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HMS Pheasant (1916) was a repeat M class destroyer that was sunk when she hit a mine off the Old May of Hoy on 1 March 1917.
The Pheasant was ordered under the Fifth War Programme of May 1915. She was laid down at Fairfields, launched on 23 October 1916 and completed in December 1916.
1916
From December 1916 to March 1917 the Pheasant served with the 15th Destroyer Flotilla of the Grand Fleet
1917
On 8 January 1917 the Pheasant collided with SS Suwanee at Scapa Flow.
On 1 March 1917 the Pheasant was working with the ‘Hoy Patrol’, a force of armed trawlers supported by one destroyer that was used to patrol the western entrance to Scapa Flow, at the northern end of the island of Hoy. The destroyer’s role was to patrol outside Stromness harbour when the trawlers weren’t at sea, and to stay at anchor when the trawlers were patrolling. On 28 February the Pheasant spent the day anchored. At 5.15am on 1 March she got underway, and at about 6am was one mile west of the Old May of Hoy when she hit a mine. This caused a massive explosion which was seen from the armed trawler Grouse at a distance of four miles. However when the Grouse reached the scene she saw nothing. Two armed trawlers from the 5th Fleet Sweeping Flotilla, the Loch Kildonan and Oropesa were sent to search the Whiten Channel. They found a large amount of oil off the Old Man of Hoy and began to search that area. All they found was the body of Midshipman Cotter, the coast of 1st Lieutenant H.W.E. Hearn, a lifebuoy marked Pheasant and a little wreckage. The explosion had caused so much damage that the Pheasant had sunk almost without trace, and with the loss of her entire crew of eighty nine.
At the time the Navy was uncertain where the mine came from, and mine sweeping in the area found no more mines. Post-war evidence suggests that she hit one of four mines laid in the area by U-80 on 21 January 1917.
Service Record
December 1916-March 1917: 15th Destroyer Flotilla, Grand Fleet
Displacement (standard) |
1,025t (Admiralty design) |
Displacement (loaded) |
1,250t |
Top Speed |
34 knots |
Engine |
3-shaft Brown-Curtis or Parsons turbines |
Range |
|
Length |
273ft 4in (Admiralty) |
Width |
26ft 8ft (Admiralty) |
Armaments |
Three 4in/ 45cal QF Mk IV |
Crew complement |
80 |
Laid down |
- |
Launched |
23 October 1916 |
Completed |
December 1916 |
Mined |
1 March 1917 |
British Destroyers From Earliest Days to the Second World War, Norman Friedman. A very detailed look at the design of British destroyers from their earliest roots as torpedo boat destroyers, though the First World War and up to the start of the Second World War, supported by vast numbers of plans and well chosen photographs [read full review]
