Greek battleship Limnos

"Limnos", sometimes spelled Lemnos (Greek: "Θ/Κ Λήμνος"), was a 13,000 ton "Mississippi"-class Greek battleship ("θωρηκτό") named for a crucial naval battle of the First Balkan War.

History of the ship

Laid down for the United States Navy in 1904, she served in that navy as the USS "Idaho" (BB-24) from 1908 until 1914, when both "Mississippi"-class ships were purchased from the United States by Greece and transfered to the Royal Hellenic Navy at Newport News, Virginia late in July of that year.

Limnos was seized by France along with the rest of the Greek Fleet in 1916 due to Greece's neutrality in World War I (see the National Schism). After the end of the National Schism, Greece entered the war on the side of the Entente and France returned her to the Royal Hellenic Navy, where she served in World War I and in the 1919 Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War (Crimean Campaign) in support of White Russian forces, along with "Kilkis", "Leon" and "Panther" under the command of Rear Admiral G. Kakoulidis, RHN. During the Asia Minor Campaign, she was flagship to the Second Fleet, based in Smyrna, under Rear Admiral G. Kalamidas RHN; her mission was the surveillance of the Black Sea, Dardanelles and Asia Minor coasts. In 1926-28, she underwent boiler repairs.

Limnos was decommissioned in 1932. Her guns were removed and used by a coastal defence battery on the island of Aegina. The hulk of Limnos was bombed in Salamis channel by Stuka dive bombers on April 23, 1941, during the German invasion of Greece and sunk in shallow waters. Her wreck was salvaged for scrap in the 1950s.