HMS Effingham

British Hawkins class heavy cruiser

HMS Effingham was one of five heavy cruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. She was not finished during the war and construction proceeded very slowly after the end of the war in 1918. Completed in 1925, the ship was assigned to the East Indies Station, sometimes serving as a flagship. She returned home in 1932 and was assigned to the Reserve Fleet as its flagship for the next four years. Effingham was rearmed and modernized in 1937–1938 and then resumed her previous role. When the Second World War began in September 1939, Effingham was assigned to the Northern Patrol, but severe engine problems caused her to spend most of the next six months under repair. In between dockyard visits, the ship ferried a load of gold bullion to Canada and was briefly assigned to the North America and West Indies Station. After a lengthy refit at the beginning of 1940, Effingham supported Allied troops during the Norwegian Campaign, mostly bombarding German positions and providing naval gunfire support to troops ashore. While ferrying troops and supplies to Bodø on 18 May, the ship struck a shoal due to a navigational error and sank in shallow water. Her crew was evacuated without loss and the cruiser destroyed by a pair of torpedoes from an accompanying destroyer. Her wreck was salvaged after the war with only some minor wreckage remaining.

The Hawkins class cruisers were designed to be able to hunt down commerce raiders in the open ocean, for which they needed a heavy armament, high speed and long range. Effingham had an overall length of 604 feet (184 m), a beam of 65 feet (20 m) and a draught of 19 feet (6 m) at deep load. The ship displaced at (standard load) and at deep load. Effingham carried of fuel oil to give her a range of at
The main armament of the Hawkins class ships consisted of seven Mk VI guns in single mounts protected by gun shields. They were arranged with five guns on the centreline, four of which were in superfiring pairs fore and aft of the superstructure, the fifth gun was further aft on the quarterdeck, and the last two as wing guns abreast the aft funnel. Their anti aircraft suite consisted of three Mk V guns and a pair of two pounder guns. Two of the Mk V guns were positioned at the base of the mainmast and the third gun was on the quarterdeck. The two pounders were mounted on a platform between the funnels. The ships were also fitted with six 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, one submerged and two above water on each broadside. Effinhams guns were controlled by a mechanical Mark III Dreyer Fire control Table. It used data provided by the 15 feet (5 m) coincidence rangefinder in the gunnery director positioned under the spotting top at the head of the tripod mast. The ship was also fitted with three 12 feet (4 m) rangefinders. In 1937–1938 all of the ship's existing guns were removed, as were her pair of underwater torpedo tubes, and the forward superstructure and bridge was rebuilt to accommodate nine 6 inch guns in two superfiring trios fore and aft of the superstructure, plus one gun further aft on the quarterdeck and one more on each broadside. At their maximum elevation of +30°, the guns had a range of Effinghams anti aircraft armament was increased to four Mk V guns and the two pounders were replaced by three quadruple mounts for Vickers AA machine guns. Her aft pair of boilers were removed and the aft boiler room was converted into an oil tank, which increased her oil storage to and her range to at
The removal of the two boilers reduced her total horsepower to This made space available amidships for a E. IV. H catapult and an aircraft handling crane, although the catapult and its intended Supermarine Walrus flying boat were not fitted at that time.

Effingham, named after the Lord High Admiral Lord Howard of Effingham, one of the leaders of the fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada in 1587, has been the only ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy. The ship was laid down by HM Dockyard, Portsmouth, on 6 April 1917, launched on 8 June 1921 and completed in July 1925, with Captain Cecil Reyne in command. She was assigned to the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron (LCS) on the East Indies Station after working up. Captain Bruce Fraser (later First Sea Lord) assumed command of the ship in September 1929. Representatives from Effingham attended the coronation of the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, on 2 November 1930 and her Royal Marine band provided entertainment during the affair. On 14 June 1932 the ship briefly became the flagship of Rear Admiral Martin Dunbar Nasmith, Commander in Chief of the East Indies Station, but he hauled his flag down on 1 October and the cruiser rejoined the 4th LCS. After a cruise in the Bay of Bengal in March–April 1933, Effingham returned home. On 30 July she became flagship of the Reserve Fleet when Vice Admiral William Munro Kerr hoisted his flag aboard her. Kerr was relieved by Vice Admiral Edward Astley Rushton. After the former's premature death in June 1935, Vice Admiral Gerald Charles Dickens assumed command on 28 June. The ship was present at the Silver Jubilee Fleet Review for King George V on 16 July. She became a private ship on 29 September 1936 in anticipation of her modernisation.

After the British declared war on Germany on 3 September, the Northern Patrol's tasks expanded to include intercepting any German commerce raiders attempting to breakout into the Atlantic. Effingham was damaged during her first patrol on 6 September and arrived at HM Dockyard, Devonport on 3 October for repairs that lasted until the 9th. The ship relieved the heavy cruiser escorting Convoy KJ 3 six days later, but had to return to Devonport on the 25th for engine repairs. A boiler cleaning lasted until 7 November when she loaded £2 million in gold for transport to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. After arriving 10 days later, Howson was appointed Senior Naval Officer, West Indies Patrol and Effingham sailed south to Bermuda on the 24th, together with the Australian light cruiser , to patrol the area between Kingston, Jamaica, and Halifax. Effingham was only able to participate in the patrols on 3–6 December before more engine problems evidenced themselves. The ship put into HM Dockyard, Bermuda for repairs, but the replacement boiler tubes proved to be defective and the cruiser would need to have them replaced at home. She sailed back to Halifax to escort Convoy HX 14 across the Atlantic on 29 December. Effingham arrived at Portsmouth for the necessary repairs on 9 January 1940. Her engines had to be stripped down and her boiler tubes replaced; her "pom poms" and their directors were finally installed during this time, as was her catapult. The ship was not ready for action again until 12 April when she sailed to Scapa Flow. The Navy intended Effingham to participate in Plan R 4, during which British forces would occupy Narvik, Norway, and the iron mines in Kiruna and Malmberget, Sweden if the Germans invaded Norway. The British plan had been rendered obsolete when the Germans invaded on 8 April.

Together with the heavy cruiser , the anti aircraft cruiser and several destroyers, Effingham was ordered on 17 April to search for a group of five German destroyers that had been spotted off Stavanger by an aircraft. The report was false, but the ships remained off the entrance to the Romsdalsfjord on 17–18 April as the British began landing troops at Molde and Åndalsnes, further inside the fjord. The U 38 was launched in 1938. made an unsuccessful attack on the cruiser during the early hours of 19 April. Effingham and her consorts arrived back at Scapa Flow later that day. On the 20th, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Cork, the newly appointed supreme commander of Allied forces in Norway, hoisted his flag aboard the cruiser. Four days later the ship participated in an ineffective bombardment of German held Narvik in a snowstorm on the 24th. On 1 and 3 May, she helped to bombard targets in the towns of Ankenes and Bjerkvik in preparation for a planned Allied attack on Narvik itself. Effingham was the command ship for the landings at Bjerkvik on 12–13 May, hosting Lord Cork and the French commander Brigadier General (Général de brigade) Antoine Béthouart; Lieutenant General Claude Auchinleck was also aboard the ship, but only as an observer. Effingham also ferried about 750 men of the landing force from the 13th Demi Brigade of the Foreign Legion (13e Demi Brigade de la Légion Etrangère) and provided naval gunfire support during the attack. As soon as the 2nd Battalion, the South Wales Borderers could be transferred from Ankenes to Harstad, Auchinleck decided to send them and the headquarters of the 24th Guards Brigade to reinforce the defences of Bodø. The threat of aerial attack ruled out the use of slow troopships, so the Admiralty selected Effingham to transport the troops. Howson had insisted on no more than of supplies and ammunition could be accommodated aboard the cruiser in addition to the 1,020 British and French troops, but he was overruled by the Army and were actually loaded in addition to ten Bren Carriers, hindering the use of some of the ship's six and four inch guns. Together with the rest of the 20th Cruiser Squadron, the anti aircraft cruisers Coventry and and escorted by the destroyers and , Effingham departed Harstad at 01:00 on 17 May. To minimise the risk of air attack, the Admiralty had avoided using the much shorter route through the Tjeldsundet Strait and the Vestfjorden, although it meant a much higher average speed en route to arrive meet the scheduled 20:00 arrival time and allow the ship to unload in the darkness, safe from attacks by the Luftwaffe. As the ships approached Bodø, Howson suggested that the threat of submarine attack was higher in the main channel and that the squadron could use a narrow strait between the island of Bliksvær and the Terra Archipelago instead. Effingham had a large scale map of the area and Howson believed that passage was practicable for his ship, the largest ship in the squadron. Rear Admiral John Vivian, commander of the squadron in Coventry, lacked a copy of the map, but concurred and ordered that Effingham should become the guide ship for the squadron with all the other ships conforming to her movements. Traveling at , Matabele was in the lead and Echo was trailing on her starboard side, with Effingham following Matabele. As the squadron was entering the entrance to the strait around 19:47, the destroyer touched a submerged rock of the Faxsen Shoal, tearing off her port propeller and its bracket, but not further damaging the ship. About a minute later Effingham struck the shoal herself, tearing large holes in her hull, and Coventry just touched her stern as she turned to starboard to avoid Effingham. The cruiser quickly lost power due to flooding after she passed over the shoal and began drifting. Although the ship was settling on an even keel, Howson was concerned that she might capsize with the loss of most of her crew and passengers and ordered Echo to tow Effingham to shallow water to allow her to be beached around 20:15. The tow was not able to progress much and Vivian ordered it to be cast off at 20:45 so the cruiser would sink in deep water where she could not be salvaged by the Germans. During this time, Echo was able to take aboard all of the passengers and over 200 of the ship's crew. By 22:10 she had transferred all of the men to Coventry and returned to Effingham to take off the remaining crewmen. In the meantime, the cruiser had grounded off Skjoldsh Island in an upright position, east of Bliksvær, in about of water. Boats from Matabele also rescued some men and they were transferred to Cairo after that ship returned from summoning ships from Bodø for assistance as there was no further room aboard Coventry. The two anti aircraft cruisers and Matabele departed for Harstad later that night. Echo was left behind and Howson went aboard her to supervise the attempt to salvage material by the small ships from Bodø and to ensure that Effingham was thoroughly wrecked. Although four Bren Carriers and some mortars were recovered, only a small amount of material could salvaged during the night and transported to Bodø. The detonators for the torpedo warheads and other explosives aboard the cruiser were underwater, but her guns were thoroughly sabotaged, her ready use ammunition was thrown overboard and Echo put a pair of torpedoes into her at 08:00 which caused Effingham to capsize at coordinates The wreck was dismantled by Høvding Skipsopphugging after the war with only a few plates and components now being left on the sea bed.