HMS Shark, was an Acasta-class destroyer built in 1912 for the Royal Navy. Shark was sunk during the Battle of Jutland on the evening of 31 May 1916.

Design and construction

Under the 1911–1912 shipbuilding programme for the Royal Navy, the British Admiralty ordered 20 Acasta-class destroyers, with 12 to the standard Admiralty design and 8 more builder's specials, with detailed design left to the builders. Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson received an order for one destroyer, HMS Shark, to be built to the Admiralty design. The Acastas were larger and more powerful than the Acorn-class destroyers ordered under the previous year's programme. Greater speed was wanted to match large fast destroyers building for foreign navies, while a larger radius of action was desired. The destroyers built to the Admiralty standard design were 267 ft long overall and 260 ft between perpendiculars, with a beam of 27 ft and a draught of 10 ft. Displacement was 892 LT Normal and 1072 LT Deep load. Four Yarrow boilers fed steam to direct drive Parsons steam turbines rated at 24500 shp and driving two shafts. This gave a speed of 29 kn. Three funnels were fitted. The ship had an endurance of 1540 nmi at 15 kn. Armament consisted of three 4 in guns mounted on the ship's centreline, with one forward and two aft, with 120 rounds of ammunition carried per gun, together with two 21 in torpedo tubes. Two reload torpedoes were carried. The ship had a crew of 73 officers and ratings. Shark was laid down at Swan Hunter's Wallsend shipyard on 27 October 1911 and was launched on 30 July 1912. In 1913 the Admiralty decided to reclassify the Royal Navy's destroyers into alphabetical classes, with the Acasta class becoming the K class. New names were allocated to the ships of the K class, with the name Kestrel being reserved for Shark, but the ships were not renamed. Shark was completed in April 1913.

Service

Following commissioning, as with the rest of her class, Shark joined the 4th Destroyer Flotilla based at Portsmouth. On the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the 4th Flotilla, including Shark, became part of the Grand Fleet based at Scapa Flow in Orkney.

German raid on Scarborough

On 15 December 1914, German battlecruisers, supported by the battleships of the main German High Seas Fleet set out on a raid against the coastal towns of Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool, with the intent of drawing out units of the British Grand Fleet, where they could be engaged by the battleships of the High Seas Fleet. The British, aware from radio intercepts that the Germans were planning a raid with their battlecruisers (but not that they were supported by the whole of the High Seas Fleet), sent out the battlecruiser squadron under Vice Admiral David Beatty with four battlecruisers and the Second Battle Squadron, commanded by Vice Admiral Sir George Warrender, with six battleships, to oppose the raid. Shark was one of seven destroyers that sailed in support of the British battlecruiser squadron. At 05:15 on 16 December, the lead ship of the British destroyers, HMS Lynx (1913), spotted a German destroyer, SMS V155 (part of the screen of the High Seas Fleet) and set off with the other destroyers in pursuit of the German ship. In a brief exchange of fire, V155 hit both Lynx and HMS Ambuscade (1913), forcing both to break off. Soon afterwards, Shark and HMS Hardy (1912) encountered the German light cruiser SMS Hamburg. After Hardy was badly damaged by shells from Hamburg, Shark and the remaining British destroyers resumed station screening the British battlecruisers. They encountered five German destroyers at about 06:03, which they chased away, and at about 06:50 encountered the German cruiser SMS Roon, screened by destroyers, and shadowed them, while reporting their position by radio, but when Shark attempted to lead her division in a torpedo attack against the German cruiser, the appearance of two more German cruisers, SMS Stuttgart and Hamburg, and were forced to break off the attack with the German cruisers in pursuit, before losing contact with the Germans due to poor visibility.

The Battle of Jutland

During the Battle of Jutland, Shark was one of four destroyers from the 4th Flotilla assigned to cover the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron. During the battle, at around 6 pm, Shark led an unsuccessful torpedo attack by the four destroyers on the German 2nd Scouting Group, with Shark firing two torpedoes. The other three destroyers escaped with little damage, but Shark was crippled by gunfire, having her fuel pipes and steering gear wrecked. The forecastle gun was completely blown away with most of its gun crew shortly before the captain, Commander Loftus Jones, declined an offer of assistance from the destroyer HMS Acasta (1912), as it would put Acasta in too much danger. Soon afterwards the aft 4-inch gun was also destroyed and the bridge wrecked. Jones and three seamen continued working the midship gun, engaging nearby German destroyers and leading to the sinking of SMS V48. The German destroyers closed on the ship and returned heavy fire, during which Jones lost a leg. Shortly before 7 pm he ordered the ship to be abandoned and around thirty of the crew got onto the rafts. Only seven were picked up six hours later by a Danish ship, but one died soon afterwards. Although there are reports that Jones went down with the ship, survivors told his wife that he was put onto a raft. In total, 86 men out of a crew of 92 were killed.

Loss

At 7 pm, the destroyer was sunk by a torpedo launched by the German torpedo boat SMS S54 and which hit her abreast of the aft funnel. In March 1917, Jones was gazetted with a posthumous Victoria Cross. The wrecksite is designated as a protected place under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.

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