retirement. German minesweepers sent out to meet the returning ships failed to discover the Abdiel’s minefields,18 and at 05.30 the German dreadnought battleship Ostfriesland hit a mine laid by the Abdiel, though it was likely one from the field she had laid on 4 May. Like other German dreadnought battleships, the Ostfriesland was tough. While she lost one man killed and ten wounded, her torpedo bulkhead held and she only shipped 400 tons of water,19 and she was able to keep up with the rest of the High Seas Fleet. The incident did create some alarm in the High Seas Fleet and at least one ship started firing its guns at imagined submarines. The Ostfriesland was able to reach port, was repaired and ready for sea again by 29 July.20 She survived the war, only to be transferred to the United States, which sank her in July 1921 in trials with Colonel Billy Mitchell’s bombers. That the Ostfriesland’s sister dreadnoughts did not strike more mines laid by the Abdiel was perhaps due to the limited size of the minefield that could be laid by a minelayer carrying only eighty mines. This was a shortcoming of the first Abdiel’s design that the British would later remedy in a second Abdiel.
The destroyer-minelayer Abdiel, which was with the Grand Fleet at Jutland. (IWM SP 3155)
With the German High Seas Fleet rarely venturing out again before the end of the war, the Abdiel continued her minelaying duties, but did not have another opportunity to ply her offensive minelaying skills as she had at Jutland. Her sister Gabriel was similarly converted and a number of other destroyers were converted to minelaying duties before the end of the war. In 1918 the Abdiel was the leader of the 20th Flotilla, based at Immingham, She survived the war and was not sold for scrap until 1936.
Most importantly for the future of British offensive minelaying, the Grand Fleet’s Admiral Jellicoe was very impressed by the Abdiel’s role in the battle of Jutland. Writing after the war, he referred to her as ‘this most useful little vessel’ and because one of the British submarines Stationed near Horn’s Reef on the morning of 1 June heard several underwater explosions between 02.15 and 05.30, ‘it was judged that several enemy ships had struck mines’. Finally, he noted that she had ‘carried out her duties with the success which has always characterised her work’,21 praise that boded well for her unique type of ship.
The German cruiser-minelayer Brummer. (Author’s collection)
The Imperial German Navy engaged in minelaying from the first days of the Great War and to it goes the distinction of building the first fast minelayers designed and built as such, the Brummer and Bremse, the former completing just before the battle of Jutland in 1916 and the latter just after. Using turbines ordered for the Russian battlecruiser Navarin, they could develop 33,000 horsepower from coal and oil-fired boilers and were rated at a maximum speed of 28 knots, though 34 knots has been claimed for them. Rated as cruiser-minelayers, their normal displacement was 4385 tons, they were lightly armoured and were armed with 5.9in guns and 88mm anti-aircraft guns. It has been claimed they could carry from 360 to 450 mines, an astounding feat for ships of their size without an enclosed mining deck, but it was probably more like 120.22 With their three funnels and raked bow, the two ships were built to resemble the British Arethusa class light cruisers.
The Bremse and Brummer did carry out some minelaying operations, without spectacular results, but are best known for attacking and nearly annihilating a British-escorted convoy sailing between Scotland and Norway in October 1917. Their designed appearance worked well; at first mistaken by the convoy escorts for British cruisers, they got in the first shots and quickly sank the British destroyers Strongbow and Mary Rose and then most of the ships in the convoy. Both ships were interned at the end of the war and were scuttled with most of the rest of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in June 1919.23
While the Abdiel was the first fast destroyer-minelayer, the Brummer and Bremse were the first fast cruiser-minelayers, though not blindingly fast or fitted with an enclosed mine deck. The Germans revived their names for ships that served in the Second World War and were equipped for minelaying, but Germany never built anything like a fast minelayer again, instead relying on destroyers and S-boats for that function.
At the Admiralty, on the other hand, the idea of a fast offensive minelayer had definitely caught on and doggedly hung on. According to a detailed study of the subject, in July 1918 the Admiralty Controller requested a specially-built fast minelayer, based on two cruiser designs then under construction, the large Hawkins class with 7.5in guns or the smaller ‘E’ class with 6in guns (completed after the war as the Emerald and Enterprise). So close to the end of the war, the idea lapsed, but was revived in earnest in 1920.24
The Admiralty studied various options between the wars and the result was the 6740-ton minelayer HMS Adventure. Laid down in 1922 and not completed until 1927, she was armed with 4.7in guns for anti-aircraft defence and carried 280 mines in an enclosed mining deck. She was designed to make 28 knots, but was too large and slow for offensive minelaying.25 A follow-on design to the Adventure was considered, but in the end did not materialise. The idea lapsed for the time being, but did not quite die.
Instead, after the Adventure was built the need for offensive minelayers was addressed in other ways. Several classes of standard destroyers were outfitted as minelayers, much as the Abdiel had been in the First World War. In the event, the destroyers so fitted were two of the ‘E’ class, the Express and Esk, later followed by four destroyers of the ‘I’ class, the Icarus, Impulsive, Ivanhoe and Intrepid.
The minelayer Adventure early in her career. (Constance Keogh via Hermione Alcock)
Submarine minelaying was introduced. In the early 1930s six members of the Grampus class were built.26 Of the six, the Seal was damaged and captured by the Germans in 1940, but the Rorqual would make quite a name for herself in the Second World War.
The Royal Navy actually did construct one purpose-built minelayer in the 1930s, but the 805-ton coastal minelayer Plover, completed in 1937, could make only 14.75 knots and was thus the antithesis of a fast, offensive minelayer,27 though she later impersonated one in a wartime propaganda film called HM Minelayer.28
These expedients were not sufficient for real offensive minelaying. In 1935, the Admiralty was presented with a memorandum urging the construction of ‘a number of specially designed vessels to form the permanent nucleus of an offensive mine force’.29 In 1936, the Admiralty became interested in a replacement for the Adventure and explored the design of a single large minelayer of about 9000 tons, with 5.25in guns, 360 mines, cruiser-like armour and a speed of 38 knots.30 At least in November of 1936, it was giving serious consideration to an 8000-ton minelayer with a speed of 34–38 knots.31 Those designs never saw the light of day; something more suitable was needed.
The minelayer Adventure in camouflage on 30 June 1942. (Author’s collection)
