# Orion class battleship- HMS Orion



## Kenny57

Discussion thread for Orion class battleship- HMS Orion. If you would like to add a comment, click the New Reply button


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## CliveR

My grandfather (Frederick Parker) served on this ship constantly for about 2 years covering Jutland and trips around Africa. He was in the Royal Marine Band playing cornet amongst other things. He told me (over 20 years ago) that he had two jobs on the ship. Firstly was formal support duties to the Rear Admirals, eg piping on and off etc and secondly making the gun calculations. He used algebra to calculate the angle of the gun required to hit the target. Instructions were sent on range etc and he then calculated by hand all details. They had to take into account roll pitch and yaw on top of speed ships were moving etc. It was remarkable that they could ever hit anything. He was responsible for one of the 13.5inch guns. During battle, he lived under the magazine and believed it was the best place to be on the ship. If the magazine got hit, well, you would never suffer or know anything as the entire magazine would go up in a huge explosion also if another part of the ship was hit, you had time to escape. The worst place was in the engine room as these sailors would generally drown if the ship was hit.

He told me about Jutland. It was success and failure. The only success was that the German fleet never took to the sea again in the Great War. Many of the captains followed Navy rules and he saw a number of ships follow one another and just got picked off one by one. Each ship had (?) 2000(?) people on board and so this was suicidal for many ships. He was with the Rear Admiral who changed battle plans and enforced the captains to fight more sensibly; which they immediately did. Perhaps if they had continued the way the had started this off the course of history could have been very different.

Fred Parker (b 1895, d 1989 aged 94 years) joined the Royal Marines aged about 14 or 15 and retired at the maximum age (30 years of service??) with an exemplary service record (my mother was these details).


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## Dreyer1916

Orion was lucky at the battle. Am I right in saying she didn't receive any hits? She was apparently giving support fire in support of Iron Duke and later, along with Monarch hit the Lutzow at least 5 times after Hipper had left the crippled battle cruiser on the G39. She expended quite a large amount of 13.5" shells (around 50) during the battle so was in the heat of it.


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## CliveR

I am sorry, my grandfather did not give any details, he was stuck underneath the guns using algebra to calculate the trajectories for the guns so could not see anything. He did say it was the best place to live during battle - if the magazine was hit, you would have known nothing about it. The engine room was the worst place as you drowned when there was a hit and the shipwent down. As a young boy, this made mathematics a lot more interesting...

My mother has the details of his service history, but it really only tells you when the embarked and disembarked with ne details of war. I will try to get hold of it as it may have some interesting details for the website readers - I believe that he did serve on other ships, but I only remember him telling me about Orion.


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## NavySparker

HMS Orion crew list at the Battle of Jutland is being built.

http://www.jutlandcrewlists.org/orion


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