- Source: HMS Marshal Soult
HMS Marshal Soult was a Royal Navy Marshal Ney-class monitor constructed in the opening years of the First World War. Laid down as M14, she was named after the French general of the Napoleonic Wars Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult. She served in both World Wars and was decommissioned in 1946.
Design
Designed for inshore operations along the sandbank strewn Belgian coastline, Marshal Soult was equipped with two 15-inch (380 mm) battleship guns. Originally, these guns were to have been stripped from one of the battlecruisers Renown and Repulse after they were redesigned. However the guns were not ready, and guns intended for the battleship Ramillies were used instead.
The diesel engines used by the ships were a constant source of technical difficulty, restricting their use.
Service
Marshal Soult performed numerous bombardment operations against German positions in Flanders, including during the First Ostend Raid in April 1918. In October 1918, she became a tender to the gunnery school HMS Excellent at Portsmouth and in March 1919 undertook a similar role at Devonport before paying off in March 1921. Recommissioned in 1924, she moved to Chatham in April 1926 as a training ship.
Her armament was removed in March 1940 and was later fitted to the new Roberts-class monitor Roberts, which was completed in 1941.
In the year of her launch 1915, Caretta, an Admiralty Pinnace was assigned to her.
She served throughout the Second World War as a depot ship for trawlers at Portsmouth until being sold on 10 July 1946 and scrapped at Troon.
See also
Commander R.D. Binney: his first command, in 1930, was the Marshal Soult
= References
=Bacon, Reginald (1919). The Dover Patrol 1915-1917. (2 vols.). New York: George H. Doran Co. Vol. 1 • Vol. 2
Buxton, Ian (2008) [1978]. Big Gun Monitors: Design, Construction and Operations 1914–1945 (2nd Revised ed.). Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84415-719-8.
Crossley, Jim (2013). Monitors of the Royal Navy; How the Fleet Brought the Great Guns to Bear. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-78383-004-6.
Dittmar, F. J. & Colledge, J. J., "British Warships 1914-1919", (Ian Allan, London, 1972), ISBN 0-7110-0380-7
Dunn, Steve R (2017). Securing the Narrow Sea: The Dover Patrol 1914–1918. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-251-6.
Gray, Randal (ed), "Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921", (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1985), ISBN 0-85177-245-5
Parkes, Oscar; Prendergast, Maurice, eds. (1969) [First published 1919]. Jane's Fighting Ships 1919. New York: Arco Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-71534-716-4. OCLC 1902851.