H.M.S. Salmon (1895)

H.M.S. Salmon (1895)
Builder:	Earle's Shipbuilding
Ordered:	1893-94
Laid down:	12 Mar, 1894
Launched:	15 Jan, 1895
Commissioned:	14 Jan, 1896
Broken up:	1912

H.M.S. Salmon was one of forty-two "A" class destroyers built for the Royal Navy — a "27 knotter".

Service

Salmon was one of seventeen destroyers of the Reserve Division which left Sheerness on 1 July, 1905 for Spithead under the overall command of Commander R. G. Gregory in H.M.S. Spitfire.

She and sixteen other destroyers of the Reserve Division arrived at Sheerness on 13 July 1905 and proceeded to Chatham.

Like many "A" class ships, she was broken up before the war.

Fittings and Performance

Lionel Dawson wrote of his experiences in command of the destroyer.

Like many of her class, the helm was situated behind the platform for the 12-pdr gun, with the helmsman peering ahead through a small gap under the platform and over the foredeck. It was very hard to see. The common workaround was to construct a new wheel on the gun platform and connect it below by shafts and screws. In Salmon, this wheel was actually a training wheel for a 4.7-in gun, and it required 32 revolutions to move the rudder from hard port to hard starboard. Vexingly, the action of this wheel was the opposite to what a ship's wheel ordinarily delivered.

Her eight boilers seemed to be more than enough for her. Dawson's engineer would joke and say that "the last two or three [boilers] only made the deck hot, since the engines could not take up the steam from them."

Captains

Dates of appointment are provided when known.

• Lieutenant & Commander Charles J. Collins, 14 January, 1896 – 4 June, 1896
• Lieutenant & Commander John F. E. Green, 12 September, 1896 – 15 February, 1898
• Lieutenant & Commander James R. P. Hawksley, 10 September, 1898 – 8 October, 1898
• Lieutenant & Commander Guy de L. O. Johnson, 25 August, 1900 – 13 September, 1900
• Lieutenant & Commander Guy de L. O. Johnson, 16 November, 1900 – 5 December, 1900
• Lieutenant & Commander Harry C. J. R. West, August, 1901 – 17 January, 1902
• Lieutenant & Commander Frederick B. Noble, 25 March, 1903 – 21 December, 1903
• Lieutenant & Commander Richard F. White, 21 December, 1903 – 28 October, 1904
• Lieutenant in Command Hubert S. Monroe, 20 April, 1905 – 3 August, 1906
• Gunner in Command John Reep, 3 August, 1906 – 4 September, 1906
• Lieutenant & Commander Norman H. Carter, 11 September, 1906 – 25 May, 1907
• Lieutenant-Commander Louis H. Crozier, 10 November, 1907 – 1 February, 1908
• Lieutenant-Commander Charles E. L. Thomas, 1 February, 1908 – 29 September, 1908
• Lieutenant & Commander Cecil R. Hemans, 29 September, 1908 – 20 March, 1909
• Lieutenant & Commander Ralph V. Eyre, 20 March, 1909 – 1 December, 1909
• Lieutenant & Commander Norman A. K. Money, 1 December, 1909
• Lieutenant & Commander Charles H. Jones, 15 August, 1910 – September, 1910
• Lieutenant & Commander Lionel G. Dawson, 21 December, 1910 – 24 May, 1911

See Also

• Wikipedia