WWI-era HMS Caroline Stars In Documentary

An Irish filmmaker has been all at sea on board a warship that survived the Battle of Jutland.

The ship was the star as Northern Visions premièred a movie on HMS Caroline - a World War I light cruiser that has been stationed in Belfast since 1924 - seeing WWII service and then being used as the base for the Royal Navy Reserve until its decommissioning.

Originally anchored in Milewater Basin, but now residing in the Alexandra Dock, HMS Caroline is the maritime equivalent of a grade one listed building, and is the second oldest Royal Navy warship in existence, after Admiral Nelson's flagship, Victory.

Northern Visions, the Belfast media centre, was given exclusive access by the Ministry of Defence to film aboard the ship early in 2011, as her decommissioning date of 31st March approached.

Filmmaker Pete Bleakley was given a bow to stern, all decks, tour of the ship by her last commanding officer, Commander Martin Quinn RNR, and former crew members, including Wren Margaret Gordon - who served during WWII - when HMS Caroline was the Navy's command centre in Northern Ireland - were interviewed for the film.

Built in 1914 at the Cammell Laird yard in Birkenhead, HMS Caroline was one of the fastest ships of her era, her oil-fired Parsons steam turbines producing 40,000 shaft horse power, giving her over thirty knots at maximum revolutions.

It was her speed and manoeuvrability, which enabled her crew of 325 to survive an encounter with heavier German High Seas Fleet units on the second day of the Battle of Jutland, off Denmark, in 1916.

HMS Caroline has mainly been used as a training ship since the Second World War, and thousands of Northern Ireland men and women can trace their naval careers - full time and reserve - back to her.

It is for this reason that many local families down the generations can claim a link to the ship, and why so many local people are concerned about her future.

Now under the care of the Museum of the Royal Navy at Portsmouth, following her decommissioning in March, a feasibility study is being carried out by the Stormont Department of Social Development to determine whether the ship is to remain in Belfast as a key part of a maritime heritage trail in the Titanic Quarter, or be towed to Portsmouth for restoration in the naval dockyard.

Interviewed for the film, Dame Mary Peters, Lord Lieutenant of Belfast said: "For another ship to leave here which has such a tradition and history and connection with Belfast would be sad, 87 years of service.

"I feel we should retain it here as part of our maritime history and there is a will there, but whether there is the money to retain it, I am not sure."

However, the ship's motto, Tenax Propositi - tenacious purpose - is reported to mirror the mindset of her legions of local supporters, so it may be that HMS Caroline will be staying a little longer in its Northern Ireland dock.

(BMcC/CD)