Guardships

Throughout WW1 Aden at all times had a designated and dedicated guardship. Quite a few ships had a turn as guardship, but once the two Empresses (the Empress of Asia and the Empress of Russia) had been returned to the Canadian Pacific Line in the first half of 1916, the Aden guardship was quite likely to be one of three obsolescent sloops of the same class, the Clio the Odin and the Espiegle which had all had quite an active war in the Persian Gulf until at least June 1915.

HMS Espiegle

 

These three were steel hulled twin-screw Cadmus class sloops of just over 1,000 tons and another example of how quickly warships of that era became outdated – most of the class were only launched in 1903. They had good firepower for their size – four 4-inch and four 3-pdr guns, but had a top speed of only 13 knots and that could only be maintained for fairly short periods. Their cruising speed was usually around only 7 knots and their range somewhat limited.

When the Clio sailed from Bombay to Aden to join the mixed squadron of warships operating off Aden and in the Red Sea, she sailed via Karachi and Muscat, coaling at the latter where she took on 135 tons, unusually from dhows rather than from lighters. Her bunkers held under 200 tons so she could not sail directly across from Bombay. She arrived in Aden on 9 October, sailing for Kamaran three days later. Unlike an armed boarding steamer she and her sister ships spent much of the time in the port they were guarding rather than on patrol.

 

The Clio

As well as providing the guardship at Aden, the three took turns at being at Perim and Kamaran. With their low maximum speed they were not really suitable to be used as Armed Boarding Steamers, although on at least one occasion 13 knots was sufficient. This was in March 1917 when Odin was the Aden Guardship. The German armed merchant raider Wolf had sailed from Hamburg in December 1916 with several thousand mines aboard. On 17 February 1917 the Wolf had captured a 5,000 ton British merchant ship, the Turitella, off Cape Agulhas and on passage from Colombo to Port Said. A prize crew and a number of mines were transferred onto the Turitella and in view of her known destination it was decided to lay mines off Aden and Perim.

At 2140 hours on 4 March, having just completed the Aden minefield, she was sighted by the Odin which was not on patrol but had been sent out to check on the effectiveness of the blackout recently imposed there due to the possible presence of the Wolf in the area.

The Turitella was steaming without lights and continued to maintain a speed of 11 knots and a course towards Perim. She eventually replied to the Odin’s challenge and gave satisfactory replies, including a plausible explanation as to why she was showing no lights and had not replied immediately to the Odin. She signalled that she thought the Odin might have been the Wolf!

In one minor detail, however, the captain of the Odin was not completely satisfied as the Turitella had mis-spelt the N of Aden. He therefore decided to either overtake the Turitella or else have her stopped off Perim by the guardship there, the armed boarding steamer HMS Perth of 2,058 tons and armed with three 4.7in guns, or by other ships in the area. To achieve this the Odin had a cable sent from Aden at 0200 to Perim and Kamaran where at the latter the guardship was one of Odin’s sister ships, the Clio. With a top speed two knots greater than the Turitella the Odin managed to overhaul her adversary just before first light, as the ships were nearing Perim. Realising that the game was up, the prize crew scuttled the Turitella and were subsequently picked up and taken prisoner.