegal

I'm am emailing the writer to see if he will let me know where he got his information.

Leslie.

[Sourhill]

This is by way of an update on my previous post. I got the following reply to my email, which means it may be a while before I hear any more.

Thank you for your question, which has been forwarded to Kendall McDonald,

who answers questions in the Wreck Q&A pages of Diver magazine every

quarter.

We regret that, because of sheer weight of enquiries Kendall cannot normally

enter into individual correspondence, but your question will be considered

for inclusion in Diver.

regards

Steve Weinman

Editor

Diver Magazine

55 High Street

Teddington

Middlesex

TW11 8HA

UK

Meanwhile, as the subject of this thread refers to a different boat from the one I'm referring to here, I'd like to canvass opinion on whether I should start a new thread. I suppose, being the result of an honest mistake on my part, at least the thread serves as it stands to illustrate the potential for this sort of confusion when it comes to identifying a particular ship (especially for a novice such as myself).

Leslie