HMS Albion (1898)

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HMS Albion was a British Canopus-class pre-Dreadnought battleship of approximately 14,000 tonnes, with a main armament of 4 × 12 inch (305 mm) guns and was built by the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Co. Ltd, launched in 1898 and commissioned in 1901, serving on the China Station until 1905. She spent the next few years in home waters, until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, when she proceeded to join the Cape and East Africa Station. In 1915 she, along with others of the obsolete Canopus-class were in the Mediterranean, bombarding strategic Turkish positions in the Dardanelles. While doing so, two of her sister ships, HMS Goliath and HMS Ocean were sunk in the engagements, and Albion herself was badly damaged while supporting the Gallipoli landings.

On 24 May 1915 Albion became beached on a sandbank off Gaba Tepe and while stranded was struck over a hundred times by Turkish artillery. Fortunately the Turkish guns lacked penetration and Albion suffered fewer than a dozen casualties. She was only towed free after efforts were made to reduce weight and also by using the recoil of firing her main guns simultaneously.

Albion returned home after these damaging engagements in 1916 and was scrapped three years later.

Canopus-class battleship