A Long Life

A Long Life. . , After Gallipoli, HMS M.33 supported Allied forces against the Bulgarians at Salonika in 1916. She remained in the Aegean for the rest of the war, a ‘lucky ship’ with no casualties from enemy action, although her sister M.30 was sunk in May 1916. , , Returning to England in 1919, she was sent to the River Dvina in North Russia to support forces opposing Lenin’s Bolshevik revolutionaries. M.33 saw a lot of action in North Russia. She was attacked by Bolshevik artillery, aircraft and snipers, dodged mines, and was hit four times by shells, although she still suffered no casualties. , , M.33 is one of only three surviving Royal Navy ships from the First World War. , , After the war M.33 was converted into a minelayer and renamed HMS Minerva, but by 1938 she had been put up for sale. The Second World War saved her but her roles became steadily less glamorous. Her last job was as a floating workshop at Gosport, near Portsmouth. This constant recycling is why she survived. , , ( photo captions ) , Below: M.33 as the refuelling hulk C.23(M) in Portsmouth Harbour, 1984. Right: M.33 on the Dvina River in North Russia, 1919. The ship only just made it home after running aground when the river level fell; the monitors M.25 and M.27 were less lucky and had to be scuttled. , Above: M.33 renamed as HMS Minerva, serving as a tender or transfer ship, August 1938, without guns but still with her minelaying rails and other equipment.