H.M.S. Badger (1911)

H.M.S. Badger (1911)
Pendant Number:	H.15 (1914) H.52 (Sep 1915) H.09 (Jan 1918)^[1]
Builder:	Denny^[2]
Ordered:	1910-11 Programme^[3]
Launched:	11 Jul, 1911^[4]
Completed:	Aug, 1912^[5]
Sold:	9 May, 1921^[6]

H.M.S. Badger was one of 29 destroyers of the Acheron class.

Radio

She was one of 18 Acheron class destroyers fitted with W/T in 1912, becoming one of 123 destroyers so far fitted with Destroyer Sets.^[7]

Service

In July 1913, Badger was serving with the First Destroyer Flotilla.^[8]

In June 1914, planned alterations in Portsmouth Royal Dockyard, when the ship was presumably serving with the First Destroyer Flotilla were to be deferred:^[9]

fitting of boom to stern
addition of loading lights to guns

On 29 October 1914, Badger was patrolling near the Terschelling Lightship for U-boats with the 2nd Division of the First Flotilla and located and rammed U 19. She only damaged the U-boat, but her stem collapsed back to the first bulkhead, prompting a strengthening of the bows of her class.^[10]

She fought at the Battle of Jutland under Commander Charles A. Fremantle as part of the First Destroyer Flotilla,^[11] which was tasked with screening the Fifth Battle Squadron. It fell upon her to look for survivors of the Invincible.

Reduced to a C. & M. Party at Portsmouth on 17 October, 1919.^[12]

Captains

Dates of appointment are provided when known.

Commander Charles A. Fremantle, 29 July, 1912^[13]^[14] – after 1 June, 1916^[15] (in command at Battle of Jutland)
Commander Theodore E. J. Bigg, after 1 June, 1916^[16] – 7 November, 1916^[17]
Commander Alan M. Yeats-Brown, 7 November, 1916^[18]^[19] – 10 January, 1917^[20]
Lieutenant in Command Kenneth G. Ramsey, 12 May, 1917^[21] – early 1918^{[Fact Check]}
Commander Geoffrey Corlett, 22 February, 1918^[22]^[23] – 28 March, 1919^[24]

Searchlights

Badger had a (hydraulic?) control system to control her searchlights whose success prompted an Admiralty order to fit the same gear to the earlier Beagle class,^[25] and almost immediately thereafter the initiative was to be extended to the destroyers of the First, Second and Fourth Destroyer Flotillas.^[26] This system was apparently conceived by her captain, Charles Albert Fremantle.^[27]