H.M.S. RAMILLIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 January 1940, Page 4

H.M.S. RAMILLIES

ARRIVAL AT WELLINGTON FORMIDABLE FIGHTING SHIP. IMPRESSIVE AND SPECTACULAR ENTRY. ißy Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. January 2. H.M.S. Ramillies. a battleship of the Royal Sovereign type, having a displacement of 29,150 tons and including in her armament eight 15-inch guns, has arrived at Wellington. The great ship presented a splendid picture as she steamed up Port Nicholson on a brilliant summer day. Word quickly spread that she was entering port, and hundreds watched her from Wellington's many vantage points. A streamer displayed prominently from the masts of the Ramillies, bearing the words, “Well done the Achilles,” is a tribute from the Royal Navy to the part played by a ship from the New Zealand Naval Station. H.M.S. Achilles, in the battle with the Admiral Graf Spee. H.M.S. Ramillies is the first British battleship ever to visit New Zealand, though she is not the largest warship that has been seen in. these waters. In size she was eclipsed by the battlecruisers Hood, Repulse and Renown. The Ramillies is one of the five-super-dreadnought battleships of the Royal Sovereign class, all of which were completed during the Great War. Two of them fought in the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916. They were the Revenge and Royal Oak (the latter ship was torpedoed and sunk in Scapa Flow a few weeks ago). The Royal Sovereign had arrived at Scapa Flow six days be.fore Jutland was fought, but she did not go to sea with the Grand Fleet. The Ramillies, which was built at a cost of £3,295,000, is a ship of 29,150 tons displacement, measuring 620 feet in length by 102 feet in breadth. She is heavily armoured with a main belt of 13 inches in thickness, tapering to four inches at the ends. Above the main belt her armour is six inches thick and her decks are also armoured.

.Her main armament comprises eight 15-inch guns in four twin turrets. There are also 12 six-inch guns, four four-inch anti-aircraft guns and a number of smaller weapons. The ship is fitted with two submerged 21-inch torpedo-tubes and carries one aircraft. She has a speed of about 23 knots at full power. Her complement numbers more than 1000. The Ramillies is berthed at Pipitea Wharf and will be open for inspection by the public on Thursday arid Friday. There will be special arrangements for children to see the ship on Thursday, but not on Friday, and it is therefore necessary that children should be taken on Thursday. Complete arrangements have been made by the Government and the city of Wellington to entertain the men of the Ramillies.