H.M.S. Salmon (1916)

H.M.S. Salmon (1916)
Pendant Number:	G.94 (Jan 1917) G.93 (Jan 1918)^[1]
Builder:	Harland & Wolff^[2]
Ordered:	Jul 1915 (6th Order)^[3]^[4]
Launched:	7 Oct, 1916^[5]
Completed:	20 Dec, 1916^[6]
Handed over:	28 Jan, 1937^[7]

H.M.S. Salmon was one of sixty-two "R" class destroyers completed for the Royal Navy in 1916-17.

There was an earlier destroyer launched in the 1890s also named Salmon.

Construction & Acceptance

Salmon was the first destroyer built at Govan and her lively motions proved a challenge for the elderly pilot who attempted to shepherd her to and from her acceptance trials, requiring the prospective commissioning captain Lionel G. Dawson to assume these duties, at the risk of the builders, though he noted that the pilot "pocketed the fee." The trials demonstrated a worrisome vibration in her first funnel, but she was soon accepted, having demonstrated a slightly disappointing 30 knots.^[8]

Service

Salmon joined the Grand Fleet's Fifteenth Destroyer Flotilla in December, 1916. ^[9] On first steaming to join them, her magnetic compass stopped working, requiring her to stop into Oban to have it replaced. On the same journey, she lost her aerials along with the main topmast in a storm, causing some concern at her delayed arrival.^[10]

Salmon collided with her squadron-mate Sable some time in 1917, ramming her in the Captain's cabin when the destroyers were proceeding in fog at 20 knots, despite each ship throwing its helm over and backing one engine hard to assist. Sable's commander, Woodward, shouted for Dawson to "keep your stem in the hole," but the ships separated. Dawson deemed it fortunate that his ship struck just aft of Sable's main engine room, whose large volume may have meant her loss. The two returned to Rosyth, Sable with her quarter deck nearly awash, to be docked in the same dock. Their undocking was delayed by a day or two by damage Salmon sustained when a horse and cart fell into the dock, apparently through an error by the carter. The horse was killed by the accident.^[11]

After a lazy summer of 1917, much of it berthed in the Firth of Forth and the ship's men accommodated by Malaya for amenities only a large ship can offer, Dawson recalls that the closest he got to the enemy in Salmon was when they fired a few long range shots at a U-Boat they found charging its batteries. It dived and evaded them with seeming ease. Salmon went south for a refit in February of 1918.^[12]

Post-War

Salmon reduced to reduced complement on 15 February, 1919.^[13]

She was renamed Sable on 2 December, 1933. On 28 January, 1937, she was handed over to Ward in partial payment for Majestic. She was taken away for breaking up in March, 1937.^[14]