HMS Beagle was one of sixteen destroyers ordered under the 1908–09 Naval Estimates from John Brown & Company of Clydebank. Named for the English hunting dog, she was the sixth ship to carry this name since it was introduced for a Cruizer Class fir-built, brig-sloop on 8 August 1804 and sold on 21 July 1814.Colledge and Warlow 2000, p. 38. The destroyers of the 1908–09 program would be the last coal-fired destroyers of the Royal Navy. She and her sisters served in the First Destroyer Flotilla then were moved en masse to the Third Destroyer Flotilla and before the start of the Great War to the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla. With the advent of the convoy system they were moved to the Second Destroyer Flotilla. With the Armistice she was laid up then scrapped in 1921.

Construction and design Laid down as Yard number 387 on 17 March 1909 at the John Brown & Company's shipyard at Clydebank, Beagle was launched on 16 October 1909.Friedman 2009, p. 305.

Beagle was long between perpendiculars, with a beam of and a draught of .Hythe 1912, p. 249. Displacement was normal.Moore 1990, p. 74. Five Yarrow boilers fed steam at to Parsons steam turbines rated at , driving three shafts and giving a design speed of .Gardiner and Gray 1985, p. 73.Manning 1961, p. 55. During sea trials she reached a speed of .Friedman 2009, p. 116.

Service She was commissioned on 10 June 1910 under the command of Lieutenant Lionel J.G. Anderson, RN for service with the First Destroyer Flotilla of the First Division of the Home Fleet tendered to . By 1 May 1912 she was assigned to the Third Destroyer Flotilla tendered to .

On 30 August 1912 the Admiralty directed all destroyer classes were to be designated by alpha characters starting with the letter 'A'. After 30 September 1913, she was known as a G Class destroyer and had the letter ‘G’ painted on her hull below the bridge area and on her fore funnel.

In October 1913 as the L-class destroyers came on line the entire G-class was moved to the Mediterranean as the newly formed Fifth Destroyer Flotilla along with the depot ship Blenheim.Manning 1961, p. 25.

With war clouds looming on 2 August 1914 the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla was involved in the search for and in the Mediterranean. On 3 August, the 3rd Division of the 5th Flotilla (Beagle, , and ) were at Malta and while it was initially planned that they reinforce Rear Admiral Ernest Troubridge's squadron patrolling the entrance to the Adriatic, they remained at Malta until 6 August, when Beagle and Bulldog left in company with the cruiser .Naval Staff Monograph No. 21, pp. 13, 28. Goeben and Breslau had been spotted by the cruiser east of the Straits of Messina later that day, with Gloucester shadowing the two German ships on their course towards Cape Matapan. Dublin and her two destroyers were ordered to intercept Goeben and Breslau, and expected to make a night torpedo attack off Zante. Breslau was sighted and chased for a while, but the ships turned away to intercept the more important Goeben, but missed the German battlecruiser during the night.Corbett 1920, pp. 64–65.Marder 2013, pp. 25–26.Naval Staff Monograph No. 21, pp. 30–33.

On 9 August, Beagle and Bulldog joined the 1st Division at Port Vathi on the Island of Ithaca off the west coast of Greece. The units of the 1st Division were short of coal and were awaiting the arrival of a collier.Naval Staff Monograph No. 4, p. 202.The Naval Review Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 518. After coaling the ten destroyers were ordered to establish a patrol line in the Aegean Sea off the Dardanelles thereby blockading the German ships there.

In November 1914, as a response to a shortage of destroyers in home waters, Beagle was recalled to Britain, reaching Plymouth on 29 November, and being used to operate from Portsmouth, patrolling the routes used by cross-Channel transports.Naval Staff Monograph No. 28, pp. 74–75. It had been planned to use the Beagles to equip a new Tenth Destroyer Flotilla based at Harwich, but the need for escorts for transports in the Channel led to these plans being abandoned, and the ships remained at Portsmouth.Naval Staff Monograph No. 28, pp. 81–82. They were heavily used, with Beagle raising steam on 26 days out of 28 in February 1915.Corbett 1921, pp. 273–274.

On 26 March 1915, following the failure of attempts to force the Dardanelles had failed, these eight Beagles were ordered to Mudros for operations in support of the Dardanelles Campaign.Naval Staff Monograph No. 29, pp. 156–157, 334.Corbett 1921, pp. 213–224.Marder 2013, pp. 245–250. On 25 April 1915, Beagle took part in the Landing at Anzac Cove, carrying troops of the 9th Battalion, Royal Queensland Regiment who were landed in row boats.Dorling 1931, pp. 60–61.Bean 1941, pp. 245–247, 262–267. On the night of 12/13 May, the pre-dreadnought battleships and were anchored in Morto Bay, supporting French troops. To protect the two battleships, Beagle and Bulldog patrolled the north side of the straits, with and patrolling the southern side and in the centre of the straits. Despite these patrols, the Turkish destroyer managed to sneak past Beagle and Bulldog on the northern side of the straits and torpedoed and sunk Goliath before successfully escaping.Corbett 1921, pp. 406–408.

On 28 June Beagle, together with the destroyers Bulldog, and escorted the cruiser as she provided naval gun support to the advancing British and Indian troops during the Battle of Gully Ravine.Corbett 1923, p. 71. The British made another attempt to break the stalemate at Gallipoli on 6–7 August 1915, with the Landing at Suvla Bay, to the north of Anzac Cove. This time, instead of row-boats, armoured shallow-draught self-propelled landing craft known as "Beetles" were used, which were towed close to shore by destroyers. While the main landing took place on Nibrunesi beach to the south of Suvla Bay, Beagle, together with Bulldog and landed troops of the 34th Brigade in Suvla Bay itself. Each destroyer carried 500 troops aboard, while towing a "Beetle" carrying a further 500 troops. The "Beetles" would land their troops and then return to pick up the remaining troops on the destroyers and land them. While the landings on Nibrunesi beach went well, those in Suvla Bay were less successful, landing to the south of the planned place, with the result that the "Beetles" ran aground off shore, with the remaining troops aboard the destroyers having to be landed by reserve row boats. Beagles troops were not all landed until nearly 5:00 AM on 7 August, several hours late.Dorling 1931, pp. 78–82.Corbett 1923, p. 93. Beagle helped to cover the evacuations from Anzac Cove on 20 December 1915.Corbett 1923, p. 241.

On 13 December 1916 Beagle and were involved in a friendly fire incident when on patrol near Kum Kale. Both destroyers raced to engage a low flying aircraft. HMS Racoon fired four shells causing damaged to the aircraft and forcing it to alight on the water. HMS Racoon rescued the French pilot and observer then towed the aircraft to Kephelo Air Base on Imbros.The Naval Review Vol. 6, p. 58. On 9 January 1917, Beagle was escorting the pre-dreadnought , on passage from Mudros to Malta, when Cornwallis was torpedoed twice by the German submarine . When attempts at damage control failed and it was clear that Cornwallis was sinking, Beagle went alongside the battleship and took off her crew. After this was complete, and Beagle had pushed off from Cornwallis, U-32 struck the battleship with a third torpedo. An attempt by Beagle to depth charge the German submarine was unsuccessful. Fifteen of Cornwalliss crew were lost in her sinking.Naval Staff Monograph 34 1933, p. 166.Kemp 1999, p. 46.

In mid-1917 as the convoy system was being introduced, the Admiralty began reassigning older destroyers to escort duties. She was recalled to home waters and assigned to the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla now based at Buncrana, near Lough Swilly in the north of Ireland in October 1917. Equipped with depth charges she was employed for anti-submarine patrols and as a convoy escort for the North West Approaches to the British Isles for the remainder of the war.

Disposition By March 1919, with the disbandment of the Second Destroyer Flotilla she was withdrawn from active service and laid up in reserve at the Nore. In April 1920 she was placed on the disposal list. She was sold on 1 November 1921 to B. Fryer of Sunderland for breaking.Dittmar and Colledge 1971, p. 60.

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References

External links Naval Database HMS Beagle Clyde Built Database HMS Beagle List of Battle Honours and Single Ship Actions 1914 to 1918