Talk:HMS Conqueror

Another ship
Hello, Thère is an other ship with the name of Conqueror. A british armed yacht HMS Conqueror (LtCdr E. M. McCausland) which have picked up 18 survivors of the british steam merchant Rhexenor on 3 february, 1943. Sorry for my bad english. Regards René


 * Do you have any documentation that references this? It's not mentioned in Colledge, could be an omission, or could be that the vessel was not an "HMS". In either case, it would be good to have a link to an article from here. Stan 16:19, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * It sounds like she might have been one of the many small ships requisitioned by the Admiralty but never formally commissioned into the Navy, especially as at this time they had the battleship HMS Conqueror in the yards, and presumably still expected to launch her at some point. They also tended to reserve the traditional 'battleship' names, like 'Conqueror' for the Navy's capital ships, hence the shuffling of names at the end of the war, where they switch names between the few major ships under construction to make sure those that ended up escaping the budget cuts and actually being launched, did so under the proudest names. I'd therefore be very surprised to see them commissioning a mere armed yacht with that name.  Oh and I see where you've got that information from now.  Uboat.net is notorious for slapping 'HMS' in front of British ships that were not entitled to the prefix, and never bore it. Benea (talk) 01:28, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The vessel to which René refers is most likely the following:

HMS CONQUEROR (1939-45) (ex-merc Emerald, ex-Marynthia (1911))

Thames Measurement: 900 Built: 1911, Thornycroft Launched 16 Jan 1911, presumably as mercantile Marynthia

Service as A/S Yacht, from late 1939:

Pendant No as A/S Yacht: FY.006

Requisitioned circa Sep to Dec 1939 as an A/S Yacht, one of about 50 large yachts acquired to fit out nine new anti-submarine groups formed during the first three months of the war (81st to 89th A/S Groups), each group to be equipped with between four to six A/S Yachts, each vessel probably equipped with minimal armament of DCs / MGs.

Service as Coastal Auxiliary A.A. vessel, from 1941:

Pendant No as Aux. A.A. vessel: F.33

Would typically have operated in coastal / esturial waters as an AA ship, putting up an undirected AA barrage while defending the coastal convoy in her care - which might well be unable to manouver while under air attack due to the need to keep to deep water channels.

As an A.A. ship: 886 tons gross 193.5 (pp), 234.75 (oa) x 30.5 x 13.5 ft 2-shaft Reciprocating (VTE) 1,865 ihp = 15.25 k Armament: 1 x 1 x 12-pdr AA 2 x 1 x 2-pdr AA 6 x 1 x 20-mm Oerlikon AA 2 x 4 x .5-in AA 8 x 1 x .303-in MG

Returned to owners 1945.

This vessel is recorded in Lenton & Colledge "Warships of World War II", "Forward dated 1964 edition" (for want of a better description - the early 638 pp version - there have been a number of revisions since)

I haven't scoured the web to see if there are any other references out there.

However, I do also have a reference to an HMS CONQUEROR having the Pendant No 4.306, which was most likely also allocated to the above vessel at one time, but I have no further details.

The LION class battleship HMS CONQUEROR was allocated Pendant No 45 (with no Flag Superior - the practise in the 1930s/40s to reserve "no Flag" nos for modern major combatants (battleships, fleet carriers and cruisers) that were not assigned to service on foreign stations and not assigned to any Dominion Navy - ie that were available for deployment without first having to negotiate the potentially choppy waters of inter-governmental agreements) - this ship would not have been allocated any of the pendant nos. listed above, all of which were associated with auxiliaries of one sort or another during WWII.

The LION class battleships were "in the public domain" in the form of artists impressions in the media by the outbreak of war in 1939, though CONQUEROR and THUNDERER had only recently been ordered, and when announced as part of the 1939 programme earlier in the year in Parliament had not been named (this being normal practise, vessels not normally having names allocated until the funding to build them has been agreed by a vote in Parliament). Precisely when names were allocated is unclear, but either way, the CONQUEROR referred to by René would no doubt have found itself renamed had the need arisen.

One final point concerning René's CONQUEROR - Lenton & Colledge are not explicit as to whether this ship became HMS CONQUEROR because the Admiralty decided to assign that name to her, or because her then-current name as a mercantile just happened to be CONQUEROR, and was not changed when she commissioned for RN service - the latter is perhaps the most likely explanation.

Regards, Jon Summers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.225.195.20 (talk) 01:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Removed comment from anoym... reposted at talk page
( Something wrong here my greatgrandfather ,( AB William Shoesmith) was serving on the Conqueror from 1860 to March 1862.- I have his original cerificate of service ) 86.140.86.73 19:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)) V. Joe 21:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The list is accurate. The first rate Conqueror was lost on 29th December 1861. The Waterloo was renamed Conqueror on 27th February 1862. Given the short gap I'd suspect some sort of accounting practice - perhaps the gap between your great-grandfather leaving service on one ship (after she sank) to his receiving a posting on another is not mentioned. Or he was listed as serving on Conqueror as an administrative procedure for sorting pay while a berth was found elsewhere. That is that you're sure it is Conqueror he was on, and not Conquestador, which was in service between those dates? Benea (talk) 01:19, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Recent edit
I am dubious about the recent edit. Under this edit, four of the vessels have their class recorded; the previous version recorded the class of five. The most recent vessel's claim to notability has been removed. The ex-120 gun 3-decker that was cut down to a 2-decker when converted to steam does not record this.--Toddy1 (talk) 04:22, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I missed the Caledonia class, it was mentioned but not linked, I'm happy to restore it. As to the other pieces of information, the ship index pages don't really go into their notability, this is left for the articles, hence battles, wars, commanders, etc, as for some ships this list could run and run. Again, specifics about the design of ships are also better explained on the articles, such as number of decks. But a mention of her being razeed and the new number of guns carried would not be a problem. Benea (talk) 04:54, 15 August 2008 (UTC)