A relative was at Malta on Egmont which I have seen it referred to as Base ship. Can someone please explain what a Base ship is/was. Thanks
Essentially either a floating office/depot/accommodation unit usually an old obsolete warship or a stone/concrete frigate - an office block that provided the same services usually to a lot of smaller ships. A sailor in one of the smaller ships would be nominally on the base ship as that was where his pay station was. I think in WW2 Egmont was the latter based in Fort St Angelo
There was a building in Hong Kong that was officially an "HMS", can't recall the name but "she" was the headquarters for the RN there.
Fort St. Angelo was HMS Egmont, a "stone frigate"(land base) until 1933, when it was renamed HMS St. Angelo.
Thought it was the other way round - HMS Egmont III was a ship until she was sold for scrap in 1933 and the function moved into St Angelo
I Originally, it was HMS Achilles. Became base ship Hibernia in 1902, renamed Egmont in 1904, renamed Egremont in 1916, finally renamed Pembroke in 1919, and scrapped in 1923.
See Naval Shore Establishments I once, long ago, had occasion to correspond in an official capacity with the Royal Marines personnel folks, on a small verification matter, who were located at, not on, HMS Centurion in Gosport. Very prompt considering snail mail, and very responsive.
How long ago was this? When I was at Centurion in Gosport (doing a review of their computer installation) it was the RNs payoll centre. It had once been an RM barracks. However can remember one CPO requesting permission for "a run ashore" and there was a ward room.
Oh, probably about 30 years ago. Might even still have copies of the paperwork somewhere up in the attic . . . not that I'd go looking in the heat of the Virginia summer.
