HMS Prince Eugene (1915)

Career (United Kingdom)
Name: HMS Prince Eugene
Builder: Harland and Wolff, Govan
Laid down: February 1, 1915
Launched: July 14, 1915
Decommissioned: 1921
Fate: Scrapped in 1921
General characteristics
Class and type: Lord Clive class
Displacement: 6,150 tons
Length: 335 ft (102.1 m)
Beam: 87 ft (26.5 m)
Draught: 9.7 ft (3.0 m)
Propulsion: 2 shafts, reciprocating steam engines, 2 boilers, 2,310 hp
Speed: 6.5 knots (12.0 km/h)
Complement: 187
Armament: BL 12-inch (304.8 mm) Mk VIII guns in a single turret, two 3-inch (76 mm) guns. A conversion to a single 18-inch (457 mm) gun was incomplete by the armistice of November 1918.

HMS Prince Eugene was a First World War Royal Navy Lord Clive-class monitor named after Prince Eugene of Savoy, an important commander of the War of the Spanish Succession who fought with the Duke of Marlborough. She is the only ship of the Royal Navy to be named after the general. Her 12" main battery was stripped from the obsolete battleship HMS Hannibal.

The Lord Clive class monitors were built in 1915 to engage German shore artillery in occupied Belgium during the First World War. Prince Eugene, with her sisters was regularly engaged in this service in the Dover Monitor Squadron and was present at the First Ostend Raid, providing cover for the Inshore Squadron.

In the summer of 1918, Prince Eugene was taken in for a refit in which her two 12" guns were to be replaced by a single 18" gun from HMS Furious which had been converted to an aircraft carrier. This refit was not complete by the war's end in November 1918 and was immediately cancelled, Prince Eugene being put into reserve pending scrapping, as the reason for her existence ended with the liberation of Belgium. Prince Eugene was scrapped in 1921.

References