The British Hawkins Class Cruisers: An Odyssey Through Two World Wars

240 pages

Prof Andrew Lambert

Kings College London

Built to meet a threat that never materialised, oceanic raiding by large German cruisers in the First World War, the five ships of the class arrived too late for that conflict. They combined high speed, around 30 knots, armour, 7.5-inch guns and long endurance, launching a standard cruiser type. While these ships did not create the 10,000 ton Washington limit, as pre-existing units they were unaffected by the 1922 limitations, they influenced the post-Washington 10,000 ton designs, including the British County-class.

Cavendish, the first to complete, was renamed Vindictive after the Zeebrugge Raid, and completed as a primitive aircraft carrier with flying on and flying off decks separated by the funnels and superstructure, although far from ideal it delivered the air attack on Cronstadt. The ship was restored to cruiser configuration, but retained a hangar, three floatplanes and a catapult in lieu of a main battery gun.

The other four kept their original ‘Elizabethan’ names, and armament. The original combination of coal and oil-fired boilers reflected a global supply system in transition – the coal burners were replaced or removed as opportunities arose. Raleigh was wrecked on the coast of Newfoundland in 1922, proceeding too fast in poor visibility. The other four units served in China in the 1920s, where their speed and endurance shaped an aggressive strategy to counter superior Japanese forces, working carrier aircraft and submarines. By 1930 they were being replace by County-class units, and relegated to the Indian Ocean, where they would spend much of the next war.

Through the 1930s Vindictive and Frobisher served as cadet training ships, frequently visiting the Baltic ports and capitals of friendly powers, many of them recently liberated from Russian control. Operating these big ships in the enclosed sea provided a physical symbol of British support, while reminding the Soviet Union that seapower posed a serious threat, and the Royal Navy retained local expertise.

Under the 1936 London Treaty the four remaining ships were disarmed: their 7.5” guns putting them in the ‘Heavy’ Cruiser category, where Britain had too many units. This was an easy operation: the hand operated 7.5-inch guns were hoisted out. Effingham was modernised and re-armed with six-inch guns. Plans to extend the programme to Vindictive were overtaken by war: the much modified vessel became a mobile repair ship, earning a Battle Honour in Norway in 1940, where Effingham ran aground and was lost. Frobisher and Hawkins, belatedly re-armed, spent the war on oceanic patrol duty, before final role at D-Day as bombardment assets. Frobisher resumed Cadet training duty in 1945, but the old ship was worn out, quickly replaced by a more modern unit from the Navy’s large cruiser force.

Aidan Dodson’s thoroughly researched and engagingly written book combines technical and operational history, a persuasive analysis of the design, and the constant cycle of upgrades and additions, camouflage schemes and much else, recovering the roles of these largely forgotten ships, and the global roles they fulfilled in an era shaped by armed peace and total conflict. The Seaforth production values remain unequalled, using the end papers for full colour camouflage schemes. Essential reading for historians and strategists alike.