Morecambeology - Morecambe’s Men o’ War by Peter Wade
The first half of the 1920s, however, saw a number of ships arrive which had seen service in the Great War from HMS Adventure, a river gunboat of 1891, to HMS Glasgow, a light cruiser of 1909. HMS Adventure had patrolled the Humber guarding against air attack by Zeppelins.
HMS Mersey, a Humber class monitor, had taken part in the Battle of the River Yser in 1914. This was actually a land battle at the coastal end of the Western Front and the Mersey bombarded German positions. HMS Mersey had also helped sink the battleship Konigsberg off East Africa in 1915.
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Hide AdHMS Glasgow took part in the Battle of the Falklands in 1914 helping foil a German raid on Port Stanley and all but destroying the German East Asian Squadron. In a follow-up operation, the crew of the Glasgow rescued a pig from the sea which they adopted as a mascot.
Two unusual ships of the Great War were the Edgar and Pegasus. HMS Edgar was a lister ship, having a double hull to protect against torpedo attack.
HMS Pegasus of 1917 was an early aircraft/seaplane carrier. She was part of the Grand Fleet in the North Sea but saw no action.
After the Great War she was part of a British intervention in the Russian civil war against the Bolsheviks.
The Pegasus was the last of the ships to be broken up at Ward’s in Morecambe in 1931.
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