Year by Year
Discover the history of the HMS Cossack from 1907 to 1919.
You can search the ‘year’ and ‘month’ to find a specific date and also ‘click’ on the date itself to reveal any images and moments from that date.
26 October 1916
During the night of German torpedo boats of their Flanders Flotilla carried out a large scale raid into the English Channel, hoping to attack the drifters watching the anti-submarine nets of the Dover Barrage, and to sink Allied shipping in the Channel. Cossack was one of six Tribal-class destroyers waiting at readiness in Dover Harbour, and when the Germans attacked the drifters and sank the supporting destroyer HMS Flirt, they were ordered to intervene. The six destroyers became separated, and while several of them encountered groups of the German torpedo boats on their return leg, with HMS Nubian being badly damaged by a German torpedo and Amazon and Mohawk sustaining lesser damage from German gunfire, COSSACK did not engage the German ships.
01 July 1917
EVEREST. Henry James Fireman Mercantile Marine SS ‘Duchess’ Lost when the ship was in collision with its escort HMS ‘Cossack’ 1st July 1917 off Beachy Head. Aged 35. Resident of 7 Hampden Gardens, South Heighton. Born in Ardingly Son of Eliza Everest. Included on Newhaven War Memorial. No record with CWGC.
16 September 1918
HMS Glatton (5000 ton monitor with 9.2 and 6inch guns) blew up as fire reached the cordite charges unobserved. Hot clinker and ash had piled up against the bulkhead of the 6inch gun magazine. The heat burned through the cork insulation and then ignited the wooden lining. Since it was only a matter of time before the fire reached the after magazine, Keyes ordered the destroyer COSSACK to sink Glatton with a torpedo to protect a nearby ammunition ship. COSSACK fired two torpedoes at Glatton, one of which failed to detonate, while the second failed to defeat Glatton ’s anti-torpedo bulge.
In the end, Glatton was sunk by 21 inch torpedoes from the destroyer HMS Myngs (See article here)
