HMS Lark was a of the British Royal Navy. The Laforey class (or L class) was the class of destroyers ordered under the Royal Navy's 1912–1913 construction programme, which were armed with three guns and four torpedo tubes and were capable of . The ship, which was originally to be named Haughty but was renamed before launch, was built by the Scottish shipbuilder Yarrow between 1912 and 1913.
Lark served during the First World War. She formed part of the Harwich Force in the early years of the war, taking part in the Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1914, the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915.
Construction and design
For the 1912–1913 shipbuilding programme for the Royal Navy, the British Admiralty ordered twenty destroyers to a design based on a modified version of the previous year's , with the major difference being an increased torpedo armament of four torpedo tubes rather than two. Four of the destroyers were ordered from Yarrow, with four more from Fairfield, and two each from Denny, Parsons, Swan Hunter, Thornycroft, White and Beardmore.
The destroyers were long overall and between perpendiculars, with a beam of and a draught of . Displacement of the class ranged from at normal load and at deep load, with Lark having a normal displacement of . Three Yarrow boilers fed two sets of Brown-Curtis impulse steam turbines. The machinery was rated at , giving a speed of . The ship had two funnels.
The ships were armed with three QF Mk IV guns, with a single Maxim machine gun. Two twin torpedo tubes were fitted. The ships were built with fittings to carry four mines, but these were never used. The ship's crew was 73 officers and ratings. Wartime modifications included the addition of a 2-pounder (40 mm) pom-pom anti-aircraft autocannon, the provision of depth charges, which may have resulted in one of the ship's guns and a pair of torpedo tubes being removed in 1918 to accommodate an outfit of 30–50 depth charges, while the ship was also modified to allow a kite balloon to be operated.
The first of the four Yarrow-built destroyers, Haughty was laid down at Yarrow's Scotstoun yard on 28 June 1912. On 30 September 1913, the 1912–1913 destroyers, which were previously to be known as the Rob Roy class, were redesignated the L or Laforey class, with the ships given new names string with the letter L. Haughty was renamed Lark. Lark was launched on 26 May 1913 and completed in November that year.
Service
1914
Lark, like the rest of the Laforey class, joined the Harwich Force at the outbreak of the First World War. On 5 August 1914, the Third Destroyer Flotilla, led by the light cruiser and including Lark, carried out a sweep to prevent German minelayers or torpedo craft entering the English Channel. Later that morning, the flotilla leader and sister ship were ordered ahead of the flotilla to investigate, and came across the German minelayer , laying mines off Southwold on the Suffolk coast. The German ship attempted to escape to neutral waters, but was engaged and sunk by Lance, Landrail and Amphion. The flotilla was returning from the sweep in 6 August when it ran into the minefield laid by Königin Luise. Amphion struck a mine and began to sink, her crew abandoning ship, but drifted onto another mine, with debris from the resulting explosion hitting Lark killing two of Amphions crew that had just been rescued as well as a prisoner from Königin Luise. In total, 151 of Amphions crew were killed. On 28 August 1914, the Harwich Force, supported by light cruisers and battlecruisers of the Grand Fleet, carried out a raid towards Heligoland with the intention of destroying patrolling German torpedo boats. Lark formed part of the 2nd Division of the Third Flotilla during this operation. Lark took part in torpedo attacks against the German light cruisers , and , expending all her torpedoes and 4-inch ammunition, requiring her to borrow 100 rounds of 4-inch ammunition from .
On 24 October 1914, Lark set out from Harwich as part of the escort for the seaplane carriers and on a raid against the German airship base at Cuxhaven. The force reached the launch-off point off Heligoland on the morning of 25 October, but poor weather meant that only two of the six seaplanes managed to take-off, both of which quickly abandoned the mission.