Monitor SMS Temes

«Monitor Temes»

The Temes monitor with the «Bodrog» of the same type was built for the Austro-Hungarian river fleet to strengthen the empire on the Danube.

It was laid down at the Danubius shipyard in Budpashet in 1903 and completed in 1904, the Temes class monitors were an improved version of the «Körös» class monitors.

Upgrading the conning tower to an observation turret, instead abandoning the central turrets and replacing them with a triangular arrangement of two turrets with a Skoda 4.7"/35 caliber (120 mm/35) that could fire from both sides alone, it also had secondary armament in the form of two 37 mm Skoda QF cannons and an 8 mm machine gun.

Monitor Temes took part in WW1, breaking through mines and destroying Serbian defenses on the Save River, but on October 23, 1914, he was blown up by a mine and drowned, it was picked up and returned to service in 1917.

The fate of Temes after the war was sold to Yugoslavia in the winter of 1918 and renamed Drina, then sold to Romania in 1920 and renamed to «Ardeal».

The monitor also found WW2 on the side of the Romanian river fleet: in 1941 he took part in the battles on the Danube River, but did not distinguish himself with any major victories and already on August 26, 1944, like all ships of the river fleet, he capitulated, arriving in Izmail on September 1 as an escort to the headquarters of the Romanian river fleet, the next day the commander and chief of staff were arrested for failure to comply with the act of surrender, and the crew was sent to a concentration camp.

On November 10, the monitor was transferred to the Danube River Flotilla and renamed Berdyansk.

The monitor met the end of the war in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, and in June 1951 it was returned to Romania, where it was decommissioned in 1959.

At the moment, the fate of «Temes» is not known, but in 2015 Romania bought the case of the «Bodrag» monitor and wants to turn it into a floating museum.