|
Pembroke's Shocking Past
Before even entering service with the Royal Navy HMS Pembroke
survived a series of extensive shock trials assessing the
resistance of her glass-reinforced plastic hull.
The Sandown-class minehunter has continued to prove her worth
with most recently a successful deployment around the Mediterranean
at the end of last year as part of the NATO MCM (mine countermeasures)
Force Southern Region.
Operating with minehunters and sweepers from Germany, Holland,
Spain, Greece, Turkey and Italy, HMS Pembroke’s four-month
deployment incorporated two exercises, Destined Glory off
the coast of Sicily and Turkish Minex off Turkey. Both exercises
proved successful with the discovery and clearance of a number
of mines from the area.
Since then Pembroke has been through an upkeep period at
Rosyth dockyard, followed by trials and a period of operational
sea training. Her schedule for the remainder of the year
features more training, including a period on the Joint Maritime
Course off Scotland, and sonar trials.
The current mine countermeasures ship is one of many to bear
the name Pembroke, the numbers bolstered by the succession
of ships and hulks to be renamed Pembroke as nominal base
ships for the Naval depot in Chatham.
The very first HMS Pembroke was a 28-gun fifth rate, built
in 1655 and lost in a collision with the Fairfax off Portland
in 1667. The two successive Pembrokes also had unfortunate
ends: the second, a 32-gun fifth rate, was built in 1690,
captured by the French in 1694 and subsequently wrecked;
the third, a fourth rate of 60 guns built in 1694, repeated
her predecessor’s fate by being captured by the French
in 1709, until she was recaptured, and then foundered in
1711.
The next vessel, a fourth rate of 54 guns, was built in Plymouth
in 1710 and ended her days being broken up back in Plymouth
in 1726. The fifth Pembroke of 1733, another 60-gun fourth
rate, foundered in the Medway in 1745. But she was brought
back to the surface to continue her Naval career until finally
being wrecked off the East Indies in 1749.
A captured Spanish sloop in 1740 was to become the Pembroke
Prize until sold on four years later.
In 1757 a 60-gun fourth rate become the sixth in succession,
but she became a hulk in 1776 before her ultimate breaking-up
off the coast of Canada in 1793.
The seventh Pembroke was a 74-gun third rate of 1812 that
saw conversion to become a screw ship in 1855. She became
the base ship at Chatham in 1873, and was renamed Forte in
1890. From this point a series of ships were to bear the
name as the base port ship for Chatham.
(Ship of the Month October 2003)
Join Ship of the Month and receive a new postcard sized
photograph every month!
Each month Navy News looks at a different ship, her compliment,
armoury, propulsion and her recent activities. Join the many
subscribers who have been collecting Ship of the Month since
1969. more>
|
