Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is a living museum, steeped in 500 years of maritime history.
Go beyond the surface at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Uncover secrets long thought lost at sea, the true story of heroes past and present, and get to grips with the ships that made history. See below different stories of our iconic ships and get to really know these ships histories and impact.
On Monday 9 December the National Museum of the Royal Navy became aware that we have been the victim of a ransomware cyber attack. Portsmouth Historic Dockyard remains open and the attack does not...
One of the most common questions we are asked about HMS Victory is how many men served on board and who were they? We're very fortunate that the muster roll for HMS Victory is held in the library...
A new exhibition that sheds light on the little-known cultural history of the Jolly Roger flag will open at The National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard on 6 April 2019. Jolly...
A small ship with a big history. HMS M.33 has a remarkable story, from the straights of the Dardanelles to its final home in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, one of only three Royal Navy ships surviving from World War One, and the only veteran from the disastrous and bloody Gallipoli campaign (19 February 1915 – 9 January 1916). The ship offers a unique and compelling insight into life onboard a Royal Navy ship over 100 years ago, as well as being a vessel to tell the stories of those who served on her. She is a versatile ship, having served as a monitor, minelayer, hulk and workshop under various names, such as HMS Minerva, RMAS Minerva, C.23 – and her unofficial name HMS ‘Mugwump’ (only for three months thankfully).
On 15 March 1915, the Admiralty ordered the construction of five new monitor ships – the last ship to be constructed would become HMS M.33. The monitor class of ship was designed to carry heavy guns but also to be shallow drafted, meaning they didn’t sit very deep in the water. This enabled the ships to get close to shore and bombard enemy land targets. They were simple, quick to build and most importantly cheap, however this also made them a ship of their time. As visitors will see when they board HMS M.33, comfort wasn’t part of the design, it was built for one purpose and one purpose only – war.
The M.33 appears after a period of design experimentation. During the first few months of 1915, the monitors M.1 – M.14 was ordered. These were small ships and would be armed with a smaller 9.2-inch gun. Monitor ships M.15 – M.28 was ordered in February 1915 but these all varied considerably in size – the HMS M.13 for example carried two powerful 15-inch guns and weighed over 6,500 tons, easily dwarfing M.33. However, the M.15 – M.28 designs were used for M.33 and her four sister ships. The ships were ordered from Belfast shipbuilders Harland & Wolff and construction was amazingly quick. With the keel laid on 1st April it was launched on 22nd May and the crew joined on the 17th June. Within four months of construction HMS M.33 was ready for action off the Turkish Coast.
67 men and five officers from diverse backgrounds crewed HMS M.33, a mixture of career soldiers and reserves who had been clerks, butcher, labourers and farmers in civilian life but soon became seamen, stokers, wireless operators or cook’s mates. M33 was Captained by Lieutenant-Commander Quitin Preston-Thomas, and he was joined by four other officers, including a Volunteer Reserve Medical Officer, two lieutenants from the Royal Navy Reserve and a Chief Gunner. The crew themselves were mostly recruited from Devonport Port Division – meaning she was a ‘West Country’ ship. While many of the crew did come from Devon, Somerset, and Gloucestershire, others came from Wales, Scotland, Ireland and other parts of England. The oldest crew member was a 50-year-old seasoned crewman, the youngest was a 16-year-old aboard his first ship.
After a stalemate on the Western Front, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill formed a plan to ‘invade and take the Gallipoli Peninsula with Constantinople [modern day Istanbul] as its objective’. The aim was to take Turkey – allied with Germany since November 1914 – out of the war and attack the Central Powers’ underbelly. This was adamantly opposed by Churchill’s Naval professionals, but the plan was pushed through. The Allies sent a combined force of personnel from the UK, France, Australia and New Zealand, this included the famous ANZACs.
The Gallipoli expedition began on 19 February 1915 with the joint British and French fleet bombarding the Turkish forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles. On the 18 March the fleet made their attempt to rush the narrow Dardanelle straight – the narrow waterway that leads to Constantinople – but the attack was abandoned after the loss of one French and two British warships to mines and artillery fire. It was then decided that the Army was to land and capture the forts on the Turkish high ground – which they assumed would be a swift undertaking – so the Navy could continue up the straight unhindered.
From the outset, the landings were doomed. Taking place on 25 April across five beaches on the Gallipoli peninsula, it is hard to do the heroism and the chaos of the landings justice. The desperate attempts to advance with offensive and counter-offensive coming thick and fast, was resolved by June as the campaign – bitterly ironically – fell into another trench stalemate.
M.33 arrived in the Aegean Sea on 24th July and with barely a moment’s pause, she was ordered to join the naval forces using their guns to support a final major offensive to break the deadlock. In the early evening of 6th August, a new land offensive was planned to take various points around the Sari Bair Range and Suvla Bay supported by naval bombardment. M.33 took up her position four miles offshore and began to fire. Bombarding established gun batteries and mobile guns, M.33 fired 316 shells over the eight-day offensive, exhausting her ammunition. After this she continued regular patrols for five months until the evacuation of Gallipoli on 9th January 1916. Ultimately, the campaign was fruitless but despite near misses and hits by shell splinter, HMS M.33 suffered no casualties – gaining her nickname ‘The Lucky Ship’.
Just days after the Gallipoli evacuation. HMS M.33 would find herself in the Chalkidhikhi Peninsula at Salonika for offensives in neutral Greek waters. In May 1916, the ship went south to join a squadron blockading Smyrna on the Turkish coast, this would start a monotonous duty of protecting bases, blockading ports and harassing shipping. As hostilities increased in Bulgaria, the original crew – mentioned above – were finally replaced after three and a half years on active duty. The crew arrived back in Devonport on Armistice Day 1918, while M.33 stayed stationed there until February 1919.
Later, in May 1919 M.33 was commissioned for active service again – this time with a crew from Portsmouth – to fight in support of the White Russians, the pro-Tsar forces in the Russian Civil War. Her shallow draft made her perfect for fighting along Russia’s rivers. Troops were withdrawn from this campaign on 27th September, with M.33 returning to Chatham on 18th October.
After being bought in 1980 by Hampshire Country Council and restored, a funding grant of £1.79 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund allowed the ship to be transferred to the National Museum of the Royal Navy in 2014. She now sits proudly in Dry Dock 1 in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, where visitors can now experience what life was like on board this small, distinguished and courageous vessel.
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