Honour board from HMCS Ribble

Ship's wooden honour board bearing a painted plaster badge of HMS Ribble together with the battle honour 'DARDANELLES 1915-16'. The circular pale blue badge shows a gold Pascal lamb bearing the cross of St George against a triangle divided into royal and pale blue wavy lines. The badge is bordered by gold rope and is surmounted by a naval crown. Beneath the crown is a rectangular name plate with 'RIBBLE' in black letters.

Honour board from the Second World War Canadian frigate K525 HMCS Ribble (a British frigate lent to the Canadian Navy in 1943), honouring the Dardanelles Campaign involvement of its predecessor, the destroyer HMS Ribble. HMS Ribble was an 'E' class destroyer which was built by Yarrow and Co Ltd of Glasgow and launched on 19 March 1904. She was broken up in 1920. Displacing 498 tonnes, the 'E' class destroyers could average 24 knots, carried an average crew of 70 and were armed with four 12 pounder and five 6 pounder guns, and two 18 inch torpedo tubes. HMS Ribble came close to being sunk in late April 1908 when, during night exercises off Harwich with the eastern destroyer Flotilla, it was hit by HMS Attentive, which had just sliced HMS Gala in two. Ribble returned to Sheerness for repairs. However, it is remembered in Australia for its involvement in the Dardanelles campaign, when it transported a company of men from 12 Battalion and 117 men from 3 Field Ambulance from the SS Devanah (which had transported them from Lemnos Harbour to the Gallipoli coastline) close to the shore off Gaba Tepe, towing the Devanah's lifeboats behind it. Captain Fry of 3 Field Ambulance recorded the procedure: '(we) transhipped from the HMAT Devanah to Torpedo boat HMS Ribble, together with a company from the 12 Infantry Battalion. HMS Ribble on the left flank of the Flotilla, approached the coast where landing was made about 4.30. The disembarkation into the tows was made under rifle fire - two men were wounded in the Torpedo Boat and left behind. The unit disembarked into two boats of second tow about 5am. Landing was effected under heavy shrapnel and rifle fire.' LM Newton, in 'Story of the Twelfth' adds 'Those from the Ribble were towed six at a time by a steam pinnace, within 50 yards of the shore, and then the crews rowed for their lives. Those from the other six destroyers had to row the whole way.' (p 41) Little is known of the ship's later wartime career.