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REAR-ADMIRAL HENRY MONTAGU DOUGHTY
HE COMMANDED THE BIGGEST DREADNOUGHT BATTLESHIP IN THE WORD AT THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND
IT HAD THE LARGEST ARMAMENT IN THE WORLD
[HE WAS THE BROTHER OF C.M.H.DOUGHTY-WYLIE V.C. OF THEBERTON HALL]
CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT HIS BROTHER
Doughty joined the Navy in 1884..in 1886 he joined HMS Bellerophon as a Midshipman. She was on the North American station until 1892.Here are the officers in 1889..so he is somewhere here !
..or here above.Halifax June 1886
..or here off Quebec.
Henry Montagu Doughty was born in September 1870, the scion of a well-known East Anglian family, and entered the Royal Navy as a Naval Cadet in Britannia in January 1884. Appointed a Midshipman in the Bellerophon in January 1886, he was advanced to Lieutenant in January 1892 and, while serving in the cruiser Theseus, ‘duplicated and confirmed valuable observations as an auxiliary in Sir Norman Lockyer's expedition to observe the eclipse of the sun at Santa Pola on 17 May 1900' (his service record refers). Advanced to Commander in December 1902, Doughty attended the Naval War College at Portsmouth, and served as a Member of the Admiralty Volunteer Committee in 1908, his promotion to post-rank being confirmed in June of the latter year.
By the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he was commanding the gunnery school at Devonport, but he quickly returned to sea as captain of the cruiser Hermione and was S.N.O. present in Mexican waters during the revolution. Command of the 14-inch gun monitor Abercrombie followed, in which ship he arrived off Mudros in July 1915, and quickly participated in the bombardment of Turkish positions - in August, while shelling enemy troops at Krithia and on the heights of Achi Baba, in support of the Helles operations, she scored a direct hit on a redoubt which sent ‘whole Turks whirling in the air.' But because such bombardments were carried out close offshore, the Abercrombie was vulnerable to Turkish batteries, a case in point being the 8 September, when she was hit several times by 75mm. shells - luckily, on this occasion, the resultant damage was limited to her rigging and winch. Doughty remained in command of the Abercrombie until November 1915, in which month he received a signal from the Commander of VIII Army Corps, thanking him for his accurate support fire off Helles - he was commended for his services in action (London Gazette 14 March 1916 refers).
Back home, he took command of the Agincourt in January 1916, the longest battleship in the world, with the largest number of guns afloat, including the heaviest secondary armament, namely 20 6-inch and 10 3-inch guns to add to her seven twin-12-inch turrets - no surprise then that certain critics argued that she would never withstand the force of firing a full broadside. But at Jutland, Doughty proved otherwise, sometimes to the consternation of his ship's company, one gunnery officer, inside a turret, believing the ship had taken a serious hit, when he heard a ‘violent explosion' - he need not have worried, it was merely her starboard 6-inch gun battery (10 guns) going into action. And her gunnery was responsible for causing the enemy equal consternation, her mighty salvoes straddling their battleships and cruisers on several occasions, a case in point being the twice hit Kaiser. Indeed by close of play the Agincourt had fired 144 shells from her 12-inch turrets and and another 111 from her 6-inch guns. Doughty was again commended for his services in action, in addition to being appointed an Officer of the French Legion of Honour (London Gazette 15 September 1916).
In July 1917, he took command of another battleship, the Royal Sovereign, in which capacity he served until the end of the War, and in November 1919 - after being awarded the C.B. and C.M.G. - he was advanced to Rear-Admiral. Sadly, however, his enjoyment of flag rank was short-lived, for he died at the R.N.H. Haslar in May 1921. His brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Doughty-Wylie, was awarded a posthumous V.C. for his gallantry immediately following the Gallipoli landings in April 1915.
His Medals sold in 2007 for £3,200
The Great War C.B., C.M.G. group of six awarded to Rear-Admiral H. M. Doughty, Royal Navy, who, having seen extensive action in the Dardanelles as captain of the 14-inch gun monitor Abercrombie, commanded the battleship Agincourt at Jutland - a record-breaking ship on account of her length and armament, which included seven twin-12-inch guns, it was argued by certain critics that she could never withstand the shock of discharging a full broadside: Doughty proved them wrong at Jutland, the resultant burst of flames looking like ‘a battle-cruiser blowing up'
The Most Honourable Order of The Bath, C.B. (Military) Companion's neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, in its Garrard & Co. case of issue; The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion's neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, in its Garrard & Co. case of issue; 1914-15 Star (Capt. H. M. Doughty, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt. H.M. Doughty, R.N.); French Legion of Honour, Officer's breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, with rosette on riband, together with a silver identity disc, the obverse with ‘For Zeal' within a wreath and the reverse engraved, ‘Captain Henry M. Doughty, C.B., R.N., C. of E., 21.11.18, H.M.S. Royal Sovereign', enamel work slightly chipped in places, generally good very fine (7) £2500-3000
Sold with the recipient's original warrants for his C.B., dated 3 June 1918, and C.M.G., dated 17 July 1919, in addition to his permission to wear document for the French Legion of Honour, this dated 6 January 1917.
BELOW : HIS PLAQUE IN THEBERTON CHURCH
HIS SHIPS
HMS BELLEROPHON 1886 Midshipman
HMS Bellerophon was a central battery ironclad built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1860s. In this ship, designed by Sir Edward Reed, the power-to-weight ratio was increased; the long rows of guns on the broadside were replaced by a small number of guns, centrally placed, of the largest possible calibre; the armour was increased in thickness but reduced in length, and a sharp beak ram was combined with a classical style plough bow.
This double bottom had the added advantage of allowing the engine to be carried higher, raising the centre of gravity of the whole ship and making her thereby a steadier gun platform.[1] Unlike earlier classes, Bellerophon's bow and stern had a "U" shaped profile, giving increased buoyancy at the ends noticeably absent in some earlier battleships.[1]Bellerophon carried the first balanced rudder in Royal Navy service. Full helm could be applied by eight men in about 27 seconds,[2] whereas in HMS Warrior it took forty men 90 seconds to perform the same manoevre.[3]
HMS Bellerophon was 280 feet (85.3 m) long between perpendiculars. She had a beam of 56 feet 1 inch (17.1 m) and a maximum draught of 26 feet 7 inches (8.1 m).[4]
Bellerophon was commissioned at Chatham, and served in the Channel Fleet until 1871. She was struck by Minotaur in 1868 while leaving Belfast Lough, but only suffered minimal damage. The ship served with the Mediterranean Fleet from 1871 to 1872, and then paid off for refit where she was given a poop deck. Bellerophon relieved HMS Royal Alfred as flagship on the North America station in 1873 and remained there until 1881. On her outbound voyage she was rammed by SS Flamsteed during an attempt to exchange newspapers. The merchant ship had her bow stove in and sank a few hours later after the scarcely damaged Bellerophon took off her passengers and crew. An extensive refit, including new boilers and new armament was followed by a further period on the North America station until 1892, when she paid off at Plymouth. She was re-commissioned as port guardship at Pembroke until 1903. Bellerophon was converted into a stokers' training ship in 1904, and renamed HMS Indus III. The ship was sold on 12 December 1922 to P. and W. McLellan for scrap, although she did not arrive in Bo'ness for breaking-up until March 1923.[16]
HMS THESEUS 1892 Lieutenant.. below
Above : Theseus in 1887
Below : At Souda Bay Greece..Dardanelles Campaign
Above : Captain's cabin
HMS Theseus was an Edgar-class protected cruiser of the Royal Navy. The Edgars were basically smaller versions of the Blake class. Theseus was launched at Leamouth, London in 1892 and commissioned on 14 January 1896.
Upon commission, she was part of the Special Flying Squadron. She was a tender ship to Cambridge from 1905 to 1913. In February 1913, Theseus joined the Queenstown Training Squadron.
When war broke out in 1914, Theseus joined the 10th Cruiser Squadron. On 14 October, Theseus, accompanied by her sister-ship HMS Hawke, were patrolling the North Sea when they were attacked by U-9. The submarines first torpedo missed Theseus but hit Hawke, igniting a magazine that caused a tremendously powerful explosion, that ripped much of the ship apart. Just 70 of her 594 crew survived.
Theseus was rearmed, along with bulges to her hull, which were added to enable her to take part in the Dardanelles Campaign. In 1916 she was deployed to the Mediterranean and was then sent to the White Sea. In 1918 she was sent to the Aegean Sea to be charged with the mundane task of being a depot ship. In 1919, Theseus had her final deployment, when she was sent to the Black Sea. She returned to the UK in 1920 and was scrapped the following year in Germany
HMS LEVIATHAN 1901 Captain.. below
Above : Leviathan in 1902
HMS Leviathan was a 14,100-ton Drake-class armoured cruiser of the Royal Navy, and the third ship to bear the name.
Like her sisters, Leviathan served in the First World War, surviving it to be sold for breaking up on 3 March 1920 to Hughes Bolckow of Blyth.
Named after one of the five great rivers of the Punjab, HMS Sutlej was a Cressy-class armoured cruiser in the Royal Navy. She served with her sisters in the First World War, and was one of the three who survived the war. Already obsolete by the outbreak of war, she was sold on May 9, 1921 and laid up in Belfast. She made her last voyage to Preston, arriving August 15, 1924 for breaking up.
HMS NIOBE 1910 Captain below
HMS Niobe was a ship of the Diadem-class of protected cruiser in the Royal Navy. She served in the Boer War and was then given to Canada as the first ship of the then newly-created Royal Canadian Navy as HMCS Niobe. After patrol duties at the beginning of the First World War, she became a depot ship in Halifax. Damaged in the 1917 Halifax Explosion, she was scrapped in the 1920s.
She was built by Vickers Limited, Barrow-in-Furness and launched on 20 February 1897, entering service in 1898.
She was part of the Channel Squadron at the outbreak of the Boer War (1899-1900), and was sent to Gibraltar to escort troop transports ferrying reinforcements to the Cape. On 4 December 1899, Niobe and HMS Doris rescued troops from the SS Ismore, which had run aground. She saw further action in the Boer War and the Queen's South Africa Medal was subsequently awarded to the crew.
She returned to the English Channel, but later escorted vessels as far as Colombo in Ceylon.[1]
She and HMS Rainbow were given to the Dominion of Canada to seed the new Royal Canadian Navy (RCN).[2] She was transferred to the RCN on 6 September 1910, commissioning at Devonport Dockyard and reaching Halifax on 21 October that year. She ran aground off Cape Sable, Nova Scotia, on the night of 30-31 July 1911. Repairs took 18 months and she had a permanently reduced maximum speed as a result.
With the outbreak of the First World War she joined the Royal Navy's 4th Cruiser Squadron on the North America and West Indies Station. She was engaged in intercepting German ships along the American coast for a year until as a result of being worn out, she was paid off on 6 September 1915 to become a depot ship in Halifax.
The Halifax Explosion of 1917 caused serious damage to upper works, and the deaths of several of her crew.[3] However she remained in use as a depot ship until disposed of in 1920, decommissioned and sold for scrap. She was broken up in 1922 in Philadelphia.[4]
HMS HERMIONE 1913 Captain.. BELOW
HMS Hermione was an Astraea-class protected cruiser launched at Devonport in 1893. She was a 10-gun twin-screw cruiser of 4360 tons, 9000 horse-power, and 19 knots speed. Her length, beam, and draught were 320ft., 49ft., and 19ft. In September 1910 she began preparations for use as a tender for the Royal Navy's first airship, but when this project was abandoned, she rejoined the Home Fleet in January 1912. In the meantime, she had hosted the first British seaplane experiments, with an Avro Type D in November 1911.
At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, she became guard ship at Southampton, later becoming HQ Ship for motor launches and coastal motor boats from December 1916 until December 1919. Sold off October 1921 and resold to the Marine Society in 1922 and became training ship Warspite, finally scrapped September 1940.[3][4]
HMS SUTLEJ 1899 & again 1910 Captain.. below
Named after one of the five great rivers of the Punjab, HMS Sutlej was a Cressy-class armoured cruiser in the Royal Navy. She served with her sisters in the First World War, and was one of the three who survived the war. Already obsolete by the outbreak of war, she was sold on May 9, 1921 and laid up in Belfast. She made her last voyage to Preston, arriving August 15, 1924 for breaking up.
HMS ABERCROMBIE 1915 Captain.. below
HMS Abercrombie was a First World War Royal Navy Abercrombie-class monitor.
On 3 November 1914, Charles M. Schwab of Bethlehem Steel offered Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, the use of four 14in/45cal BL MK II twin gun turrets, originally destined for the Greek ship Salamis. These turrets could not be delivered to the German builders, due to the British Naval blockade. The Royal Navy immediately designed a class of monitors, designed for shore bombardment, to use the turrets.
HMS Abercrombie was laid down at the Harland and Wolff Ltd. shipyard at Belfast on 12 December 1914. The ship was named Admiral Farragut in honour of the US Admiral David Farragut, however as the United States was still neutral, the ship was hurriedly renamed HMS M1 on 31 May 1915. She was then named HMS General Abercrombie on 19 June 1915, and then renamed HMS Abercrombie on 21 June 1915.
HMS Abercrombie sailed for the Dardanelles on 24 June 1915, and provided fire support during the Battle of Gallipoli. She remained in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean, until returning to England in February 1919. She was decommissioned in May 1919, and was disarmed in June 1920. Sold for breaking up in May 1921, she was retained in reserve until resold on 25 June 1927 to the Ward shipyard at Inverkeithing for breaking up.
HMS AGINCOURT 1916 Captain..below
HMS Agincourt was a dreadnought battleship built in the United Kingdom in the early 1910s. Originally part of Brazil's role in a South American naval arms race, she held the distinction of mounting more heavy guns (fourteen) and more turrets (seven) than any other dreadnought battleship constructed, in keeping with the Brazilians' requirement for an especially impressive design.
Brazil ordered the ship as Rio de Janeiro from the British Armstrong Whitworth shipyard, but the collapse of the rubber boom and a warming in relations with the country's chief rival, Argentina, led to the ship's sale while under construction to the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans renamed her Sultan Osman I, after the empire's founder. The ship was nearly complete when World War I broke out, and British Admiralty fears of a German-Ottoman alliance led to her seizure for use by the Royal Navy. This act was a major contributor to the decision of the Ottoman Empire to support Germany in the war. Renamed Agincourt by the British, she joined the Grand Fleet in the North Sea. The ship spent the bulk of her time during the war on patrols and exercises, although she did participate in the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Agincourt was put into reserve in 1919 and sold for scrap in 1922 to meet the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.
TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS SHIP CLICK HERE
HMS ROYAL SOVEREIGN 1915 BELOW
HMS Royal Sovereign (pennant number 05) was a Revenge-class (also known as Royal Sovereign and R-class) battleship of the Royal Navy displacing 28,000 metric tons (27,560 long tons; 30,860 short tons) and armed with eight 15-inch (381 mm) guns in four twin turrets. She was laid down in January 1914 and launched in April 1915; she was completed in May 1916, but was not ready for service in time to participate in the Battle of Jutland at the end of the month. She served with the Grand Fleet for the remainder of the war, but did not see action. In the early 1930s, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet and based in Malta.
Unlike the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, Royal Sovereign and her sisters were not modernised during the interwar period. Only minor alterations to her anti-aircraft battery were effected before the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. Assigned to the Home Fleet, she was tasked with convoy protection until May 1940, when she returned to the Mediterranean Fleet. She was present during the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, but her slow speed prevented her from engaging the Italian battleships. By March 1942, she was assigned to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean, but after the Indian Ocean raid by Admiral Nagumo's Kido Butai, she was withdrawn to eastern Africa to escort convoys. In January 1944, she returned to Britain, and in May the Royal Navy transferred the ship to the Soviet Navy, where she was renamed Arkhangelsk. She then escorted Arctic convoys into Kola until the end of the war. The Soviets returned the ship in 1949, after which she was broken up for scrap.
HMS RAMILLES 1917 Captain.. below
Above : Ramilles 15inch gun is the iconic symbol of The Imperial War Museum
[Note the huge shells!]
Above : Ramilles fires a broadside
HMS Ramillies was a Revenge-class battleship of the Royal Navy, named after the Battle of Ramillies. The ship is notable for having served in both the First and Second World Wars. Despite her age, she was active throughout the latter war, with service ranging from convoy escort to shore bombardment to engaging enemy battleships