It may sound like a motorway, but in fact it’s a monitor – which, come to think of it, may in turn sound like an old-style school prefect! To avoid more confusion then, let’s call her what the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) call her: a ‘Coastal Bombardment Vessel’. This is HMS M33, in Portsmouth Dockyard, one of only two surviving warships from the First World War. Small ship, big guns – her role was to fire at enemy shore emplacements, often supporting the army. She’s doubly significant because she’s also the last warship left to have taken part in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915: Winston Churchill’s plan to attack Turkey from the Mediterranean, through the ‘Dardanelles’ narrows leading to the Black Sea. NMRN have big plans for M33 – and we might be involved. Watch this space…
M33
03 October 2014
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About Rob
Rob is a TV producer, reporter and camera operator with 30 years of experience at the BBC, Channel 4 and ITN, in news, factual and documentary production. He is a four-time award winner, whose awards include a coveted Royal Television Society award for his work on Channel 4 News. His association with the Maritime Foundation goes back to 1995 when he won the first Desmond Wettern Maritime Media Award for a series of reports that led to a major documentary on the loss of the bulk carrier Derbyshire.