I Mentioned Yesterday,

that in moving and looking through,

  some of the bits and pieces we had left in the UK I came across some photographs of my Grandfather,

 taken in the First World War,

 I remember him showing me them back in the mid1950s,

 he said he would mark which one he was so I did not forget, and he did,

 he told me of one of the ships he was on, HMS Iphigenia that a German bomb had made a hole in the main coalhold, the coal fell out of the bottom of the ship, so the crew had to burn all of the wood on board to get the ship back to port, if you look carefully at this photograph above you can see the metal ribs the wooden deck would have been attached to, and the metal cleat still in place sans wood,

 some of the crew, I remember him saying it was such a shame they had to burn the ships piano!

 I am guessing,

 that this photograph was taken having successfully returned to port,

 I have posted as many photographs of the crew that I have,

 you never know,

 your Grandfather,

 or Great Grandfather,

 could be here!

 I am not sure if all of these people are from the UK,

 I am guessing that some,

 are our Russian allis,

 and these the locals, at either Archangel or Murmansk, where HMS Iphigenia operated out of,

 the ship's mascot,

 again I have to make guesses here,

 but I think that these ships were damaged in action,

 this one possibly the Iphigenia with two funnels,

 trapped in the ice,

 again the decking with no wood planking, 

anyone for football on the ice?

 I remember being told that this was a hospital ship,

and the last one, the machine shop, the ship was eventually used as a block ship in the Zeebrugge raid, she was a Apollo class cruiser, but already out of date by the time that hostilities commenced, and here is her history,

Completed in 1892

1892-97 held at Portsmouth

1897-1900 China Station and known as Niffy Jane

1900-03 Portsmouth, including Special Service 1901-02

1903-6 China Station

1906 Special Service in Home waters

1906-07 converted into a minelayer at Chatham with 4 x 4.7in guns and 140 mines

1907-08 Portsmouth with Nucleus Crew

1909-12 Nore

1912 2nd Fleet Minelaying Squadron

1914 Minelaying Squadron, Dover

1915 converted into a depot ship with repair workshops to operate in North Russia with Minesweeping trawlers and drifters. They would operate out of Archangel in the summer and Murmansk in the winter

October 1915 White Sea

March 1917 Murmansk

June 1917 Yukanski

October 1917 Archangel

December 1917 Murmansk

17/1/1918 Paid Off at Chatham 

1918 she was prepared as a one of three blockships for blocking the canal channel at Zeebrugge used by U-boats. Her bottom was mined for sinking and she was filled with concrete. The commander of Iphigenia beached her according to arrangement on the eastern side, blew her up, saw her drop nicely across the canal, and left her with her engines still going to hold her in position till she bedded well down on the bottom. Her sister Intrepid scuttled next to her but unfortunately their sister Thetis did not make it. By knocking down a couple of piers the Germans soon managed to get their submarines past on high tide.

and what brought all of this on? the post I made yesterday about processing old films, and not only that, looking for past photographs of the family, I must look for a few more!