HMS Gorgon (1914)

HMS Gorgon was a monitor of the Royal Navy that began as a Norwegian order. Armstrong Whitworth laid her down at Elswick in 1913 as the coastal defence ship Nidaros for the Royal Norwegian Navy, and she was launched in June 1914. When the First World War broke out the Royal Navy bought her, renamed her Gorgon and spent years altering her, adding an anti-torpedo bulge and refitting the boilers to burn both oil and coal. She finally entered service in June 1918 and bombarded German batteries on the Belgian coast until October of that year. Norway declined to take her back, she was used as a target ship, and she was sold for scrap in 1928.