Contemporary artists impression of the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Roxburgh she was one of six Devonshire-class armoured cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century.
Roxburgh, named to commemorate the Scottish county, was laid down at the Govan shipyard of the London and Glasgow Shipbuilding Company on 13 June 1902. Construction was slowed owing to problems with delivery of her boilers, with the ship being launched on 19 January 1904 and completed on 5 September 1905. She was initially assigned to the 1st Cruiser Squadron of the Channel Fleet together with most of her sister ships and remained with the squadron until beginning a refit at Devonport Royal Dockyard in December 1908. Upon its completion in August 1909, she was assigned to the reserve Third Fleet. In June 1912 the ship was transferred to the 3rd Cruiser Squadron of the Second Fleet. Six months later, she stood by the stranded merchantman SS Ludgate off the coast of Morocco. The squadron was assigned to the Grand Fleet in mid-1914 as the Navy mobilised for war. It spent much of its time with the Grand Fleet reinforcing the patrols near the Shetland and Faeroe Islands and the Norwegian coast where she captured a German merchantman on 6 August. On 18 June 1915, Roxburgh was part of a force of cruisers from the 3rd Cruiser Squadron and the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron, accompanied by destroyers, that set out from Rosyth on a patrol across the North Sea. The force was attacked several times by German submarines, and Roxburgh was hit in the bow by a single torpedo from SM U-38 on 20 June, but managed to return to Rosyth under her own power. The ship was under repair until April 1916. She patrolled the Norwegian coast in April 1916 and was then transferred to the North America and West Indies Station in September for convoy escort duties. On 13 February 1918 Roxburgh rammed and sank the German submarine SM U-89 north of Malin Head, Ireland, with no survivors. The ship was reduced to reserve at Plymouth Royal Dockyard in June 1919, but was recommissioned later that year for use as a radio training ship. Roxburgh was paid off in February
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Photo credit: © Troy GB images / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: -89, -38, -boat, 1, 38, 89, 1918, armoured, artists, boat, class, cruiser, devonshire, head, hms, impression, malin, naval, navy, propaganda, rammed, ramming, roxburgh, royal, sea, sm, submarine, war, warfare, world
