- HMS Glatton (1914)
HMS "Glatton" and her sister ship HMS "Gorgon" were originally built as
coastal defence ship s for theNorwegian Navy , as HNoMS "Bjørgvin" and HNoMS "Nidaros" respectively. They would have been known in Norway as P/S "Bjørgvin" and P/S "Nidaros"; P/S stands for "Panserskip" ("armoured ship").History
The "Bjørgvin" and the "Nidaros" were ordered by Norway in 1912 to supplement the older Eidsvold and Tordenskjold classes of coastal battleships. With heavier main guns than the older classes, and with her secondary armament mounted in turrets instead of in a battery, the "Bjørgvin" would have given a significant boost to Norwegian naval power.
However, when
World War I broke out, the Royal Navy requisitioned most warships under construction in Britain for foreign powers and pressed them into service, in the case of the "Bjørgvin" paying Norway £370,000 as compensation.The "Bjørgvin" was renamed HMS "Glatton" and classified as a
monitor . She was launched in 1914 and was taken over by theRoyal Navy . Work began on converting the ships for British use in January 1915 but was suspended in May of the same year and did not resume until September 1917. The two ships did not enter service until the summer of 1918.Fate
HMS "Glatton" was destroyed by an internal explosion on
1918-09-16 , shortly after arriving atDover . The explosion in her 6 inch magazine caused a fire which threatened to detonate the 9.2 inch magazine. To avoid possible damage to the port and other ships in the harbour, the badly damaged "Glatton" was sunk by torpedoes, two fired from HMS "Cossack" and two from HMS "Myngs"cite book |title=The Admiralty Regrets British Warship Losses of the 20th Century |last=Kemp |first=Paul |year=1999 |publisher=Sutton Publishing Ltd |isbn=0-7509-1567-6 |pages=p79] . It was later discovered by investigators that "Glatton"' s cork insulation had been replaced by newspaper, leaving the ammunition magazine highly vulnerable to the risk of fire.She was raised after the war in 1925 and broken up for scrap.
References
*Colledge
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