Chatham Built Warships since 1860 - Softcover

MacDougall, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0907771076 ISBN 13: 9780907771074

Publisher: Maritime Books, 1982

Synopsis

A record and brief history of all the warships built for the Royal Navy and the auxiliaries built for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary by H.M. Royal Dockyard Chatham from 1860 until the Dockyard' closure in 1966.

Synopsis:
Authors Note. Chatham dockyard is to close in 1984. This was the sad news that greeted the Medway Towns during the Summer of 1981. Not even the more recent Falkland's Crisis has managed to save the yard. So, in 1984, an era will have ended. No more will Royal Navy warships be a regular feature of the Medway's river traffic, whilst the Towns, themselves, will have to confront the spectre of rising unemployment. First established in the sixteenth century, Chatham is one of the oldest dockyards in the country. Over the years a fine record of building and repairing naval ships has seen the yard go from strength to strength. Now, however, all this is to end. But those who live in the Medway Towns should still be proud of their dockyard. It was from this yard that Nelson's Victory was originally launched, whilst iron ship building was furthered by the launch of the Achilles. This particular book deals with the post 1860 period. A period, of course, of rapid change. The earliest vessels mentioned relied upon both steam and sail power, with the Mersey (1885) being the first Chatham built warship to abandon a sailing rig. As for the late nineteenth century, this was a time when Chatham was building some of the most powerful ships in the world. Having been completely modernised, Chatham yard was the most advanced of all the dockyards, able to handle all imaginable naval requirements. The twentieth century witnessed a further change in fortunes. The dockyard, proving itself unable to handle the new Dreadnought class of battleships, went on to specialise in submarine construction work. Over the years, therefore, Chatham went on to build a total of fifty-eight submarines with the last being launched in 1966. At that point the dockyard appeared to be under threat of closure, but was saved by the submarine refit centre that has since allowed Chatham to specialise in refitting the nuclear 'Fleet' class submarines.

Edition details

• Publisher: Maritime Books
• Publication date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0907771076
• ISBN 13: 9780907771074
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 112