HMS Benbow was the third of four s of the Royal Navy, the third ship to be named in honour of Admiral John Benbow.Lecky, p. 204 Ordered in the 1911 building programme, the ship was laid down at the William Beardmore and Company shipyard in May 1912, was launched in November 1913, and was completed in October 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. The four Iron Dukes were very similar to the preceding , with an improved secondary battery. She was armed with a main battery of ten guns and twelve secondary guns. The ship was capable of a top speed of , and had a thick armoured belt.
Benbow served in the Grand Fleet as the flagship of the 4th Battle Squadron during the war. She was present during the largest naval action of the war, the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, though she was not heavily engaged. She sortied twice more, in August 1916 and April 1918 in attempts to catch the German High Seas Fleet in another major battle, but neither produced any significant action. After the end of the war in 1918, Benbow and the rest of the 4th Squadron were reassigned to the Mediterranean Fleet. There, she took part in operations in the Black Sea in support of White Russians in the Russian Civil War until mid-1920, when the Mediterranean Fleet began supporting Greek forces during the Greco-Turkish War. In 1926, Benbow was reassigned to the Atlantic Fleet. She was decommissioned in 1929, placed on the sale list in September 1930, and sold for scrap the following year.
Design
The four Iron Duke-class battleships were ordered in the 1911 building programme, and were an incremental improvement over the preceding . The primary change between the two designs was the substitution of a heavier secondary battery in the newer vessels. Benbow was long overall, and she had a beam of and an average draught of . She displaced as designed and up to at full load. Her propulsion system consisted of four Parsons steam turbines, with steam provided by eighteen Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Benbow had a fuel storage capacity of of coal and of oil. The engines were rated at and produced a top speed of . Her cruising radius was at a more economical . Benbow had a crew of 995 officers and ratings, though during wartime this grew to up to 1,022.Preston, p. 31
Benbow was armed with a main battery of ten BL Mk V naval guns mounted in five twin gun turrets all on the centerline. They were arranged in two superfiring pairs, one forward with "A" and "B" turrets and one aft of the superstructure with "X" and "Y" turrets; the fifth turret, "P", was located amidships, between the funnels and the rear superstructure. Close-range defence against torpedo boats was provided by a secondary battery of twelve BL 6-inch Mk VII guns, which were mounted in casemates in the hull clustered around the forward superstructure. The ship was also fitted with a pair of QF 3-inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft guns and four 3-pounder guns."Cwt" is the abbreviation for hundredweight, 20 cwt referring to the weight of the gun. As was typical for capital ships of the period, she was equipped with four torpedo tubes submerged on the broadside.
Benbow was protected by a main armoured belt that was thick over the ship's ammunition magazines and engine and boiler rooms, and reduced to toward the bow and stern. Her deck was thick in the central portion of the ship, and reduced to elsewhere. The main battery turret faces were thick, and the turrets were supported by thick barbettes.
Service history First World War
The keel for Benbow was laid down at the William Beardmore and Company shipyard on 30 May 1912. Her completed hull was launched on 12 November 1913, and fitting out work was completed by October 1914, just two months after the outbreak of the First World War. On 1 December, Benbow and her sister ship arrived at the 4th Battle Squadron to begin working up, before being pronounced fit for service with the fleet on 10 December.Jellicoe, pp. 168–169, 172 During this period, the rearmost 6-inch guns were removed from the four Iron Duke-class ships and their casemates were sealed off, as they were too low in the hull and permitted water to continually enter the ship.Jellicoe, pp. 173–174 On the 10th, she replaced as the flagship of the 4th Squadron.Burt, p. 230 On 23–24 December, the 4th and 2nd Squadrons conducted gunnery practice north of the Hebrides.Jellicoe, p. 182 The following day, the entire fleet sortied for a sweep in the North Sea, which concluded on 27 December; this was Benbows first fleet operation.Jellicoe, pp. 183–184
Another round of gunnery drills followed on 10–13 January 1915 west of Orkney and Shetland, this time with the entire fleet.Jellicoe, p. 190 On the evening of 23 January, the bulk of the Grand Fleet sailed in support of Vice Admiral David Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet, but the main fleet did not become engaged in the Battle of Dogger Bank that took place the following day.Jellicoe, pp. 194–196 On 7–10 March, the Grand Fleet conducted a sweep in the northern North Sea, during which it conducted training manoeuvres. Another such cruise took place from 16–19 March.Jellicoe, p. 206 On 11 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a patrol in the central North Sea and returned to port on 14 April; another patrol in the area took place from 17–19 April, followed by gunnery drills off Shetland on 20–21 April.Jellicoe, pp. 211–212 The Grand Fleet conducted a sweep into the central North Sea from 17–19 May without encountering any German vessels.Jellicoe, p. 217 In mid-June, the fleet conducted another round of gunnery training.Jellicoe, p. 221 On 2–5 September, the fleet went on another cruise in the northern end of the North Sea and conducted gunnery drills.Jellicoe, p. 243 Throughout the rest of the month, the Grand Fleet conducted numerous training exercises.Jellicoe, p. 246 On 13 October, the majority of the fleet conducted another sweep into the North Sea, returning to port on the 15th.Jellicoe, p. 250 From 2–5 November, Benbow participated in another fleet training operation west of Orkney.Jellicoe, p. 253 Another such cruise took place from 1–4 December.Jellicoe, pp. 257–258
Benbow was occupied with the typical routine of gunnery drills and squadron exercises in January.Jellicoe, pp. 267–269 The fleet departed for a cruise in the North Sea on 26 February; Admiral John Jellicoe, the commander of the Grand Fleet, had intended to use the Harwich Force to sweep the Heligoland Bight, but bad weather prevented operations in the southern North Sea. As a result, the operation was confined to the northern end of the sea.Jellicoe, p. 271 On the night of 25 March, Benbow and the rest of the fleet sailed from Scapa Flow to support the Battlecruiser Fleet and other light forces that raided the German zeppelin base at Tondern. By the time the Grand Fleet approached the area on 26 March, the British and German forces had already disengaged and a severe gale threatened the light craft. Iron Duke, the fleet flagship, guided the destroyers back to Scapa while Benbow and the rest of the fleet retired independently.Jellicoe, pp. 279–280 On 21 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a demonstration off Horns Reef to distract the Germans while the Russian Navy relaid its defensive minefields in the Baltic Sea.Jellicoe, p. 284 The fleet returned to Scapa Flow on 24 April and refuelled before proceeding south in response to intelligence reports that the Germans were about to launch a raid on Lowestoft. The Grand Fleet did not arrive in the area until after the German High Seas Fleet had withdrawn, however.Jellicoe, pp. 286–287Marder, p. 424 From 2–4 May, the fleet conducted another demonstration off Horns Reef to keep German attention focused on the North Sea.Jellicoe, pp. 288–290
Battle of Jutland
In an attempt to lure out and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, the High Seas Fleet with sixteen dreadnoughts, six pre-dreadnoughts, six light cruisers and thirty-one torpedo boats commanded by Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, departed Jade Bight early on the morning of 31 May. The fleet sailed in concert with Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's five battlecruisers and supporting cruisers and torpedo boats.Tarrant, p. 62 The Royal Navy's Room 40 had intercepted and decrypted German radio traffic containing plans of the operation. The Admiralty ordered the Grand Fleet, at that time consisting of twenty-eight dreadnoughts and nine battlecruisers, to sortie the night before to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet.Tarrant, pp. 63–64 At the time of the battle, the ship's commander was Captain Henry Wise Parker,Halpern (2011), p. 416 and she was the flagship of Vice Admiral Doveton Sturdee. She was stationed toward the center of the British line.Campbell, p. 16 The initial action was fought primarily by the British and German battlecruiser formations in the afternoon,Campbell, p. 37 but by 18:00, the Grand Fleet approached the scene.Campbell, p. 116
At about 18:15, Jellicoe gave the order to turn and deploy the fleet for action.Campbell, p. 146 At 18:30, Benbow opened fire, but her gunners were frequently hampered by poor visibility; her two forward turrets fired only six two-gun salvos over the course of the next ten minutes without any success.Campbell, pp. 151, 156 Shortly thereafter, German torpedo boats attempted to rescue the crew from the light cruiser , which had been disabled between the opposing fleets, though they appeared to the British to be launching an attack against the Grand Fleet. Benbow and several other battleships opened fire with their secondary batteries, starting at 19:09. Despite the fusillade from eight battleships, none of the torpedo boats were hit, though they were forced to abandon Wiesbaden.Campbell, p. 210 The ship fired six salvos from her main battery between 19:17 and 19:25, the first from two of her forward guns to confirm the range, and then four 5-gun and one 4-gun salvo in rapid succession. The gunners incorrectly claimed to have hit the battlecruiser .Campbell, p. 208 At around that time, Benbow and three other battleships opened fire with their secondary guns on a group of torpedo boats that were launching an attack on the British line. The vessels made four hits, but in the confusion, credit for the hits could not be given.Campbell, p. 212
Following the German torpedo boat attack, the High Seas Fleet disengaged, and Benbow and the rest of the Grand Fleet saw no further significant action in the battle. This was, in part, due to poor communication between Jellicoe and his subordinates over the exact location and course of the German fleet; without this information, Jellicoe could not bring his fleet to action.Campbell, p. 256 Benbow fired briefly at a group of torpedo boats at about 21:10, with a salvo of 6-inch shells and a single 13.5-inch round.Campbell, p. 262 At 21:30, the Grand Fleet began to reorganise into its nighttime cruising formation.Campbell, p. 274 Early on the morning of 1 June, the Grand Fleet combed the area, looking for damaged German ships, but after spending several hours searching, they found none.Campbell, pp. 309–310 In the course of the battle, Benbow had fired forty 13.5-inch armour-piercing, capped shells and sixty 6-inch rounds.Campbell, pp. 346–347, 358
Later operations