HMS General Craufurd was the one of eight Lord Clive-class monitors built for the Royal Navy during World War I. Their primary armament was taken from obsolete pre-dreadnought battleships. The ship spent the war in the English Channel bombarding German positions along the Belgian coast as part of the Dover Patrol. She participated in the failed First and Second Ostend Raids in 1918, bombarding the defending coastal artillery as the British attempted to block the Bruges–Ostend Canal. Later that year General Craufurd supported the coastal battles during the Hundred Days Offensive until the Germans evacuated coastal Belgium in mid-October. The ship was decommissioned almost immediately after the war ended the following month, but she was reactivated in 1920 to serve as a gunnery training ship for a year. General Craufurd was sold for scrap in 1921.
General Craufurd at sea
Lord Clive leading the six 12-inch monitors of the Dover Patrol, possibly in September 1916. Taken from Prince Rupert, showing (from left to right) Sir John Moore, Prince Eugene, General Craufurd, and General Wolfe.
One of the second batch of 12-inch guns being unloaded in July; note the wooden jacket around the middle of the barrel
The Lord Clive-class monitor, sometimes referred to as the General Wolfe class, were ships designed for shore bombardment and were constructed for the Royal Navy during the First World War.
General Craufurd
The stern of HMS Lord Clive; showing her BL 18 inch gun on its fixed mounting, November 1918
On board Lord Clive; her BL 18 inch gun is at its full elevation. November 1918