HMS Latona
HMS
Latona. Apollo class second class Cruiser. Built at barrow by naval
Armaments and construction Company. and laid down 1889, launched
22nd May 1891 and completed 1893. HMS Latona was one of 21 cruisers
of the class. which had been ordered under the naval defence act of
1889. Considered to be poor sea going ships and in poor sea
conditions their fighting capability would be decreased severely with the
waist guns not being able to cope with the conditions to be used
successfully. sometime between 1907 HMS Latona
along with her sister ships HMS Apollo, HMS Intrepid, HMS Iphigenia, HMS
Andromache, HMS Naiad and HMS Thetis were converted to minelayers.
HMS Latona, served with the Newfoundland Fisheries squadron from February
1905 until returning to Portsmouth in May 1906 here she was laid up out of
commission in 1906 until the conversion in 1907. Completed by June
1908 at Portsmouth Dockyard and during the initial years of the war
operated from Dover and Sheerness but in 1915 became a depot ship in
the Mediterranean. after World War One she was finally scraped in 1920 at
Malta
Displacement: 3400
Tons Speed: 20 knots, Crew: 273
Armament: Two 6 - inch Guns Six 4.7-inch QF guns, Eight 6
pounder and One 3 pdr Quick Firing Guns. Four machine Guns. Four
14-inch Torpedo Tubes