port after playing their parts. That the Abdiels were not unique in their disappointing endurance would have been little comfort.
When the Abdiels were designed, there was nothing like them. And there was never anything like them. Before and during the Second World War, a number of navies constructed purpose-built minelayers with enclosed mine decks, but none of them could exceed 21 knots. The US Navy’s sole representative was the USS Terror, which on a displacement of 5875 tons was armed with four 5in guns and could carry a whopping 900 mines, but could not make more than 18 knots.30 Similarly, the Imperial Japanese Navy built the Tsuguru, Itsukushima and Okinoshima,31 the Polish Navy the Gryf, the Royal Norwegian Navy the Olav Tryggvason, the Spanish Navy the Jupiter, Marte, Neptuno and Vulcano and the Soviet Navy the Marti, actually the former Imperial Russian yacht Shtandart.32 The Royal Netherlands Navy built a number of small, slow minelayers, the newest being the Jan van Brakel and the Willem Van de Zaan.
The originators of the fast cruiser-minelayer, the Germans built two minelayers before the war, the Brummer and the Bremse. The Bremse could even make 27 knots, but they were not the equal of their Great War namesakes. Just before the war broke out, the Germans did design a class of purpose–built minelayers, the first being known to history as just ‘Minenschiff A’. The design provided for a ship of 5800 tons, 4.1in and 37mm guns and enclosed minedecks with a capacity of 400 mines. With a speed of only 28 knots, however, they did not quite qualify as fast minelayers and in any event their construction was not pursued.33
The closest analogue to the Abdiels was the French cruiser-minelayer Pluton, later renamed La Tour d’Auvergne, which was launched in 1929. She carried four 5.5in guns and 290 mines on a semi-enclosed mine deck and was rated at 30 knots. She was lost to an accidental explosion of her mines at Casablanca on 13 September 1939,34 and so never had the chance to prove her worth.
Not that an effective offensive minelayer had to have an enclosed mine deck or carry many mines. The Italian Regia Marina employed light cruisers and destroyers for minelaying and on 3 June 1941, a force of five light cruisers and seven destroyers laid two fields northeast of Tripoli.35 The effort bore fruit more than six months later, on 19 December, when the Royal Navy’s Force K ran across one of the fields and lost the light cruiser Neptune and the destroyer Kandahar. The German Kriegsmarine used destroyers to carry out a daring and highly effective offensive minelaying campaign off the British coast in the winter of 1939–40. In this effort, German destroyers undertook eleven missions, all undetected by the British and laid 1800 mines, which resulted in the sinking of three British destroyers, sixty-seven merchant ships totalling 238,467 tons and other vessels.36
While some other navies employed fast cruisers or destroyers for offensive minelaying duties, none of them was as fast in real conditions, none of them had an enclosed mine deck, none could carry the mineload of the Abdiels and none was as versatile. The Abdiels were not the only game in town in offensive minelaying, but they were truly unique and were no doubt the best.
Once the design of the Abdiels was finalised, the first three fast minelayers, the Abdiel, Latona and Manxman, were ordered in December 1938 as part of the 1938 shipbuilding programme. A fourth ship, the Welshman, was approved at the November 1938 Cabinet meeting as part of the 1939 programme, but she was not actually ordered until March 1939.37 The first two fast minelayers were named after minelayers that served in the First World War,38 but the Manxman and the Welshman would be exceptions to the rule.
THE ROYAL NAVY READIES FOR MINE WARFARE IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR
While in practice the Abdiels performed many functions, they were first and foremost designed for minelaying operations and obviously required suitable mines. The Royal Navy had developed magnetic and acoustic mines by the end of the First World War and continued development of contact mines between the wars with the Mk XIV mine with the traditional Herz horns and the Mk XV with ‘switch horns’. The end result was that a new type of moored contact mine, the Mk XVII, was developed in time to be used by the fast minelayers. More suited for quantity production in wartime, the new mine used a broader gauge than previous mines, had eleven ‘switch’ horns, had a detachable case for two different sizes of charges, 500lbs and 320lbs, and could be laid in 500 fathoms of water. With an eye to the future, the Royal Navy started production before the war started of a moored magnetic mine designated the M Mk I.1 Any of these types of mine could be laid with a Mk XVII sinker.
The Abdiels were to need mine depots to load their mines from in various locations, including Frater, Wrabness and Immingham, but the most important for them was the one at Milford Haven on the south coast of Wales. There were also mining depots in such far-flung places as Malta, Haifa, Trincomalee, Hong Kong and Singapore. The Abdiels would use many different ports for their minelaying operations, but the most important one in home waters was located at the Kyle of Lochalsh, also known as ‘Port ZA’, on the north-west coast of Scotland by the Isle of Skye.2
Mk XVII moored contact mine. (Eric Leon)
When war broke out in 1939, the Royal Navy was not as ready for mine warfare as it might have been, but, even though the first fast minelayer did not complete until March 1941, it was much more ready for mine warfare in 1939 than in 1914. Four merchant ships were converted for minelaying, the Agamemnon, Menestheus, Southern Prince and Port Napier, of which the fastest could make 17 knots.3 Some of the pre-war destroyers built to be used as minelayers were also employed, as were the submarines of the Grampus class. The Royal Navy soon began using small coastal craft such as motor launches and motor torpedo boats as well. Later in the war, destroyers of the War Emergency ‘O’ class were used for minelaying. As in the previous war, the Royal Navy began laying minefields with thousands of mines to counter the U-boat threat.
For much of the war, the 1st Minelaying Squadron was based at the Kyle of Lochalsh, ‘Port ZA’ or HMS Trelawney, commanded by a RA(M), Rear Admiral Mines or a Commodore(M). The Royal Navy was blessed with officers who could and would lead the mine warfare effort and were experts in the field. Two of the most important ones were Captain R H De Salis, OBE, DSC and Captain John S Cowie, later CBE, LM. In his book, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, Captain Cowie gave De Salis credit for inspiring his interest in mining and for teaching him everything he knew.4
John Stewart Cowie was born in Mildura, Victoria, Australia, on 23 June 1898, to James Eden Cowie, who was born in Britain, and Maud Brown Cowie, who was born in Tasmania. He and his parents travelled to Britain when he was ten to continue his education. According to Admiral Sir Robert L Burnett’s foreword to Captain Cowie’s book, in his youth John Cowie ‘was a really fine athlete and an excellent exponent of the game of Rugby football’. Upon graduation from Dartmouth as a midshipman he was assigned to the dreadnought battleship Monarch and during the Great War he fought at Jutland, Zeebrugge and Ostende. After the war, he served in the cruiser Exeter during her South American tour and also the aircraft carrier Courageous.
HMS Vernon, the Royal Navy’s torpedo and mine shore establishment, founded in 1876. (Constance Keogh via Hermione Alcock)
According
