HMS Pegasus (1897)

HMS "Pegasus" was one of eleven "Pelorus" class cruisers ordered for the Royal Navy in 1893 under the Spencer Program and based on the earlier Pearl class cruisers. The class were fitted with a variety of different boilers most of which were not entirely satisfactory and by 1914 four ships had been withdrawn. They had all been condemned in 1904 but were reprieved and remained in service with scrapping proposed in 1915.

History

The "Pelorus" class cruisers were 2,135 ton displacement ships with crew complement of 224, a length of 95.55 m, beam of 11.13 m, and a draft of 4.88 m. They were powered by two triple-expansion engines with boilers rated at 5,000 ihp and a maximum speed of convert|20|kn|km/h|0. They were armed with eight convert|4|in|mm|0|sing=on guns, eight 3 pounder guns, and two convert|18|in|mm|0|sing=on torpedo tubes. "Pegasus" was completed in 1898 and in 1899 she was stationed off of the SE Coast of America. She then was stationed in the Mediterranean, Australia, China, and finally Africa.

The shipwreck

In the early morning of September 20 1914 "Pegasus" was anchored in Zanzibar harbour, now part of Tanzania, having left her battlegroup, which included HMS "Hyacinth" and "Astraea", to attend to boiler and engine problems. The German light cruiser SMS "Königsberg" launched a surprise attack on the ship. Out-ranged and out-gunned, "Pegasus" was incapacitated within eight minutes and the Captain, Commander Ingles, struck the colours to avoid further bloodshed. The ship sank later that day with the loss of 38 killed and 55 wounded. The hospital ship "Gascon" and Scottish ship "Clan Macrae" came to the aid of the survivors. The "Pioneer", "Pegasus"’ sister ship, later assisted in the blockade of the Rufiji River where the "Königsberg" had taken refuge. Six of the eight guns were salvaged and two, named "Peggy III" and "Peggy IV", were used in the land campaign until 1916. Of the other four, two remained in Zanzibar, one was mounted on board the lake steamer "Winifred" and the last mounted at Mombasa where it survives to this day outside Fort Jesus museum. Twenty four of the British sailors that died in the battle were laid to rest in a mass grave in part of the naval cemetery on Grave island, Zanzibar, the remaining fourteen were buried in the town cemetery but in 1971 were moved to Dar es Salaam war cemetery. The wreck was sold in 1955 for £500 and broken up for scrap, although large amounts of debris still remain on the seabed. [ [http://zanzibar.net/zanzibar/konigsberg Zanzibar :: Konigsberg: A German East African Raider ] ]

References

*"Shipwrecks of the East African Coast", and "Konigsberg - A German East African Raider", by Kevin Patience

External links

* http://www.merchantnavyofficers.com/clanline3.html
* http://rapidttp.com/milhist/vol066ed.html
* http://www.red-duster.co.uk/UNION9.htm
* http://navalhistory.flixco.info/H/221556x9/8330/a0.htm
* http://www.africantrails.com/beach.htm