HMS Titania Informations

HMS Titania (pennant number F32) was a Royal Navy submarine depot ship. Most of those that saw service in the First World War were scrapped in the 1930s.Titania, however, saw service in the Second World War. She was scrapped at Faslane, Scotland, in September 1949.

Titania was built in Glasgow, Scotland, by the Clyde Shipbuilding Co. (Glasgow, Scotland) originally as a merchant ship ordered by Royal Hungarian Sea Navigation Company "Adria" as Károly Ferencz József. She was launched in March 1915 and commissioned by the Royal Navy as a submarine depot ship in November 1915.

When she was first commissioned, in November 1915, she was stationed at Blyth and under the command of Captain Stanley L. Willis. In December 1915, the Eleventh Flotilla became the first directly supporting the submarines of the Grand Fleet. The flotilla was formed at first from submarines D7 and D8 taken from the Eighth Flotilla and HMS Titania as their depot ship. During the period in which Titania was the depot ship of the 11th Submarine Flotilla, other ships shared the role at various times, including HMS Mastiff, HMS Talisman, HMS Trident, HMS Tartar and HMS Moon. Other submarines of the G and J classes joined the flotilla and the D-class submarines were removed.

An account of life on the ship is to be found in Hawthorne (1980).

On 3 June 1916, following the Battle of Jutland, HMS Titania instructed submarine G10 to locate and sink floating remains of the battlecruiser HMS Invincible which had been abandoned during the battle to prevent the capture of materials. No remains were found.

On 28 October 1918, Captain Frederick Avenel Sommerville was put in command of HMS Titania and made Commander (S) of the 11th Submarine Flotilla based at Blyth. The Eleventh Flotilla was disbanded in March 1919.

On 1 October 1919, HMS Titania and HMS Ambrose were the two ships commissioned at Chatham as depot ships for the 4th Submarine Flotilla, China. At that time, another depot ship was already in service at Hong Kong, HMS Rosario.Rosario had been converted to a depot ship in 1910 and was serving in Hong Kong as the depot ship for the Hong Kong Submarine Flotilla, which consisted of three C-class submarines, C36, C37 and C38. These three submarines were built by Vickers, Barrow, commissioned on 1 February 1910 and sailed with HMS Rosario to Hong Kong in February 1911. They were all sold in Hong Kong on 25 June 1919. HMS Rosario was sold for scrap in Hong Kong on 11 December 1921.

The submarines of the 4th Flotilla that accompanied HMS Titania and HMS Ambrose were all of the L class.

Seven submarines accompanied HMS Titania on the voyage to Hong Kong. Submarines mentioned in the Ships Log are L2, L5, L6, L8, L19, L20 and L33. The names of the commanders are those who were in command in 1920. The submarines were as follows:

A further six submarines were assigned to HMS Ambrose:

HMS L9 sank in Hong Kong harbour on 18 August 1923 during a typhoon. She was raised, refitted and put back into service. She was sold in Hong Kong on 30 June 1927, the first L-class boat to be sold.

HMS Ambrose, under the command of Cecil Ponsonby Talbot, left Devonport in October 1919 and sailed with six L-class submarines of the 4th Submarine Flotilla (L1, L3, L4, L7, L9 and L15) to Hong Kong, where she remained until 28 March 1928. The exact timing of Ambroses voyage to Hong Kong is not known. It appears that her arrival in Hong Kong was in January 1920.

After commissioning HMS Titania sailed to Malta. The Ships Log shows that she left Chatham on 9 October 1919 and sailed via Sheerness to Portsmouth, arriving there on 14 October 1919. On 29 October she set sail for Malta, sailing via Gibraltar, where she stayed from 3 to 8 November 1919, arriving in Malta on 12 November.

On 18 February 1920 she and the remaining part of the 4th Submarine Flotilla, consisting of seven L-class submarines (L2, L5, L6, L8, L19, L20 and L33), under the command of Captain Frederick A. Sommerville, set sail for Hong Kong via Port Said, Suez, Ismailia, Aden, Colombo, Penang and Singapore. She arrived in Hong Kong on 14 April 1920. The ships log records that HMS Titania weighed anchor and secured to Storm Signal Buoy at 10.17 a.m. on 14 April 1920. Gap Rock Light referred to in the Log is in the Wanshan Archipelago, to the south of Hong Kong Island. The reference to Waglan Light shows that she entered Hong Kong Harbour from the east through Tathong Channel and passed by the fishing village of Lye Mun (Lei Yue Mun) in Kowloon before docking. The exact location of Storm Signal Buoy is uncertain. It is likely to have been in the Admiralty area of Hong Kong Island, at the shore station HMS Tamar .

Titania fielded a football team in the Hong Kong Second Division League and the team won the championship in the 1921/22 and 1923/24 seasons.

In her service life she made a number of voyages in the Far East. Between 1920 and 1926 she sailed several times on voyages from Hong Kong to destinations around the Far East.

She was recommissioned at Hong Kong in 1921, 9 February 1924 and 5 November 1926.

The Ships Log for the period 1919 to 1924 shows that Titania was based at Hong Kong on many occasions. When away from Hong Kong the destinations were mostly along the Chinese coast, Shanghai, Wei Hai Wei, Tsingtau, and other destinations round the South China Sea and Malaya.

At the end of her service in Hong Kong, she returned to the UK via Malta. HMS Ambrose had already left Hong Kong on 28 March 1928 and returned to England.

A report in the Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser on 27 July 1929 notes that HMS Medway is undergoing trials.

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